Written by Allie Delos Santos
Contents
There are two ways for organizations to scale operations.
First, they can handle exclusively in-house business functions, remaining competitive through cost-cutting and aggressive process improvements. However, opportunities for growth and development are limited through this model.
Keeping processes in-house puts these companies at a disadvantage against competitors that outsource to low-cost offshore locations. Other businesses, on the other hand, use offshoring providers in the Philippines to grow in a sustainable way and compete on the same level as their big competitors.
But is outsourcing worth the trouble? Keep reading to find out.
How Outsourcing in the Philippines Creates Business Solutions
Business process outsourcing (BPO) is not simply about transferring functions to a provider that can handle them better. It is a strategy to increase brand awareness in existing and prospective consumer markets, which is crucial to business expansion.
Here are ways the Philippine outsourcing industry creates solutions for businesses worldwide.
Improve Service Delivery
Outsourcing transforms your customer support delivery into a favorable and revenue-generating aspect of the business, giving you a strong foothold in international markets.
Tapping into Philippine outsourcing providers lets you equip your customer service desks with skilled agents. Third-party BPO agents work on rotating shifts to provide 24/7 assistance for your customers and end users, wherever they are.
With round-the-clock service, customers worldwide can contact you anytime they need support, regardless of time zone differences.
Unlock Rapid Scaling
You might have heard of startups that scale dramatically, quickly obtaining billions of dollars in valuation. These organizations are not fantasies. You might ask, “What’s their secret?” One key factor contributing to fast growth is leveraging offshore outsourcing solutions.
Take Uber, for example. It is a popular ride-hailing platform used across the world. Its critical business process, which involves matching drivers and passengers, happens outside its in-house team. The company works well because it leverages Philippine outsourcing providers.
Offshore outsourcing allows businesses such as Uber to extend their labor force and workload capacity without hefty overhead expenses, enabling them to scale rapidly. Startups can avoid trial-and-error and development costs by tapping into outsourced tech solutions and offloading certain functions to reliable Philippine service providers.
Be Equipped To Compete
The business world is more interconnected than ever. Organizations compete globally, where meeting customer service demands differentiates you against rivals. Companies that refuse to innovate and improve efficiency risk falling behind.
Outsourcing to the Philippines gives you the necessary resources to secure your organization’s growth and stand out from the competition without investing in the newest technologies and infrastructure.
For example, an outsourced contact center offers effective service with a flexible work schedule and round-the-clock customer support.
Transferring certain business functions to an offshore provider allows you to leverage a pool of skilled and qualified professionals with capabilities and skills that might not be available locally. Since wages and benefits are lower in overseas outsourcing locations, you receive significant cost savings when offshoring.
Replicate Industry Giants
What do industry giants such as Microsoft and Google have in common? Both companies are enormous, are well-established, and offer products that almost everyone uses. At the same time, they both employ offshore outsourcing.
Reports show that Google has more third-party workers and contractors than employees. They utilize third-party vendors, temps, and contractors to engage workers with the expertise they do not have in-house. These workers also help cover spikes in business activity and employee leaves.
Conversely, Microsoft is estimated to have a 1:1 ratio of employees and contractors, which means they have as many external workers as internal staff. The company is known to outsource internal support to the Philippines.
Philippine outsourcing solutions supplement skills and expertise outside the organization’s scope, reducing direct employees’ workload without disrupting daily operations.
The takeaway here is that even big businesses rely on offshore outsourcing services for success. Take this lesson to heart if you own a startup or small-to-medium enterprise and aim to compete with the stars. Invest in your company’s growth by tapping into Filipino offshore providers.
Enhance Operational Capacity Without Overhead Expenses
As your business grows, so do your workload and fixed costs such as utilities, rent, and infrastructure. The cost increases when you consider training and managing talent. An outsourcing partner in the Philippines handles these daily operational activities at a fraction of the cost, so you can concentrate on the core functions and save money.
Outsourcing reduces labor costs and other expenses such as shipping costs and materials. You can save on the cost of materials if your BPO partner can acquire the goods for a lower price. You can also cut shipping costs if the materials are accessible at the provider’s location.
Cut Costs
A report from Deloitte shows that 70% of businesses outsource to reduce costs. Nowadays, cost savings can be the differentiator between businesses that stay afloat and those that suffer from debt and bankruptcy. With an offshore outsourcing strategy, companies can keep their competitive advantage without spending significantly.
Here is one example that shows the difference between offshore and onshore service costs. The average service fee for contact centers in the U.S. is $20 to $30 per hour. Alternatively, an offshore contact center in the Philippines charges only at least $8 per hour and at most $15.
Re-allocate Vital Resources
With the savings you get from working with a Philippine outsourcing provider, you can allocate more resources to other business investments. A promising investment avenue is marketing. You can use the extra capital to bring attention to your brand by increasing digital marketing initiatives without worrying about geographical barriers.
Since you have fewer business operations to oversee, you can allocate more money and time to more important activities such as expanding into new markets. Optimizing time and money can allot more effort to organizational innovations you might not have considered.
Incorporate Necessary Human Resources
Part of the challenge of building an in-house team is looking for, recruiting, and training the right talent and obtaining the required infrastructure to support your growing workforce. This whole process involves a lot of resources, money, and time, distracting you from your core functions.
An offshore back-office outsourcing solution lets you skip the scouting and hiring processes. Instead, a Philippine service provider manages the recruitment procedure on your behalf, giving you access to skilled workers with the necessary knowledge and expertise.
This way, you can keep doing your best and ensure that a proficient offshore team handles your business functions.
Minimize Risks
A good BPO partner amplifies your operations with detailed disaster recovery and backup plans. This helps you rapidly respond to accidents, technical crises, market fluctuations, and natural calamities and get operations back on track.
Moreover, a flexible offshore provider serves as your risk advisor and can identify potential issues, provide 24/7 protection to mitigate risk, help your organization scale securely, and facilitate an agile response to change. It enables you to transition if you plan to shift your focus to another project.
In a complex business landscape, Philippine outsourcing offers a cost-effective, agile, and efficient solution for minimizing risks.
Future-proof Your Organization
Digital solutions are the future, and companies that adapts benefit in the long run. Quality, flexibility, and speed are as important as a business location. Hence, offshore outsourcing providers are laying the foundation to future-proof their operations.
Philippine BPO companies invest in the latest technologies such as cloud solutions, robotic process automation (RPA), and artificial intelligence (AI). Such technological advancements improve the efficiency, productivity, and agility of organizations that work with outsourcing vendors in the Philippines.
Ensure Agility for Continuous Change
Success in today’s digital and global economy requires quick responses to change without disruption. Several factors drive change, including new regulations, consumer behavior, and social, economic, or environmental factors.
Offshore BPO providers with diverse service offerings and industry-specific experience foster agility by delivering new or upgraded solutions as necessary.
For instance, companies in the past few years have seen the need for improved workplace safety, so they have hired external vendors to develop applications that disclose and implement the new rules. Thanks to 24/7 BPO companies, such digital solutions have become possible.
Another situation that requires agile solutions is the unforeseen absence of an information technology (IT) manager. Companies can hire technical support outsourcing providers or hire remote technicians temporarily. This strategy enables rapid response, reduces downtime, and ensures cost efficiency.
Engage With a More Diverse Customer Base
Hiring Philippine outsourcing providers with experience and expertise in managing customer service operations leads to more business innovations and opportunities, one of which is multilingualism. With a multilingual contact center, you can support non-English-speaking clients.
Multilingual customer service has many surprising benefits. The number of customers you can assist increases due to the reduced language or cultural barriers. Whether you have a foreign customer base or plan to penetrate international markets, a multilingual contact center strengthens your connection with the target demographic.
Improve Productivity
Productivity is the measure of output compared to input. Suppose two companies use the same amount of resources. The company with more output is more productive.
According to the Strategic Management Journal, offshore outsourcing improves productivity if the provider’s location has similar business practices and development levels. The Philippines is known for its professional parallels with the United States, making it a top destination.
Some entrepreneurs feel they lack control when they are not handling all business aspects, but wasting time on tedious work such as data entry services risks being unproductive. Outsourcing is not merely a cost-saving tool; it is also a strategic tool. If you feel overwhelmed juggling multiple tasks that take a toll on your productivity, consider Philippine outsourcing.
Hire Professionals With Extensive Industry Experience
Bringing in external expertise is one of the perks of Philippine outsourcing. You can easily find reliable service providers who have served companies in the same industry and sector as your business. Their deep knowledge brings insights relevant to your organization, risk profile, and business environment.
Additionally, the knowledge they have gained from implementing solutions in various industries and settings helps them identify risks they might not have recognized. They suggest new and improved ways to guard your organizational assets and systems.
Lastly, a trusted service provider offers data-driven assessment for potential risk challenges. The plethora of industry-specific knowledge strengthens your company’s risk monitoring and delivers robust privacy protection.
Ideal Functions To Outsource to the Philippines
The Philippine outsourcing industry contributes almost $30 billion annually to the country’s economy. Over 1.4 million Filipinos work in BPO companies, which will grow by 8% to 10%. The nation has long been a top offshoring location.
Companies can outsource almost anything to the Philippines. The key is to keep your core competencies in-house. Here are business functions that are ideal for offshore outsourcing:
- Data entry. Repetitive data entry tasks such as verifying, cataloging, scanning, indexing, and order processing make for good outsourced work. Businesses must provide only clear expectations, instructions, and deadlines to ensure timely delivery.
- Accounting. Due to its global and standardized rules, finance and accounting are back-office tasks well suited for outsourcing. But given the function’s sensitive nature, businesses should partner only with a qualified and competent team of certified public accountants (CPAs).
- Customer support. One of the commonly outsourced functions is customer service. The expense involved in hiring and training support agents and providing office supplies is high. An outsourced contact center in the Philippines can easily accomplish the work for half the price.
- Web design. Although this is on the creative side, businesses commonly outsource web design and management. However, hiring an in-house designer will be best if a web design job needs significant innovation or creativity.
- Social media management. A strong social media presence is a big help but can be time-consuming. Outsourcing a social media team that plans content, establishes guidelines, and moderates and monitors your image is smart.
- Virtual assistance. An administrative or executive virtual assistant helps set up interviews and manages parts of your schedule if you are experiencing issues with such activities.
The Bottom Line
Few BPO destinations worldwide have the perfect mix of affordable pricing, cultural affinity to the West, high English proficiency, and skilled labor forces than the Philippines. The country is known as the “call center capital of the world” and is second only to India as an outsourcing hub. Both small and large businesses outsource to the country to reap many benefits.
Philippine outsourcing providers also make it easier for businesses to start with minimal risk. Companies get unlimited flexibility in the number of workers to hire, services to outsource, and pricing with which to pay.
Partner with a BPO company that provides custom solutions to meet your unique objectives. Don’t miss your chance; contact Unity Communications now!
