Understanding BPO Billing: Advantages, Disadvantages, and Models

The benefits of business process outsourcing (BPO) include improved customer service, enhanced competitiveness, or time or cost savings that add value to your organization. After learning the benefits of the strategy, the next step is identifying BPO deals and billing schemes that work best for your organization.

This article outlines three of the most common BPO billing models service providers use, identifies their benefits and drawbacks, and assesses where each approach applies.

Read on to learn more.

BPO Billing Models and Their Pros and Cons

Let’s begin by answering the question: what is BPO? BPO involves delegating one or more areas of operations to a third-party service provider, which, in turn, manages and oversees the given function based on measurable and defined performance indicators. The outsourcing industry shows no signs of slowing down or stopping, at an expected growth rate of 9.4% from 2022 to 2030.

Planning is the most crucial part of outsourcing. Specifically, planning the type of BPO service and billing model you acquire can be a make-or-break decision. You benefit from various approaches depending on your industry, size, and the types of projects in your queue.

Each billing process has advantages and disadvantages. The best BPO pricing model for your business should give you flexibility and room to evolve. 

Here are three of the most commonly used models:

Time and Materials

The time and materials model is applicable if the final product and its implementation specifics are not precise or if dividing the project into smaller stages is impossible. 

In this case, the final price varies and depends on the time the vendor takes to complete the project. The BPO client is billed for the time and materials spent throughout the engagement, where time is paid in hours and items used are priced.

This billing approach is open for negotiation and can use an hourly, daily, weekly, or monthly rate for the services included. To avoid uncontrolled price increases, the client can further clarify the pricing distribution (whether the rate depends on the skill sets involved or the same rate applies to all resources involved).

However, clients who use this model have greater responsibilities. This model is best when:

• No clear requirements or defined specifications exist,
• The constant flow of tasks cannot be predicted,
• The project and implementation scope are unknown, and
• Clients have a high level of flexibility.

Fixed Price

The fixed-price approach or lump-sum model is ideal for projects with a clear scope, stable requirements, and established project management methodologies. 

For this model, it is ideal that both parties grasp the project requirements and have a good working relationship. The management service provider establishes a standard rate for their service offerings. Depending on the BPO client’s preference, it can be billed monthly or yearly.

With this BPO billing approach, the vendor must provide extensive details on the support service they have provided. Choose this BPO billing model when you:

• Want to outsource simple projects,
• Have clear project guidelines,
• Must stick with a given timeline,
• Expect project turnaround to be short, and
• Have a limited budget.

Outcome-based Pricing

The outcome-based model is a relatively new BPO pricing scheme. This non-conventional approach combines the vendor’s fees with defined milestones and metrics unique to the client. The metrics can involve customer satisfaction, revenue growth, or cost savings.

Of the three models, outcome-based is the hardest to manage. The client must have years of experience working with the vendor and end-to-end control of the outsourced process. Using this BPO billing model is best when:

• Outcomes are directly linked to business goals,
• A high level of innovation is necessary,
• Clients can heavily measure the outcome, and
• Results are clearly defined and measurable.

Factors to Consider When Choosing the Right BPO Billing Model 

Cost control has become a priority as organizations have felt a crunch in the past few years—from vanishing profits to the inability to scale to meet sudden needs. Businesses must pick the right BPO billing model to guarantee cost control. 

Consider the following factors for each approach:

• Characteristics
• Risks
• Potential challenges
• Total price
• Potential challenges for the vendor and the client

Here is a comparison of each pricing model:

Consider looking at examples of companies that outsource using your preferred BPO billing approach and checking their experience.

The Bottom Line

An effective BPO billing model is key to continued long-term success in any outsourcing engagement. One can trace the success or failure of outsourcing, partly due to due diligence or the lack of it, to the pricing approach and underlying cost stated in the contract. So, weigh risks and drawbacks before making any major decisions. 

A well-chosen billing structure facilitates the necessary governance mechanism that fairly distributes risk, effectively manages expectations, and fully satisfies the client’s needs. A misinformed pricing scheme leads to inefficiency, unpredictable expenses, mismatched incentives, and mutual mistrust.

Are you considering outsourcing? Let’s connect to discuss the applicability of each pricing model above.