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Outsourcing has become a game-changer in today’s fast-paced business landscape. Startups, mid-sized companies, and well-established enterprises leverage this business practice to boost productivity and cost efficiency.
However, overseeing business process outsourcing (BPO) deals is as challenging as it is rewarding. You must know how to work well with a service provider to ensure returns on your investment. So, if you plan to outsource services, start by understanding how to handle a BPO partnership properly.
Let us guide you through your first step by exploring ways to achieve effective outsourcing management.
Why Is Mastering BPO Management Necessary?
Becoming an expert in handling your BPO team is crucial to avoiding wasting funds and ensuring high-quality outcomes. You can seamlessly adjust to changing market requirements if your strategy aligns well with your service provider. Additionally, a productive outsourcing engagement lets you prioritize your core competencies.
Support vendors also provide a flexible and scalable workforce. These professionals are trained to meet your increasing operational needs. All these capabilities give you a competitive advantage in the crowded business landscape.
However, poor management can lead to third-party professionals becoming unfamiliar with your products, services, and enterprise techniques. This gap results in inefficiencies and is especially problematic if you outsource customer service. Agents’ inability to understand your offerings results in them providing inappropriate solutions to urgent customer issues.
You might also struggle with the high costs of stolen credentials and sensitive data breaches if you do not match your security measures with your provider’s. If that happens, what are BPOs for, if not to securely optimize emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), automation, and cloud computing?
Best Practices for Effective Outsourcing Management
As discussed, adopting BPO comes with pros and cons. You can save up to 70% of labor costs if you have an excellent working relationship with your BPO partner. On the other hand, you can lose so much more if you fail to resolve related issues such as system errors and data leaks.
Fortunately, you can still enjoy the perks of outsourced projects while addressing the associated challenges. Simply implement the following best practices for cost-efficient outsourcing management, and you are good to go.
Set Clear Expectations and Goals
Begin planning your BPO investment by clarifying your expectations and goals. You can anticipate fewer misunderstandings, smooth collaborations, and high-quality outputs when you and your provider match business targets.
Hence, specify your objectives and reasons for choosing to outsource certain functions. A clear understanding of your goals establishes the foundation for BPO’s long-term planning. So, ask these common questions to guide you in your decision-making:
- What in-house challenges do you need to address?
- Are you aiming to cut operating expenses?
- Which part of your business requires increased productivity?
- Are you willing to pay a premium for quality third-party support?
- How long do you need to hire a service vendor?
- What qualifications are you looking for in a provider?
- What payment options are available?
Once you have the answers to such questions, seek a BPO company that meets your standards and budget allocations. Research and create a list of potential providers by looking through the following sources:
- Proposal request campaigns
- Peer referrals
- Online directories and BPO marketplaces (e.g., LinkedIn and Dun & Bradstreet)
- Industry-specific forums and associations
- BPO conferences and events
Before picking one provider, perform a background check, credential verification, and expertise assessment. Evaluate their workers and technologies to ensure their compatibility with yours.
Most importantly, conduct a cost analysis of your potential BPO expenses. Request detailed cost estimates from prospective vendors and examine their pricing structure. Then, compare these calculations to your in-house budget and cost reduction targets.
Align Contract Terms and Conditions
After setting your objectives and finding a reliable provider, negotiate a service-level agreement (SLA) with aligned terms and conditions. Detail BPO roles and responsibilities, including their equivalent service fees and project due dates.
Make sure to cover the situations where either party can terminate the contract and the procedures for an orderly exit. Enumerate notice periods, transition plans, and responsibilities during the termination process.
Establish Centralized Communication
Centralizing communication is crucial to effective outsourcing management. The approach streamlines data sharing, task distribution, and collaborative project management. So, you must appoint a contact person or team to lead all activities with your BPO provider. Also, execute these practices to ensure stable communication:
- List critical contacts from in-house and third-party staff.
- Identify tools for smooth cooperation, such as Asana, Slack, Zoom, and Google Drive.
- Schedule BPO team updates, reports, and meetings.
- Set expectations regarding message acknowledgment and response.
- Standardize the format of documents and reports for easy access and retrieval.
- Be open to using new communication platforms for enhanced functionality.
Execute Performance Monitoring and Evaluation
Remember to track performance and conduct an assessment of your BPO partner. This action helps determine if outsourcing meets your goals and resolves in-house challenges. It also measures your provider’s capacity to fulfill your requirements and meet your cost-saving targets.
Moreover, continuous evaluation motivates third-party professionals to excel in their tasks. They value professional and career development benefits, as 67% of SHRM’s polled employers confirmed.
If workers know where they lack, they will double their efforts to improve their performance. They do anything logical and attainable to rise from their existing positions. You can experience increased efficiency and revenue generation if they constantly exercise this. Thus, define key performance indicators (KPIs) to monitor your progress and output with the BPO company.
Prepare Issue Resolution Approaches
Draft and implement issue-resolution strategies for superior outsourcing management. Problems are bound to arise when partnering with outsourcing companies. Therefore, you need a structured approach to address them accordingly. Here is how to prepare this strategy:
- Enumerate potential internal and external business challenges beforehand.
- Create a comprehensive issue resolution plan.
- Clarify communication channels and the BPO team’s duties.
- Train in-house and third-party staff on problem-solving rules and protocols.
- Consider meditation and arbitration services for fairness during conflicts.
Strengthen Security and Transparency
Enhanced security and transparency help safeguard confidential data and build trust while working with a provider. According to the FBI, technical support fraud caused $347 million in losses to victims worldwide in 2021.
Thus, you must ensure the alignment of data security and transparency measures with your potential tech support or call center provider. Avoid wasting millions of dollars by implementing the following methods:
- Perform a risk assessment to detect possible security vulnerabilities.
- Discuss data security and transparency policies with the provider.
- Ensure your vendor’s compliance with regulations and certifications.
- Support or jointly host security training and awareness campaigns.
- Use access controls such as data encryption, multifactor authentication, and biometrics.
- Develop backup, disaster recovery, and incident response plans.
- Require the BPO partner to submit security and transparency reports.
- Keep tabs on the latest data protection rules, updates, and efforts.
The Bottom Line
You encounter benefits and drawbacks with every business development project; the same goes for your BPO investment. If you know how to address the disadvantages, you can maximize the advantages of working with a third party.
The best practices discussed above will guide you in attaining effective outsourcing management. From goal-setting to security monitoring, understanding and implementing these strategies will help you reach your targets and desired outcomes.
Let’s connect if you are looking for a reliable BPO firm. Unity Communications optimizes technology and human resources to handle your repetitive, non-core tasks quickly and cost-efficiently.
