Category: Outsourcing

Best Reasons to Engage with a BPO Provider

Post author By Admin
Post date May 17, 2021

There are only 24 hours in a day. And you are busy. Very busy. As a business leader, you are focused on growing your business and you feel beholden to not only your family but your employees. You must succeed for everyone’s sake and survival. But if you are like most other business leaders, you are doing too much. There are tasks and processes that can – and should – be handled by someone else. Ask yourself this . . . what is my “highest and best use?” Are you the best salesperson in your organization? Are you the key manager doing what you can to support your people? Marketing whiz? Operations guru?

What is that you do best that helped get you to the position you are in now? There is a strong chance that it wasn’t entering invoices into your accounts payable system. It probably wasn’t verifying that your subcontractor completed their work or dispatching your employees. Further, you might be best at some of these tasks but others are also good at them and would effectively do just as well.

At Process-Smart, we work with you to uncover these demands on your time that can be handled elsewhere, giving you more time to do what you do best!

Remove Bottlenecks

Sales are great. Delivery is no problem. But somewhere in between there is a problem. Maybe it’s in order entry or a finance area. Whatever it is, you probably have a good idea already. But if it was easy to solve, you might have done that by now. You could throw more people at the problem. However, hiring is never easy, quick or enjoyable, to say nothing of how expensive it is to hire and onboard. Then there is orientation, training, benefits, etc., a whole myriad of responsibilities that go with new employees. Process-Smart can work with you to figure out which part of your processes lend themselves to documenting and shifting to other people that you don’t have to hire, train, give benefits, account for vacation, replace or maybe let go.

Maintain Employee Levels – Avoiding Increases

Now things are going gangbusters! Sales are out of control and everyone is working efficiently, but so much harder. You might even be paying overtime! As much as you enjoy your staff and love to reward them for a job well done, let’s be honest, you are in no hurry to add to their ranks. This is especially true when forecasting shows this increased volume for the next 6 months or year but you don’t really know
what it will be like after that. Shift some of the more repetitive work to the Process-Smart team, gaining efficiencies and time – and money – savings.

Accommodate for Planned Growth

Now you are planning for growth. How can you accommodate that growth before it happens, without taking on needless expense? Together, we can review your business and find various processes that lend themselves well to BPO. We then go through the thorough documentation process. When your growth fully occupies your existing staff, we use the documented process to shift work out of your office. The best part is that when the growth continues and you need more capacity, all you have to do is say so! We can easily add resources to increase capacity to service the growth of your business.

Mystery Challenges

Sometimes, you just can’t find the problem. Seems like all is going well, but the bottom line is not what you’d expect. Does this ever happen to you? If so, you aren’t alone. Business leaders can be so emotionally involved and right in the middle of the action. It’s very hard to step back and review your business. We can help. Process-Smart will review your operations and help you determine if you are a candidate for BPO.
Whatever the reason, let’s talk. Remember, Process-Smart is here to make your life better and your business run more efficiently. No pressure. Less stress. Almost every business has a process that can be accomplished with outside resources. How will you benefit when you find yours?

All Outsourcing

How BPO Benefits Businesses Of All Sizes?

Post author By Admin
Post date May 14, 2021

In today’s world, there is a significant rise in the demand for business process outsourcing. This rising need proves that BPO has extensive benefits. As per a survey done in the US, nearly 41% of a knowledge worker’s time is spent in performing repetitive tasks. But with BPO, the competency of the worker increases to a great level as the repetitive tasks can be delegated with a fraction of the cost. So, let us understand what BPO – Business Process Outsourcing is, along with the benefits of opting for it.

What is Business Outsourcing?

As we have read in the beginning, for any main job to be performed, there are umpteen menial tasks which are repetitive in nature. These tasks can be easily removed from the main staff’s regular routine and can be delegated to a third party like Process-Smart. These 3rd party organizations perform these business tasks for your company. The tasks can be segregated into 2 categories – Back Office Work and Front Office Work.

The jobs that fall under Back Office category are:

Inventory Ordering
Head Hunting
Recruitment
Legal Agreements
Contract Creation

The jobs that fall under Front Office category are:

Lead Generation
Call List Building

‍What are the benefits of business process outsourcing?

It Saves Time:

When the hours spent on the repetitive and excess tasks are delegated, those hours can be then spent on other activities. So, all the skilled and precise knowledge workers of various domains like HR, Marketing and Sales or Business Operations can accomplish the tasks in an expedited timeline. New responsibilities can be taken up while the old ones can be done with super perfection. Eventually the workplace will see great efficiency as the productivity would be enhanced.

It Saves Money:

Cost savings is the biggest and the most appropriate reason why companies prefer outsourcing the business processes. Manpower being one of the largest costs after onboarding, training and hiring of the employees. BPO serves as a brilliant solution to them. Irrespective of the size of the company, this solution works out as the employees of the 3rd party organizations are located in low cost of living locations. Thus their compensation would be comparatively less, which works out for the companies. Office space, any kind of materials or equipment would not be the company’s lookout as the 3rd party employees are offsite.

Flexibility and Scalability:

Companies can achieve and take the path of flexibility and growth very confidently when effective outsourcing is done which saves time and money. The BPO significantly reduces the risk of financial hiring due to uncertain expenditure versus calculated revenue. Companies can easily outsource the business process if they require swift scaling but calculated hiring. The upcoming companies can benefit with the BPO services especially in this parameter.

There is an Advantage of Time Zone:

Scaling definitely helps but time zones are often a problem with companies who have their customers in different parts of the world. It is in these times that BPO works out instead of bringing up a satellite office. This shows that business process outsourcing is very beneficial with ease of access for all size of businesses. The BPOs are here to stay for the long haul.

BPO Services At Process-Smart

Process-Smart as the name suggests will upgrade your process with clever and upmarket procedures. We have brilliant efficiency tools which can easily facilitate your company to play the ace game. Be it Accounts, Payroll, any kind of QA, Customer Support or even Digital Marketing Services, we provide them all. Back Office Support Services are also given by Process-Smart. If you are focused on augmenting the value of your organisation, Process-Smart is here to make it happen for you.

All Outsourcing

Who Outsources/Offshores?

Post author By Joe Iafigliola
Post date May 13, 2021

It is a common misconception that only large businesses have the scale and need to offshore business processes. In fact, independent business rating and review platform Clutch completed a survey revealing that more than a third of small businesses already offshore activities to develop additional capabilities.

In a post-COVID world, experience with a substantial remote workforce has eased many previous perceptions related to the challenges of working with people not physically located in the same space. Similarly, Clutch’s survey found that more than half of the respondents planned to offshore at least some activities in the following year. The most common areas of outsourcing included: accounting, IT services and digital marketing support. In addition, it was identified that the global market for these services topped $85 billion.

Other key findings:

About 1/3 of survey respondents currently outsource a business process.
Technical help is the most common activity outsourced(likely because activity is already outsourced domestically).
With difficulty in hiring people in the current environment (and associated cost) businesses are increasingly open to trying to partially or fully outsource functions.
Businesses with 50 or fewer employees are less likely to outsource compared to those with more than 50 employees.

Process-Smart is your key partner for identifying, analyzing, and developing strategies to increase your company’s capabilities. Be sure to review our case studies. We have tackled opportunities in:

Accounts payable
ERP system entry
Informational/photo audits
Report/back office information generation
Shipping and tracking information hubs

Ready to Connect with Process-Smart?

We’re here to help you reach your goals – whenever you need us. To learn more about Process-Smart and how we can maximize your business, please complete the following form or just send us an email. One of our experts will contact you directly to discuss your company’s current needs.

Tags offshores, outsourcing

All Outsourcing

BPO 101

Post author By Admin
Post date April 22, 2021

Does the business world really need another TLA? Three Letter Acronyms have been plaguing, er, helping us for about 40 years as they began to show up in the late 1970s. They actually started to be recognized, and expand greatly in usage, in the early 1980s. Most TLAs aren’t truly TLAs, as they aren’t acronyms (such as “CAT” scan). They are actually “initialisms,” however, that is a different blog post.

BPO is Business Process Outsourcing. Simply put, it refers to taking repetitive processes and determining how they can be outsourced. An example is tracking shipments. If your company ships products to customers through multiple carriers, there might not be a simple way to provide a link on your website for your customer to track their order. Tracking each shipment and updating a website might be best handled manually. An easy question to ask yourself is whether you can thoroughly document the process. Most processes can be documented well. If you can’t, then how would you train a new employee to pick up the process?

A classic example where BPO brings significant value is in Accounts Payable. When a business purchases anything from vendors, approximately 85-90% of invoices for those purchases are sent electronically. Those invoices need to be entered into an ERP system — another TLA! Invoices need to be entered into an Enterprise Resource Planning or simple bookkeeping system such as QuickBooks. Some businesses utilize OCR – ha! – or Optical Character Recognition, to enter the remaining invoices that aren’t sent electronically. While this computer-based process can be quite effective, it is never perfect and requires validation to ensure that the computer read the information correctly. That validation is completed by a person.

Whether invoices are entered manually or via OCR, the process requires human interaction. This is a process that can easily be documented and then completed by anyone who is capable, current employee or not.

How does Business Process Optimization effect control over the process?

Some believe there are advantages to having these tasks completed by employees. The thought is that there is more control over the process, in addition to confidentiality. Recent times have shown these concerns are not a challenge. It feels funny to say that there were any “silver linings” to the Coronavirus pandemic, however, there was at least one.

Employees have been asking, for as long as there has been an internet, to work from home. As our economy continues to transition to being service-based versus manufacturing-based (largely due to automation as well as the economy becoming more global), more employees sit in front of a computer and, often, use a phone all day long. Access for these tools has become nearly ubiquitous given the widespread availability of reliable internet access throughout the majority of the U.S., certainly throughout higher population areas.

The worldwide pandemic has vastly increased the number of employees working from home as employers fight to stem the tide of transmission of COVID-19 among their staff. Moving employees out of the office has proven to provide safety to them, resulting in less down time due to sick leave.

Other fears employers have traditionally held have not manifested with their newly found distributed workforce. Many employees are happier working from home saving time, energy and money in their commute. Productivity has not only not suffered but, in some instances, improved. There are less distractions from co-workers and less meetings, allowing employees to better focus. Another fear was a lack of collaboration, however, technology-based tools have addressed the need for collaboration very well. It has led to a nation of people wearing business attire above the waist — and sweatpants below!

Business Process Outsourcing generally leads to better control over the process in question. For BPO to be successful, an integral part of the transition is the creation of the SOP – one more TLA! The SOP is a document outlining the Standard Operating Procedure for the process in question. The document typically goes through a few iterations resulting in a locked-down procedure. The BPO provider then plugs their employees into the role of completing the process by following the SOP, which results in no freelancing on accomplishing the task at hand.

There are wide range of reasons as to why using a provider of Business Process Outsourcing makes sense. Look for that information – and more – in additional blogs from Process-Smart.