If the benefits of business process outsourcing are desirable and the challenges associated with the practice seem surmountable, the next question to answer is whether or not your business is ready to implement BPO.

There are several considerations to evaluate:

Will BPO produce a sufficient ROI to justify the costs and time commitments associated with implementing it?

Certainly, if you have hit a growth bottleneck, pursuing an outsourcing solution can free up human capital in support of other priorities. However, even if your team still has available capacity for its existing commitments, implementing BPO before it is necessary to maintain productivity can give your team the runway needed to advance its operations and innovate.

Is there internal support for BPO?

Organisations may encounter resistance to the idea of outsourcing functions or adopting robotics process automation. While a lack of internal support should not necessarily put a stop to your BPO ambitions, it is worth considering whether or not you have the employee and team member buy-in needed to fully realise the benefits of business process outsourcing.

Can your team commit the resources necessary to support an effective BPO implementation?

As noted above, process, onboarding, and training documentation all play valuable roles in facilitating smooth BPO adoption. If your organisation does not yet have these resources, it may be worth postponing a business process outsourcing initiative until you can complete the necessary legwork.

All of the above items can be managed and addressed when you choose a strong and reputable BPO partner such as Canon Business Services.

The scalable nature of BPO engagements

It is also worth keeping in mind that BPO solutions tend to be highly flexible. Implementations scale. Organisations can start small, outsourcing a single process or department — such as mailroom or record management — before progressing to other areas and applying more advanced applications, such as robotic process automation.

For this reason, a lack of preparation alone should not necessarily delay implementation of a BPO program. Rather, organisations should look for opportunities to embrace modest business process outsourcing engagements and to scale up their investments as they begin to realise the benefits of BPO.

How to choose the right business process outsourcing partner

Choosing the right combination of outsourced services is essential to getting the most out of business process outsourcing and accomplishing your core objectives. Thoroughly assess your current operations and identify any key areas that need improving. You may, for example, look for ways to reduce operational costs and avoid wasting manpower on repetitive tasks. In this case, a mix of offshored managed services and robotics process automation may be appropriate.

As you progress in your search for the right BPO provider, vet several candidates and seek out consultations that can be tailored to your specific needs in order to discover the full scope of a provider’s services and to discover what an engagement with them might look like in practice.

A good BPO partner will:

• Understand and embrace the need for good SLAs
• Take the time to understand your business, your customers, and your position within your industry before proposing a solution
• Have a well-documented onboarding and transition plan to work in conjunction with your organisation’s efforts at documentation

To ensure a successful transition, you will need a detailed overview of your existing processes. Work alongside your chosen BPO provider to develop a logical transition plan that highlights three main elements: financial, technical and organisational change. Developing a formal plan for these various phases of transition will help you move effectively from one stage to the next.

Revolutionise your business with BPO

The needs of every company are different. You have likely seen your business in some of the scenarios described above; others may not resonate in the same way as they do for those at other companies. Whatever your specific needs are, partnering with a professional BPO solution can help you find viable solutions and turn your vision into a reality.

Contact the team at Canon Business Services to speak with one of our experts and get started on your BPO journey. With clients spanning government, finance, healthcare and insurance they have extensive experience delivering BPO solutions across managed services, financial services, document services, and RPA. With 25 years experience Canon Business Services has the experience to drive efficiency and business growth at scale for your operations.