Business Process Outsourcing for SMEs: Yes or No?

Are you an entrepreneur thinking about how to take your business to new levels of productivity? Are you looking at streamlining your current processes to strengthen brand recall to target customers? And are you exploring outsourcing to help you achieve these goals?

This article walks you through the fundamentals of outsourcing so you can decide better if this will ultimately suit your needs and propel your business to new heights.

What does BPO mean for SMEs?

SMEs have the same corporate objectives as bigger companies, although they may have fewer resources. Delivering cost savings, increasing customer happiness, attaining high performance, expanding service offerings, and having access to the finest people, skills, and technology are just a few of these objectives.

Budget and logistical obstacles have traditionally kept these advantages out of reach for Small and Medium Businesses (SMEs). However, with to technological advancements and innovative delivery methods, BPO is becoming more relevant, adaptable, scalable, and affordable to small businesses.

Through business process outsourcing SMEs can:

1. Reallocate resources to business development and innovation, enabling growth without the large associated overheads
2. Gain a competitive advantage by embracing non-core but necessary functions as a service
3. Minimize risks significantly, whilst growing and extending service offerings
4. Save on overhead and maintenance costs of infrastructure
5. Save on costs that would have been required for in-house dedicated team.
6. Remain in control of budget and staff
7. Create long-term sustained value to the business
8. Gain industry specific expertise – every successful BPO company has its own niche and industry-specific expertise. They can deliver services that fit their client’s current condition and improve it.

What Contact Center Services Can SMEs can Afford in the Philippines?

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have requirements that can be met by a BPO business, much like the Fortune 500. The following are some of the services that you can obtain from a call center in the Philippines.

Customer Service

This is one of the most popular call center services in the Philippines, with over a million customers. Filipinos are fluent in English and have strong communication abilities. It is an excellent fit for any English-speaking firm looking to develop a high level of customer service and satisfaction.

Filipinos are not only fluent in English, but they are also hospitable and empathic towards your clientele. They are capable of providing first-rate client service. This is ideal if you want to keep all of your consumers in order to increase your future sales opportunities.

Support for Information and Communications Technology (ICT)

In the Philippines, there are a large number of professional information technology graduates. Every year, more than 70,000 information technology students graduate. This means that there is an endless supply of labor available to meet your technical assistance demands.

These IT pros can assist you with the building of your website as well as the upkeep of your software. On top of that, BPO companies can also provide you the latest software available for your business.

Service for Telemarketing

If you are planning to rapidly expand your business, then this service is perfect for you. BPO call centers in the Philippines provide agents to call your prospect customers. They can introduce your product or service and convert them into buyers.

This is great especially for start-up business. It will help boost your sales and gain more profit. You can use the additional profit to improve your product. On top of that, your client will appreciate your proactive reminder to them about the service.

There are still a lot of BPO services that you can avail for your business. Make sure to ask your partner call center on what those are. There are some personnel available to assist you with this kind of inquiry.

BPO: Yes or No?

Here are things to consider in getting a BPO partner:

Slow Burn, High Returns in Outsourcing

Outsourcing is not an easy task. It requires tremendous time and energy from the company especially since it will look a lot easier to just maintain the status quo. Small business owners are not realizing the compounded amount of time and money wasted on non-critical tasks.

Outsourced companies offer not just valuable manpower to run the process for you but also serve as free consultants and process experts to help review your current processes, suggest improvements, and share best practices as they are most likely servicing your competition as well.

“Taking the first steps toward outsourcing can be time-consuming, but figuring out how to build your business with help from outside professionals can offer increased efficiencies and economies of scale.”

Outsourcing often triggers separation anxiety from business owners and their staff as it requires letting go of tradition and set habits. The business owner would then need to step back, review all the processes within the organization, map each process meticulously, and identify which of these can easily be outsourced externally.

Trust and Let Go on Business Processes

Most entrepreneurs have great talents but many times they think they can do it all and significantly stall the growth of their business.

Business owners fall into the trap of controlling every minute issue and troubleshooting each mishap for fear of being in the blind when things go wrong – and things will go wrong. The linchpin to all outsourcing initiatives is trust.

If you have decided to outsource a process – scout the market for referrals, investigate which companies are being used by your competition, and ask around as to how these providers are doing as against performance metrics most critical to you.

Once you tap an outsourced partner, train them well, and trust that they can do the job. Otherwise, micro-managing beyond what is needed places the business owner right back to the old state, thereby wasting the money spent on the partner’s service.

Focus on the Customers, Not on the Process

Ask yourself, what exactly am I offering to my customers? What differentiates me from the competition? What keeps my customers loyal and what is the primary product or service I would want to be known for?

Answering these questions allows you to identify a singular, non-negotiable value proposition where you can anchor your company’s strategy and core processes to be able to reinforce it further to customers. This shifts your business model from extraneous activities that increase overhead and focus on processes that increase revenue. Strengthen that which what you’re already good and make it even better. Again, these are just some things to consider in helping you decide whether to outsource or not. Identify what’s important to you and your business – this is always a good way to start.

We will base the pricing on the client’s requirements. Magellan Solutions understands that a start-up business has limited funds for outsourcing services. We will assist you in figuring out the best service for your budget.

We have a Full Force Implementations Department to guide you in determining the KPIs you want to track. You also don’t have to worry about the skills and experience of the staff as we can help you with it.

Magellan Solutions also has an ISO/IEC 27001:2013 Certification. It ensures your company’s sensitive data is safe in our system. Our expert team provides security measures against phishing and data breach.

We take pride in helping SMEs grow. Contact us today and get a free 60-minute consultation. Please fill out the contact us form below.