business process outsourcing consultant
The Role of a Business Process Outsourcing Consultant
Who is a consultant? What does a business consultant do?
If these questions have bothered you at one point of time or another, rest assured that you are not alone.
Many people are uncertain about who or what a consultant is and what value he or she brings to the company that engages him/ her.
Consultancy.uk provides a guideline:
“A consultant is a person who provides professional or expert advice in a particular field of science or business to either an organisation or individual.
As there is no legal protection given to the job title ‘consultant’, in theory, anyone can on a day wake up and decide to adopt the consultant title.
Despite the broad definition that can be subsumed under the term consultant, there are in essence three characteristics that distinguish a consultant from other professions.
Firstly, a consultant provides expertise that a client lacks or support that a client is unable to fulfill. In return for their professional services, the consultant charges a fee.
Secondly, a consultant operates independently from the client, implying that, from the respective consultant, there is no conflict of interests between the client’s issue and the services.
Thirdly, a consultant operates in a professional manner, which ranges from having the right qualifications to ensuring high quality service delivery and a solid internal operation.”
What are the situations in which consultants add value to an organization that engages them?
There are many Consultants are experts in their area and bring knowledge and expertise into the equation that the company on its own does not possess.
If a company gets slapped with a lawsuit, it may need to hire legal consultants for guidance as that (legal services) is not an area in which it possesses knowledge or experience.
Being external to the company, and independent, consultants are expected to be free from the internal politics and pressures and hence may be able to handle a situation on its merits alone.
They can even serve as a strategic resource for the company to take decisions that are expected to be unpopular, like announcing a retrenchment.
Of course, in some situations, hiring a consultant may be the right call as it might just work out to be the cheaper option.
Business process outsourcing consultants are consultants who ply their trade in the field of business process outsourcing, also known as the BPO industry.
The leadership team of oWorkers act as consultants to clients and guide them towards making appropriate choices.
They also act as consultants to the internal teams, showing them the path in every new engagement.
The leadership team boasts of a combined experience of over 20 years in the industry.
As we have seen from the definitions, consulting is a wide remit.
BPO consulting is no different.
Some companies even use the term for their BPO partners, the ones who deliver their outsourced services.
For a better understanding of what these consultants do, we can look at some of the services they offer to Outsourcers (Clients) and BPO providers (vendors).
Services for Clients/ Outsourcers
Clients and outsourcers are companies either interested in outsourcing some of their business processes, or ones who already do so.
A. business process outsourcing consultant can support them in several ways:
Developing an outsourcing strategy
Despite the intent being there, many companies may not know where to start.
Or even what it means and what to expect from the proposed outsourcing.
Not having done it earlier also means that while they have capable and competent resources, they do not have the knowledge or skill-set to help them navigate the uncharted waters of process outsourcing.
A business does not act in a random manner.
It takes actions as part of a plan to enhance value for itself and its owners.
A business process outsourcing consultant will enable the company to articulate and synthesize the initial thinking with respect to process outsourcing, which will normally result in a strategy.
Since you don’t know what you don’t know, the consultant steps in to fill the gap in knowledge and experience, with which a clear thought process and articulated strategy will emerge, including a cost-benefit analysis; does it really make sense for the company to go in for business process outsourcing?
As normally happens when a company begins to evaluate a proposed strategy, the reason for taking it up is that it sees some benefits resulting from its implementation.
However, what is not fully understood at that stage is the down side implications of implementation.
By posing difficult questions, such as the ones below, is how the consultant forces a considered decision:
- Will they lose critical skills?
- Will it lead to the leakage of data or trade secrets?
- What if the partner is unable to handle the work?
Are there any regulatory implications?
A strategy is the cornerstone on which transactional execution is done.
oWorkers, as an example, has a clear strategy of focusing on the back-office and data service needs of clients and has created a niche for itself in this space.
Despite being only 8 years old, it is already recognized as one of the top three players in the world.
Identifying processes for outsourcing
Determining what to outsource is an equally important decision for the company, once the direction of going in for process outsourcing has largely been decided.
Is the Finance and Accounting process ready to be outsourced?
Should the Recruitment function be the first to be handled by the vendor?
There is no standard way.
Since each business is unique, its method of business process outsourcing will also be unique and meant to serve its interests.
The consultant will help not only in deciding which activities should be outsourced, but also the order in which it should be done.
Related to the outsourcing will be the critical function of migration, how the processes should be transitioned out to the vendor to ensure nil or minimum disruption.
And what the company needs to do to minimize disruption, including communicating with impacted parties, particularly customers.
A business process outsourcing consultant will also facilitate the creation of a plan for supervision and management once the processes are being handled by the provider.
What kind of reports should be provided by the provider?
Is a physical touch by the company personnel needed?
At what frequency?
It should be remembered that the eventual ownership of the processes remains with the outsourcer.
If they fail, the outsourcer’s business will be impacted.
Hence, there is a need to ensure continuing good health of the partner and their supported processes.
Whatever the process identified, availability of manpower is a critical requirement of the BPO industry.
oWorkers scores well in this area, with its ability to draw and retain the best talent, being a preferred employer in all its operating geographies.
This ability also gives them the flexibility to hire short-term resources at short notice, to cater to an unexpected surge in volumes, saving a tidy packet for clients.
Evaluation of potential partners
This is one area where a lot of outsourcers engage the services of consultants, especially if they are first-time outsourcers, as they have limited familiarity with the ecosystem.
Consultants can help outsourcers in understanding what a good outcome might look like.
In fact, setting the right expectations is an equally important part of the consultant’s role; unrealistic expectations are one of the surest ways of the failure of an initiative.
A consultant facilitates the process of drawing up criteria based on which vendors can be evaluated.
While price and quality of output are perhaps important criteria in all engagements, there are many others like technology, ability to hire and train, providing for short-term volume spikes, the company’s financial position, competence of the management team, ability to work from home or office, speed of processing, location and distance, etc.
Which might become more or less important depending upon the client and the process to be outsourced.
The consultant will also support the process of either issuing an RFP (request for proposal) for seeking interest, or may choose to reach out directly to a few vendors thought to be somewhat suitable for the purpose.
Eventually, the process will end with the selection of a partner.
In the interim, the business process outsourcing consultant would also have been working with the legal team of the client to ensure a contract framework is ready by the time a vendor is selected.
Pricing is usually important for all clients looking for an outsourcing partner.
oWorkers is known to be a provider that saves close to 80% of pre-outsourcing costs for clients, as often confirmed by clients from the US and Western Europe.
Additionally, the choice they offer between dollars per unit of output and dollars per unit of input, is any client’s dream.
oWorkers also has processes that save money for clients, such as the ability to hire for short-term peaks.
Services for Providers
Consultants can do anything, as we know.
Not only are they a support for outsourcers, they are also well placed to provide inputs to providers who would, otherwise, struggle in certain areas.
Scouting for locations
Location strategy is an important element of the strategy of a provider as they strive to create value for clients.
While they start operations from a specific location on account of certain natural advantages, such as familiarity of the leadership team, or preference of a key initial client, they are always on the lookout for geographical expansion opportunities in order to make their offering comprehensive and wholesome.
The wider the geographical footprint, the more likely they are for a client to find a suitable location, apart from an enhanced ability to provide business continuity to clients in the event of a geography suffering from some catastrophic event, either natural or manmade.
Business process outsourcing consultants, who work with different clients, are well placed to evaluate geographies on the shortlist for setting up the next delivery center.
The process typically would be to help their client (the BPO vendor) articulate and draw up a location strategy, which would include the evaluation criteria.
This would be the basis on which the final selection will be made.
They are also well equipped to make suggestions in terms of suitable geographies that should be considered by the client.
With three distinct geographies operational, ability to support clients in 22 languages, and centers that can operate 24×7, oWorkers is a natural partner for many growing companies and ranks near the top on the evaluation grid of most consultants.
Industry expertise
One of the complaints freshers have when they are looking for their first job is that many potential employers seem to want ‘freshers with experience,’ a contradiction in terms.
Such an animal cannot exist.
There has to be a first time or a first job before which you cannot have work experience.
Similarly, having set up a BPO company, the management is interested in growth.
If they started life with services to an insurance company, they would perhaps want to expand.
One way of doing this is by providing similar services to companies in other industries, say retail, or manufacturing.
But the problem is that they have not worked in these industries earlier.
The outsourcer, when scouting for a provider, might have prior experience as a selection criteria.
What is to be done? Consultants, once again, are the answer.
Consultants who have the requisite prior experience are engaged by the vendor in order to demonstrate their capability and commitment to the industry.
The consultant may be called upon to build the requisite set of skills in the company.
Technology, apart from human resources, constitutes the backbone of the BPO industry, whichever the industry they may be serving.
The Super secure facilities & protocols that oWorkers uses, along with its ISO (27001 :2013 & 9001:2015) certifications and GDPR compliance, give it an edge when processing your confidential data.
Functional expertise
In much the same way as industries, many BPO services are functionally distinguished.
Think Human Resources Outsourcing.
Think Finance and Accounting Outsourcing.
Think Customer Service Outsourcing.
Companies who have an interest in developing skills and expertise in an area where they are presently not operational, need to have a starting point.
How do they get experienced without having the experience?
It is a Catch 22 situation.
They don’t have experience in a functional area because they have not done any work in it.
They cannot get work in the area because they don’t have any experience in it.
Enter a suitable qualified business process outsourcing consultant. Banish the problem.
The consultant becomes the rallying point around which expertise is first showcased, and then built.
As it works with employees, and not freelancers and contractors like some competitors do, oWorkers has flexibility in redeployment and retraining of people to cater to emerging functional requirements.
Staff members, both past and present, usually rate them 4.65 or higher on third-party platforms such as Glassdoor.
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