Offshore Business Process Outsourcing - New Opportunity To Save On Costs

The necessity to look for ways of reducing costs for various financial services is now higher than ever. Nowadays, the global market today is constantly changing and growing, that is why every business seeks to increase productivity. Banks, insurance offices and capital markets are urgently searching for ways to quickly reduce costs without losing the quality of their services, therefore many are thinking of hiring the offshore business process outsourcing, which can help not to lag behind the times and retain competitiveness. The non-core but still important processes which take up a lot of time are better to be outsourced to offshore business process companies, which are often viewed as more flexible, quicker, less expensive and more productive.

Taking into consideration that a great number of employees at offshore business process outsourcing centers are a better educated in highly specialized fields labor force, which constantly upgrades according to the needs of the time, as well as the possibility of using the world-class telecommunications, the typical services bought offshore can become an improvement in the quality and level of services, offered by your company.

Offshore business process outsourcing companies are normally situated in the in the countries with low average-sized wages, such as India, the Philippines, Brazil, Russia, the Czech Republic, and China. The companies may provide instant cost saving possibilities, which are available because of the great number of competing businesses, often without the need to make serious initial investments. For the businesses striving to decrease their production costs the variant of employing offshore business process outsourcing is one of the best options on the way to achieving savings, taking into account that nearly every firm has at least one area or task, which can be successfully outsourced. The most common examples of offshore business process outsourcing include such spheres as call centers, human resources, accounting and payroll outsourcing, mortgage processing, financial analysis, accounting, legal research, paralegal services, legal transcriptions, insurance claims processing, market and competition analysis, product launch, publishing services, patents , storage, lease management, lease abstraction, real estate management and several other services.

The clients who finally decide to employ offshore business process outsourcing can often get almost complete control of the policies, workflow processes, reporting, systems and data with the help of the modern means of information. Some of the businesses buy or develop their own Internet-based project management tools, allowing the real-time control of all your offshore tasks. This actually destroys the assumption that it nearly impossible to control the work of offshore business process outsourcing centers due to their distant location and time difference.

Business Process Improvement

Today, more than ever before, using technology to improve your business processes is paramount to business success. Luckily, there is a simple approach that can help you determine how to go about planning your improvements - and accomplishing this as efficiently as possible.

So, how do you go about improving your business processes -- particularly in tough economic times? We suggest that you begin with a thorough look at each of your processes, and the people and technology that are involved with each one of them. We refer to this process as a "Technology Roadmap." A Technology Roadmap is actually just that - a very detailed document that maps out exactly where you are today from a technology perspective (your "As Is" state), where you desire to be technologically (your "To Be" state), and the resulting gap that exists between these two states.

Once you have your Technology Roadmap clearly defined, you can then assess the best way to prioritize the resulting tasks or projects that will bridge that identified gap. You will examine your budget and your human resources, and then develop a project plan to prioritize the projects based upon those two constraints. Once you've done this, you will be well on your way to improving your business processes. And, you'll be able to do it in a timeframe that fits with your existing resources or determine what resources that you may need to bring in to help you accomplish your business goals.

A word on resources . . . sometimes in order to improve your business, an outside perspective is necessary. This is true no matter what business you are in. Because we love what we do for a living, we can sometimes become too inwardly focused when examining our own businesses. Despite our best intentions, we tend to want to do things the same way because we are inherently averse to change. It's simply human nature. As you are considering your business and improving your business processes, take a hard look at your internal capabilities to thoroughly examine the processes and poke holes in them to cause change.

Once you've done some soul searching you may well determine that you can effectively build your Technology Roadmap internally. However, if you get the feeling that having an outside consultant to manage the process, by all means do it. Simply select a consultant who you trust (and be sure to check references) and who has a specific background in business process improvement.

When looking externally, an additional factor to consider is the consultant's ability to pay attention to the details. We've found that many consulting firms take a purely strategic approach - providing a high-level overview of how to positively impact your business processes. While this isn't bad, we've found that in order to positively change your business processes for the better, attention to detail is paramount to your project's success. Accordingly, select a consulting firm that can help you with strategy but also work through the details and tasks to get each project done on-time and on budget.