Senior executives frequently express dissatisfaction with back-office processes and functions in areas such as human resources, information technology, indirect procurement, finance and accounting, perceiving them as too costly to operate, limited in their capabilities and frustratingly slow. Some of the largest companies — particularly those that have grown through mergers and acquisitions — are saddled with disparate and poorly performing processes that only major investments in dollars and management capacity can correct. Even if senior executives agree to commit the necessary management time and other resources, many are skeptical about creating the proper environment for back-office success.
Not surprisingly, rather than address these challenges themselves, many companies are choosing to outsource some functions and areas — in some cases, even their entire global back offices — to business-process outsourcing providers. One example of a BPO provider is call centers; increasing numbers of companies are outsourcing their service support function to either local or offshore providers that can handle it more efficiently and at lower cost. More recently, companies including BP Plc and Bank of America NA have decided to outsource the transactional side of their human resources activity.1 This trend toward outsourcing of business processes continues to gather steam as companies seek alternative and improved ways of leveraging their assets.
Some BPO providers speak of the “transformational” impacts that upgraded processes can have... To read the complete article, login or sign-up using the form below.
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