The past year has been fraught with technological advances in many different markets, with the spotlight being heavily trained on Internet of Things (IoT), Artificial Intelligence (AI), and automation.

During the final months of 2018, there have been many speculations as to whether outsourcing will remain relevant or not. What people fail to grasp, is that outsourcing will always remain relevant.

The incoming technology, if anything else, will serve as a boost, contrary to claims that it will be a deterrent to growth of the Business Process Outsourcing sector. When properly developed and utilized, any new technology will allow BPO companies to train their employees in other fields of expertise, as opposed to them being stuck on taking care of menial, repetitive tasks.

But the truth of the matter is, AI and the so-called Robotic Process Automation (RPA) are still at their infancy stage. While they may be capable of replacing some of the most basic tasks like sending automatic, recorded responses, they are however incapable of delivering in-depth, complicated responses that most businesses require.

New forms of technologies are also expensive to acquire and maintain. As a result, outsourcing will not only remain relevant, it will also remain essential. Here’s why:
Outsourcing is Cheaper

Outsourcing remains the most affordable strategic option among businesses. Since doing talent acquisition up to hiring for an in-house call center is expensive, more companies belonging to different niches are turning to outsourcing to get things done.

When you outsource, you can save up on the many different things that you would have had to pay when you manage an in-house BPO workforce, from expenses related to workspaces, electricity bills, gadgets and accessories (like laptops, chairs, tables, etc.), and more.

Faced with these expenses, there’s little doubt that outsourcing to a third party outsourcing firm remains the better choice.

Talent Pool for All Business Tasks

When you are hiring locally, not only it is more expensive but there is no assurance the candidates at your disposal can fill the required staff to vacant positions in your company.

With outsourcing, however, there is a ready stream of applicants who are experienced and experts in their field and can be tapped even at a moment’s notice.

And because there are more options to pick for, you now have the chance to nitpick your employees of choice to your heart’s content. It gives you the power to perform a proper screening process, something that you would not be able to if the selection is too sparse.

Allows You to Focus on Your Core Business

Outsourcing repetitive, menial tasks takes away from you the responsibility of doing tasks that are time-consuming and non-strategic. Lighter yet repetitive tasks like doing inventory, record keeping, customer service, transcription, data entry and more are best outsourced if you have the budget and have priorities in line.

By outsourcing to an offshore outsourcing company, you can have more time and energy to focus on the things that requires your focus and attention, like product development, customer acquisition, technology and capital management, employee satisfaction, etc.

When you outsource, you are able to look at the bigger picture and pay more attention and resources to all more strategic aspects of your business that requires it.

Delegating affords you power. And outsourcing gives you this power, as well, not in the sense of additional authority, but power to control your time and resources to achieve more with less.

And many multi-million companies were built on taking advantage of this business solution. These are some examples: Google, Alibaba, Skype, Expensify, Whatsapp, AppSumo, Groove, Opera and Slack, among others.

These are not just small named brands. These are giant companies with established systems known the world over. They are successful companies that to this day, employs outsourcing, which can then be regarded as an effective weapon in their arsenals. Why? Because they’ve already proven that it works.

Outsourcing Results in Increased Productivity

While it is cheaper to outsource, your business can use extra saving from this strategy by hiring more people to focus on specific projects or business processes.

You or the in-house employees you do have would not have to exhaust in order to do everything at once, which adversely impact the quality of the output.

When you have an offshore outsourcing team taking care of most of the workload for a fraction of the cost, you and your employees can focus on fewer tasks within a more forgiving time frame.

Not only you can increase the quantity of your output through outsourcing, quality is also expected to come next. This process also allows you to have more than one project going on at the time, ensuring that results came in faster than they would have otherwise.

Greater Flexibility in Managing Projects

Project management flexibility is the ability to accommodate changes and development for the overall well-being of a project. When you have few employees, this is an aspect that usually gets neglected, resulting in many abandoned and incomplete projects.

When you outsourced a team to handle sudden increase in the workload, however, you are assured of more successful results. If the seasonal increase in workload becomes too much for your existing outsourcing team, it is cheap enough to add more people; the risk of investing to outsourcing is minimal in the event that you need to ditch a project.

Final Word

All in all, 2019, like the year before it, will be a year where business process outsourcing will remain a better go-to business solution for start up companies and known brands alike.

We also expect that the ongoing technological advances do not serve to change nor to invalidate the many advantages and benefits that outsourcing brings in to different industries. They might change the way businesses do outsourcing in many years to come.

However, it is an uninformed sentiment, worst ignorance, to state that new technological trends will completely wipe out outsourcing. In fact, the sudden rise in AI and automation just increases the need for outsourcing jobs and projects, specially in the IT and software development sector.

As long as there is a need for a business solution that is affordable, offers more variety in terms of employee selection, a proven track record in increasing productivity, and ushering in success, outsourcing is here to stay.