Scaling growth is a priority for many business owners. It can also be a challenge. You want your business to grow, but you also need to identify ways to support its growth without overextending your budget, bandwidth, etc.

One potential solution to this issue is to partner with a Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) organization. Keep reading to learn more about this increasingly popular strategy. The following overview explains what a BPO is and how enlisting one’s help can help you achieve your business goals.

What You Need to Know About BPOs

A BPO is essentially a company to which you outsource specific business processes. For example, staying on top of accounting processes is vital for any business owner. However, your business might not have yet reached the stage of growth in which it’s necessary to establish your own accounting department.

Instead you could outsource your accounting needs to a BPO. That’s just one example. Other types of processes and tasks that a BPO might handle on your behalf include (but aren’t necessarily limited to):

• Customer Service
• Accounting, Budgeting, Bookkeeping
• Sales, Business Development
• Human Resources, Recruiting
• Virtual Assistance, Administrative Duties

That’s not an exhaustive list. Different BPOs may offer different services depending on the needs of their clients.

However, most BPOs offer the same types of general benefits to business owners like yourself. Potential advantages you may experience as a result of partnering with a BPO include:

Getting Quality Talent

A BPO stays in business by offering reliable service to its clients. For example, if a reputable BPO offers customer service help, you can be fairly confident that said BPO employs skilled professionals who have the experience necessary to handle common business customer service tasks.

This saves you time and offers you a degree of peace of mind you might not enjoy if you were to attempt to hire your own accountants. Rather than taking the time to sort through candidates who may or may not possess the qualifications necessary to serve your needs, you can enlist the help of an established company.

Growing at Your Own Pace

The agreement a business owner enters into with a BPO will often offer them a significant degree of flexibility regarding how often they use said BPO’s services. This type of flexibility is often ideal when a business owner needs to scale their company’s growth.

Perhaps your small business has grown to the stage where it’s time to hire outside help for customer service work. That said, maybe your business isn’t yet large enough to justify setting up your own in-house customer service department.

Coordinating with a BPO is a perfect alternative in this case. By outsourcing your customer service work to a BPO, you can grow and evolve at your own pace, something that’s naturally more cost-effective in the long run.

BPOs are also recruiting masters. They tend to engage with a large pipeline of candidates. Additionally, they may adhere to processes that allow them to vet candidates very quickly, without sacrificing quality. This is another way in which a BPO cna help your business grow quickly or slowly as needed.

Reducing the Need to Invest in Tools and Technology

Hiring new workers isn’t the only investment you might need to make if you were to grow your own company in-house instead of outsourcing certain types of work to a BPO. Depending on the type of work you need done, you might also have to invest in new technology, tools, and resources. Doing so could be prohibitively expensive if yours is a small company still progressing through the early stages of growth.

You don’t have to make these investments when you partner with a BPO. Most BPOs are happy to provide the software their clients need for their projects. However, they can also work with clients’ own software if a client would prefer.

Considerations to Keep in Mind When Enlisting a BPO’s Help

These are merely a few of the reasons you should consider working with a BPO instead of hiring in-house employees as your business grows. You simply need to consider certain points and account for certain factors when doing so. They include:

• Whether the BPO you choose to work with has experience serving clients in your industry and/or of your size
• Whether, given the nature of your specific needs, you will need to offer some training or initial assistance to the workers at your chosen BPO
• The extent to which you feel you will be able to easily communicate with the team handling your projects
• Whether you’re comfortable no longer having day-to-day control over the tasks your BPO is now handling on your behalf

None of those points are meant to discourage you from working with a BPO. Again, as the points here illustrate, doing so can benefit your small and growing business in numerous ways.

Many of the above risks can also be mitigated by carefully selecting the right partner and following onboarding best practices. Doing so will help you better manage and coordinate with your BPO partner. By taking the time to find the right BPO for your needs, you’ll be more likely to thrive in the long run.