The proposition for Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) tends to ebb and flow between straightforward cost reduction and wholesale operating model change. Whatever the current vogue, it really boils down to risk transfer, with the customer passing responsibility to the BPO provider in exchange for certainty of outcome. The expectation on both sides is the BPO provider can deliver the desired outcomes better than the customer. It’s a bold claim but one that’s been made possible by the kind of tools BusinessOptix provides.
In our first blog in this series, Digital in Our DNA, we discussed how BPO providers can use our platform to assist their customers. In this blog, we’ll translate those actions into tangible benefits.
Simply put, we enable BPO providers to do three things really well. Firstly, we help them leverage their IP more efficiently and effectively. Secondly, we help them to understand your organization intimately so they can pinpoint areas for improvement more easily. Finally, we make executing the transformation roadmap faster and with less risk. Taken together these things deliver greater customer value, quicker and more cost-effectively.
Using BusinessOptix, BPOs can turn their accumulated knowledge into a digital library of best practice and proven transformations. This repository, constantly updated with new experience, allows them to quickly design and execute an improvement plan for your organization, safe in the knowledge that everything they’re suggesting has been successfully implemented with other clients and delivered the desired results. This means you get a tailored transformation built from tried and tested Lego bricks – a lower cost program that realizes benefits quicker.
The ability to gather more complete and more accurate information about your organization also means your BPO partner can provide faster time to value. Not only does BusinessOptix’s data mining and modeling tools allow them to build a better model of your current state (based on real-life data rather than assumptions), but we’ve also automated large chunks of the design process so they can design a better end state faster too. These automated design tools help feed the innovation funnel, dovetailing with more traditional means of ideation. The resulting ideas can be triaged using the business cases derived through simulation techniques, then prioritized for implementation.
Our simulation capabilities mean all proposed changes can be tested in a digital version of your organization rather than in live operations, reducing risk and increasing speed of transformation (see Test, Fail and Learn Safely for more details. This means you and your BPO provider can consider improvements which would be impossible to test in any meaningful way in real life because of potential disruption to day-to-day business.
Business never stands still and transformation shouldn’t either. Our opportunity management capability allows your BPO provider to deliver an ongoing flow of improvements and provide you with continuous innovation, rather than a one-off transformation.
As we’ve intimated already, one of the most significant factors in moving further faster is the reduction and effective management of risk. In our series of blogs on Operational Resilience, we discussed the importance of having a) a detailed understanding of how your business delivers a service to your customers, and b) an end-to-end view across your extended organization, recognizing you’re only as resilient as the weakest link in your operational supply chain. A 21st Century BPO provider will help you understand the big picture and focus on the pinch points which need improvement. Ideally, they’ll encourage you to use the capabilities described above to improve your retained organization and make it easier for the two of you to achieve end-to-end improvements together.
Our GRC tools also reduce business risk – this time by increasing compliance and resilience. They enable your BPO provider to create, implement, and maintain the appropriate GRC controls and link them your operational processes. These tools also produce reports for your executives, internal audit teams, and regulators.
Successful business relationships are based on the realization of mutual benefit, but they’re also built on trust. BusinessOptix fosters trust between BPO providers and their customers because you’ll know your provider:
This last point is especially important because it removes the fear of being locked into a relationship in which your BPO provider holds information assets (like process maps, operating models, work instructions, and so on) which are vital to the running of your business. With BusinessOptix, should the relationship end (through the natural flow of things or due to course correction), all these assets can be easily transferred to you to ensure a risk-free transition.
Choosing a BPO provider which uses BusinessOptix means you can benefit from faster transformation, continuous improvement, and a more efficient and effective end-to-end operation. It creates the context for an enduring, mutually beneficial partnership in which both parties are focused on making your business the best it can be.
