Introduction
Every business across the world has been affected by the adverse impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. Most of the organizations acknowledge the fact that their operational and contingency plan was not formulated in a proper way for the disruption on the scale for Covid-19. According to Deloitte, more than 50% of the organizations experienced cash flow issues due to slow sales, and 22% of them faced trouble in customer service.
Organizations have faced disruptions in lesser sales leading to financial and organizational challenges. They are constantly finding solutions for solving these problems while meeting the demands of the markets, clients, staff, and customers. In this scenario, business process outsourcing can be a great help as a business can focus on the core business easily while the outsourcing agencies will take care of the other functions of their clients. Outsourcing allows the companies to improve their productivity and efficiency while increasing the capacity thus meeting the immediate demands of the customers.
What Business Functions can be outsourced?
There are lots of business functions that companies outsource to the reputed third-party service providers. They are as follows:
- Payroll
- Inventory Management
- Call Centre
- Data Entry
- BPO
- Accounting
- Customer Service
- Title Search
- Content Creation and Moderation
- Website Management
Why Do Businesses Outsource During Pandemic?
The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic has brought a lethal effect to the companies especially on the operational, financial, and marketing sectors. Business continuity plans are helping small and medium businesses in this pandemic as the normal business plans are not working properly. To keep the business on track during Covid-19, outsourcing is the most viable option that will get the organization back on its feet.
1. Focus on Core Functions
By outsourcing non-core business functions, companies can focus on the core functions while offering better customer satisfaction and product features. While partnering with the outsourcing agency, businesses can drive their profitability and focus on the functions that lead the business to the next level.
2. Cost Optimization
Running a company entails a huge capital investment. Starting from operational expenses to employees’ salaries, the lists are endless. Also, there are expenses related to the training and development program for the employees, their benefits, and other miscellaneous expenses. It is proven that companies that outsource their business tasks to third-party agencies, can effectively reduce their operational costs by 20 to 30%. Hence, it leads to effective resource allocation that helps in growing business.
3. Reducing Risks
In this pandemic situation, the risks of a business are not limited to financial risks only. While addressing the business’s agility, innovation, and risk mitigation, it has become a multi-challenging task for unprepared companies for the pandemic. Along with financial risk, agility, and resilience, employees’ health and safety, supply chain, and innovation also have equal importance. Outsourcing will provide agility to the business while addressing the challenges by providing the latest technologies and a skilled workforce.
4. Business Continuity
The current pandemic has brought many unforeseen challenges in various sectors of businesses. Research by McKinsey has stated that almost 90% of the executives mentioned that Covid-19 will fundamentally change the way of doing business in the upcoming years. Small and medium businesses can benefit by outsourcing their office functions which will help to raise the business from the current condition.
5. Customer Delight
This pandemic has changed the perspective of customer expectations and their way of shopping. Over 60% of the consumers have gone digital for shopping. However, they have a lot of queries, and companies have to answer them through omnichannel ways. Outsourcing customer support is the best way for improved sales and better customer satisfaction.
6. Competitive Advantage
The most relevant way of surviving in a pandemic situation is to get a competitive advantage in the market. While the disrupted business operations have to continuously improve their game up by delivering more value and offering a better product fit for the same. 96% of the companies change their go-to-market models while promoting digital sales.
7. Accelerate Digital Transformation
As per McKinsey research reports, “Digital interactions are two times more important to the customers than it was used to be before the COVID-19 pandemic”. Organizations that embrace digital platforms over brick and mortar are seeing drastic 40% to 50% revenue growth that has made it a path towards resiliency and continuity plan. Outsourcing back-office and customer support has helped a lot in maintaining transparency with the customers hence customer loyalty has been increased.
8. Improve Business Efficiency
Outsourcing during pandemics has significantly improved the efficiency of the business, especially for startups. It leads to an improved focus on core business tasks that lead to improved business operations. While outsourcing administrative functions and other BPO tasks help in the smooth flow of business operations thus having profitability at its maximum.
Final Thoughts
The COVID-19 pandemic has shaken the ground of many companies in a very short interval of time. Organizations nowadays can barely avoid the undeniable demand of the team that has been outsourced. Hence, investing in a reputed outsourcing agency is a very crucial decision that can eventually lead to higher efficiency and productivity. Outsourcing during the pandemic has innumerable benefits that have been already mentioned above. Whether it is a route to market, new technology, customer expectations, or new working tactics for powering business, outsourcing has a lot to offer that leads to organizational resilience as a part of the business continuity plan for the pandemic.
