A new survey of BPO customers in the APAC region published by SSON reveals dissatisfaction with innovation and technical leadership from business process outsource organizations, and a demand for high-level business benefits beyond cost savings.
The report, “BPO in the 2020s: How Leaders Will Be Positioned”, is the result of survey responses and direct interviews conducted by SSON with C-level executives and industry consultants from a business and finance, insurance, health, BPO, retail, and telecommunications in the Asia Pacific region.
The results speak to a need for change within the BPO ecosystem, and a demand for greater transparency and a more pro-active approach to problem solving and process improvement by BPOs on behalf of their clients.
As report editor Barbara Hodge points out, “From the earliest days of Shared Services, Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) has been a key plank in optimizing performance. Over the past decade, however, technology shifts have stood the original BPO value proposition on its head. Today, customers want more than just lower cost resources or to offload tasks.”
Survey responses captured and analyzed in the report suggest that BPO customers feel that they are moving faster than their BPOs when it comes to technology and innovation—often providing their own resource support to drive change, increase efficiency and achieve innovation.
The trend in greater innovation and efficiency is reflected by the rapid adoption of technologies like intelligent process automation (IPA) by companies, particularly as it relates to the kind of high-volume, high-velocity back office processes most often outsourced to BPOs.’
From Artsyl’s perspective, adoption of accounts payable automation for vendor invoices, as well as automation for sales orders, has grown rapidly within middle market companies, regardless of industry, company size or region.
The fact that companies can easily apply IPA technologies to financial process automation, with no coding and minimal IT overhead, puts end users in the driver’s seat, leading to a shift in expectations and priorities when it comes to working with external partners like BPOs.
“The days of handing a process over and paying the bills are long gone.”
The good news from SSON’s APAC survey data suggest that BPO customers remain bullish when it come to working with BPOs. In fact, nearly 75% indicated that they are optimistic about growth in activity working with their BPOs.
The challenge lies in a broad level of dissatisfaction with quality and technology—suggesting that BPOs are falling behind as new technology approaches are adopted by their clients. Nearly half of survey respondents cited “lack of customer centricity” as their biggest challenge when outsourcing, while nearly a third (29%) cited a lack of technical leadership as an issue.
The OPPORTUNITY for BPOs is to leapfrog their existing systems, applications and processes by exploring the new generation of flexible, code free platforms like Artysl’s docAlpha business transformation platform, to help customers embrace intelligent process automation throughout their organizations.
If you’re in the U.S. and would like to weigh in with your perspective as a BPO client, go to: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/SSON2019
To explore how Intelligent Process Automation and data capture can help automate and accelerate operations for your back office, within your organization or in partnership with your BPO, contact your Artsyl Technologies representative at support@artsyltech.com.