Offshore Business

Business process outsourcing (BPO) is a strategic activity adopted by almost all types of business. Sometimes businessmen feel that their performance is getting down due to extra burden on the managers or business staff. Then they adopt outsourcing its business process so that they can prevent this problem. There may be other reasons behind business process outsourcing which may include lack of relevant expertise, lack of modern technology, cost factor etc.

When concept of business process outsourcing was introduced, businessmen realized that they can better run the business processes by transferring their work which demands more skilled people to other organization and become perfect in the remaining processes. Usually back-office processes are outsourced.

Offshore business provides a lot of benefits to the investors but the main is the cost and quality factor. It also supports time saving. Offshore Business Process Outsourcing offers many advantages to the business people according to the nature of processes transferred but the main important benefits may include accessing more advanced knowledge, skills, abilities and technology that are missing in the home organization, attain a major organizational change, save time to focus on strategy formulation and other core projects etc. it provides more chances of development to the developing countries.

“When and what to outsource” is a very important and critical issue. No doubt outsourcing offers a lot of advantages but it is the decision of the businessman who would avail these advantages. Therefore he should be very careful in making outsourcing decisions. He should conduct proper research about the offshore geographic location where the business can outsource its process. At the same time he should make an analysis of benefits of outsourcing different processes. Making this decision with less care will give no significant advantage but it will surely cause headache of overlooking the performance of the process being outsourced.

Historical review of offshore outsourcing shows that it was not accepted very after its introduction but later on it achieved continuous growth. At present almost all business units are practicing this activity. From research and surveys it was observed that all business people stated that they are quite satisfied with this activity as it has significantly contributed to their success, efficiency by reducing process costs and enhancing profitability.

In short it can be said that Offshore Business Process Outsourcing is a supporting activity and has always satisfied the expectation of the business people.

Outsourcing is a very interesting concept with respect to the progress of a business. It is a type of contract among the organization and skilled people to work for an organization. If we look into the past, we will come to know that the evolution of offshore outsourcing is not very formal. First people did not accept the concept of outsourcing with an overconfident thinking that they can manage all their business affairs by themselves. When managers of the organizations realized that their HR resources or any other technological resources are not fully competent to perform different functions of the organization, they realized that deficiency of expertise can be overcome by making contracts with some specialists to perform that function.

In the beginning of this trend, managers did not happily welcomed and accepted this concept but later on all the organizations seemed involved in these types of contracts. By doing this, organizations succeeded to enhance their functionality in better ways. In the beginning, developed countries adopted this strategy as a negative practice and laid undue stress on developing countries to work for them at low rates. In this way, they saved their costs and enhanced their profitability. Later on this activity took a new shape and people got a right to decide whether to work for others or not. An example of outsourcing is taking the services of auditors or accountants etc.

After accepting this concept of outsourcing, the new and modern concept of offshore outsourcing was introduced. Most probably it happened in the mid of 20^th century when industrial revolution was on its peak. Business people took it more serious to expand their business, enhance their functionality and profitability to attain desired customer satisfaction level.

Offshore outsourcing is an activity in which the organization transfers their work load to another offshore company to focus on its core activities with full attention. A very common example of offshore outsourcing is to avail opportunity of offshore call center outsourcing. It can also be explained with another example when an organization imports technology from some other offshore location and asks for an expert to better handle that technology. This is what we call offshore outsourcing.

Revolution in computer and information technology has greatly contributed to promote offshore outsourcing. Outsourced activities may include data processing, human resource, IT, accountings etc. If we compare the past and present situations, it is quite transparent that offshore outsourcing has become very popular and beneficial for the business. It has become integral part of almost all organizations. It seems that it will further grow in the future.

Outsourcing means to hire outside companies and experts to perform certain business operations. Most commonly those business units use this activity which tends to concentrate on their key functions and want to enhance their market place as well as enhance the quality of their products. Business units enjoy most significant advantage of outsourcing and that is cost reduction factor. And this advantage can be enhanced by outsourcing offshore in the developing countries. When a business goes in the developing countries for outsourcing services, it has to be more conscious in hiring experts.

Most commonly selected countries where the developed countries show interest to outsource include India, Malaysia, and Philippines etc. This discussion is wholly based on outsourcing in Philippines. A lot of market surreys resulted with the same result and that is, business can save significant costs by outsourcing its business operations. Examples of outsourced function and activities include; telemarketing, e-marketing, manufacturing, call center services and many other operations. Even sometimes businesses outsource their core functions.

Having discussion about offshore outsourcing in Philippines we may need to answer following questions:

• Why Select Philippines to outsource?
• What services are best available in Philippines?
• Information about state rules regarding taxes and other charges?
• What is cost benefit?

No matter in which country the developed countries want to outsource, all have to find out answers of these questions. Offshore outsourcing in Philippines has become a common practice with the emergence of call center services in Philippines. People in this country were given importance due to their Excellency in English language. Most business units started outsourcing their call centers in Philippines.

Developed countries received a very encouraging response from people in Philippines and therefore they have also started outsourcing their research, medical, legal services, manufacturing processes, finance and accounts related services, IT development and many other main functions. Many host companies have been established in Philippines that deal with the outside countries and provide them with concerned expertise. Outsourcing in Philippines has reached on top position in outsourcing because its people are very compromising in nature and are very talented.

A separately managed office by the companies for the purpose of dealing with the large volume of receiving and transmitting calls either made for the purpose of product promotion, advertising purpose, settlement of claims, receiving complaints or answering calls related to inquiries about the company’s products is known as a call center.

Outsourcing of a call center is becoming a common practice. Mostly large scale companies use this technique. These companies make a contract with the private call center companies to assist them in receiving and transmitting the company’s calls. Through this, companies save their time and costs, make them busy in performing all their core responsibilities and invest more time in product development, product promotion, marketing and sales related activities.

Call centers basically serve the customers. They are being established to satisfy the customers. To understand call center offshore outsourcing the same concept of outsourcing of call center will be used. Call center offshore outsourcing means to make contracts with the call center agencies or companies in the offshore countries. By doing this companies can enjoy the benefits of both outsourcing and off shoring at the same time.

Call center offshore outsourcing is more suitable for the business having a wide area of customers. The main and foremost important advantage of call center offshore outsourcing is that the world wide companies can better treat their customers. Outsourcing in different geographical locations will enable them to treat targeted customers of that particular area with the help of the call center in the same area.

Using this technique the companies also enjoy all benefits of the offshore services which may include low cost management, product advertisement as per the goals of the company, escape from taxes and many more. Most commonly the same concept of offshore business supports the call center offshore outsourcing. The call center company is owned by the people within the same country but they serve different offshore companies and charge for providing services.

Large scale companies take advantage from the call center services of the developing countries or less developed countries. These countries get job opportunities and the companies get a better platform to deal with their customers globally. These companies use this service to accommodate their customers, solve all their messes and give equal importance and attention to all the customers round the globe.

Some economists have observed the present situation of call center offshore outsourcing and they have the view that contribution of this service in the company’s development is very positive and it seems that this service will surely support the large scale even small scale companies to properly focusing on their customers and laying proper management attention towards the basic managerial responsibilities. Most developing countries are offering the private call center services to the rich and large scale companies, and adding to the repute of these organizations.