Business process outsourcing or BPO is the use of an external service provider to perform specific non-core but essential tasks in your business. These tasks, including payroll processing, accounting, customer service, and clerical duties, are delegated by the company to the provider who then takes the full responsibility for these tasks by performing them according to agreed standards of quality.

The US$154 billion BPO industry has grown at an estimated rate of 10.9% annually. The worldwide BPO market has been continuously expanding, not just in terms of revenue, but also in terms of processes, tasks and that may be outsourced. There is also an increased number of countries and locations that are opening up their shores to the BPO industry.

A majority of people think that the foremost consideration in BPO is the savings in cost. Saving on salary and benefits that would have been paid to an in-house employee, most companies can pass this savings on to the consumers in the form of lower prices of their goods and services, or they can spend it on other things.

But cost savings is not the be-all and end-all of the advantages of BPOs. Most companies gain the flexibility that business process outsourcing service providers give. Firstly, most BPO vendors insist on a fee-for-service basis. It gives rise to the fact that the company can think of these expenses as a variable cost, not as a fixed cost. That means the company only pays for the level of service it needs, when it needs it.

Contracting a BPO also allow most businessnes to grow faster. For instance, a company that would like to set up a call center to augment their customer service would only need to contact a BPO company. That company will no longer worry about capital expenditures for furniture, personnel and equipment. Additionally, the company would not worry about having to source, hire and train new employees for the call center. In effect, the company now has experienced agents in an instant. They do so at only a fraction of the cost of setting up their own call center.

A BPO provider also allows you to focus more on your core business. Having mere administrative and other tasks out of the way, especially those considered as non-core, your managers can train their energies on training their people, research and development, closing significant business deals and other areas that would directly impact the bottomline.

It is, however, important to choose your BPO vendor carefully and with much thought. A company just cannot trust a third party with their insider information just like that. Ask your colleagues or others in your industry for recommendations and go with one that you could trust. Lastly, select a BPO vendor with a proven track record in giving their customers the best service for the most cost-effective price!


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As the affects of economic recession become more pronounced, more companies are looking for ways to cut corners without sacrificing quality. One of the ways companies can do this is through outsourcing their incoming calls. Instead of hiring employees to answer calls and take messages, companies can economize by using an answering service that employs live operators. Since these telephone workers are outsourced, companies don't have to shell out cash on the hiring process or insurance premiums and other benefits. In addition, the efficiency of using trained live operators increases revenue as well as frees up precious company time.

When companies speak to an answering service representative and break down their budget, most realize how much they'll save with an answering service, particularly through:

Saving on staff. While answering services do charge a monthly fee, it's much more affordable to businesses than hiring full-time staff. When companies outsource to answering services, they also save on vacation time, holidays, and benefits.

Rising Sales. When companies outsource to answering services, their sales numbers often jump. This is often due to the order-taking and consumer payment services provided by the answering service. Outsourcing can increase the hours for your company, since most vendors provide 24-hour telephone answering and order taking. When businesses have a 24 hour staff of live operators, consumers are free to place their orders at their convenience.

In these economic times, it's important for businesses to assess their costs and brainstorm new ways to save. Through this vital cost analysis, many businesses are finding that answering services provide direct results without sacrificing quality service.


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The only reason for people to outsource is to work less and make more money. Even though you hear a lot of these so called 'Gurus' banging on about how they do everything themselves to avoid duplication and create something fresh blah blah blah, well sorry to break the trust and word of gurus but they do outsource some of their work, if not all!

Why do they do this? Well I'm not too sure myself but partly because of the fact that they have made their name and fame and can afford to. However if you new to IM then it would be best to try and do everything yourself to save costs but if you have been in the IM game and have made some profit then it won't hurt to outsource.

Oh yeah and by the way outsource means, to obtain a good or service from an outside supplier or source, in plain English that means to send out work to an outside provider to save costs and mainly to save yourself from doing it. Why do you think all these big fish gurus in IM are able to maintain several premium businesses... well that's simple because they outsource.

No matter what you hear outsource can save you from extra work and it can cut costs, notice I'm saying 'can' and not will because it depends what kind of work you require from the person you outsource from.

Now if you are interested in getting some of your work outsourced then there are several sites where you can go including Elance.com, Rentacoder.com, Craigslist.com, Guru.com and there are a few more but the ones listed are the main ones.

Elance is the one I like to use, yes I do outsource some of my work as well, it's got a huge variety of people that deal in nearly every element of IM including SEO, web design, PHP, graphic design, and more or less everything. One of the things I love about using Elance is the security of your money when paying through an escrow account. Escrow is, say for example you're willing to pay $100 for some outsource work to be done then you send that $100 to Elance, they then take that off your credit card or PayPal account and hold that money in an escrow account for you.

Once your provider has done the work and you are satisfied with the work then you'll be able to release the escrow money and then Elance will pay your provider. It's great protection for you and your provider. Guru and Craigslist are similar to Elance and RentACoder is more for like software coders, copywriters and that kind of thing.

If you are really serious about getting some work outsourced and want to learn more about different sites and techniques to outsource effectively and getting the right person for the job, then you want to head over to Jeff Mills Outsource Compendium to get a better understanding. By the way I learnt how to outsource from this guy and really learnt a lot, there's more to outsourcing than you think. This guy also has an interview with Mike Filsaime about outsourcing!! Must See!


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Interview transcription is one of the areas of transcription where a high level of accuracy is of paramount importance. It is a specialized service, requiring high expertise. An interview is a question-answer based conversation involving two or more people. Today, interviews are conducted in many different areas of human activity as a means of evaluating and learning about a person or persons or to disseminate information. Therefore interview transcription services involve acquiring the recordings of interviews and transcribing them. The conversion of interview recordings is basically turned into text form format that can easily be used.

Interview transcription is beneficial for various companies across industries as well as for different departments within a company. With an increase in the number of interview transcription assignments and each one turning out to be so time consuming, outsourcing such a job is fast emerging as an alternate option. Outsourcing interview transcription services can help you save on time, operating costs and extra resources.

Because interview transcription is an extremely broad term that encompasses a wide number of types within it, an outsourcing company should have vast experience in the transcription of all of these types of interview. A list of the types of interviews that an outsourcing company can transcribe for is as follows:

• Oral History Interview
• One-on-One Interview
• Consulting
• Multiple Participant Interview
• Research Interview
• News Interview
• Radio Interview
• Television
• Journalist Interview
• Focus Group Interview
• Roundtable Discussion
• Group Discussion
• Market Research
• Dissertation
• Thesis
• Job Interview
• Police Interview
• Political Interview Transcripts
• Legal Interview
• Deposition
• Teleconference
• Verbatim
• Telephone Interview

Transcribed interviews represent people, their thoughts, and their ideas, which in turn form their personality and image. It deals with a lot of sensitive information hence the need for confidentiality. A professional outsourcing company providing such a service, will have strict privacy policies geared to protect the confidentiality and security of information that may be contained in its clients' recordings. The company will further see to it that its employees, partners, and vendors sign non-disclosure agreements and even train and educate their staff about these policies. Adherence can also be continually reinforced and random checks conducted to ensure compliance.

Outsourcing companies are able to transcribe audio interview recordings from analog cassettes, mini discs and digital audio files, as well as video interviews, PACE tapes, DVD and DAT tapes. Interview transcripts can be saved to disk, transported via email, secure FTP and/or a hard copy created. Also because interview and general transcription is often highly specialized in terms of content and requires native English language skills and excellent grammar in most cases, in order to ensure excellent accuracy, interview transcripts need to always be transcribed by people with high expertise in these areas. Furthermore, an outsourcing company can have a strong and proprietary web-based file routing platform which enables its clients to upload audio files and templates, as well as monitor the full life cycle of the client's recordings and documents from dictation to transcription. The platform also archives the clients audio and documents for an agreed period of time, for future retrieval.



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