2020 has emerged as one of the most challenging years in history. Every organization had to search for methods to recover from the health and economic issues brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. Many sectors believe that global outsourcing is one of the solutions.
The global health crisis created massive impacts on most of the world–and industries. Businesses have to look for ways to save or lower their costs and expenses by revising their budgets.
With the help of global outsourcing, companies can work with partners on the other side of the globe to carry out parts of their work. It can help enterprises increase market share, particularly in the post-pandemic era.
Top three trends in the global outsourcing practice
The COVID-19 pandemic has altered many priorities in the corporate world. For one, significant changes have opened up many opportunities for IT service providers to enhance many parts of their offerings.
IT services innovations centered on delivering better offerings, at the same time, taking the lead in the aftermath of the pandemic.
As the lockdown began in 2020, different firms quickly embraced remote work. This has also sparked a vast shift to digital transformation in organizations worldwide.
For the global outsourcing practice, here we have three main trends that organizations should look into in the post-pandemic era:
Opportunity to build more flexible frameworks
With the pandemic restrictions hitting all types of enterprises —small and large— a lot of businesses were forced to close. One significant change in businesses globally is the increased flexibility that it now provides to workers.
According to a PWC’s US Remote Work Survey, 83% of employers believed that shifting to remote work has been a success for their companies.
The pandemic has led to organizations overcoming technological barriers that prevented this kind of flexibility in working arrangements. Companies at present have fully embraced flexible work models like permanent work-from-home or hybrid setups.
Remote work enables employers to reduce operational costs, at the same time, tap into a global talent pool.
After all, geographical restrictions are no longer a problem. Google, Ford, and Amazon are just some of the examples of companies that have fully adopted the remote work framework.
While some employees prefer this flexibility in the workplace, others prefer to maintain social connections and find that they perform more effectively in an actual office.
To be fair, it would be much better if a company could assess first if their organization adapts to this flexible work environment.
Resilience in outsourcing arrangements
The ability to bounce back strongly after experiencing adversity is one trait displayed by businesses that were able to withstand the implications of the pandemic. And, of course, it wouldn’t be possible without global outsourcing.
The demand for outsourcing was mainly driven by the need for firms to increase their agility, technological advancements, and cost reduction.
In terms of resilience in outsourcing arrangements, businesses will opt to build their global teams for strategic partnerships. This means more and more organizations will offshore services to BPO providers all over the world.
With the help of today’s technology, seamless collaboration from remote teams is viable. This way, businesses are also able to get hold of seasoned professionals from across the globe and fill in talent gaps within their type of industry.
Increased automation outsourcing
They say that business process automation (BPA) is the new form of outsourcing. Through technology, companies will be able to transform their manual and repetitive tasks into hands-free functions by automating these processes.
Automation brings various benefits to organizations, such as reducing errors, improving data security, and enhancing transparency. It also helps in-house employees to focus their time on other important tasks, therefore, boosting their productivity.
Companies will need the support of third-party providers to automate their processes. BPA involves identifying which parts of daily operations need to be automated, developing new processes, and managing automated processes. All of which can be handled by a premier outsourcing provider like OP360.
How will these trends impact the future of global outsourcing
The changes that have occurred as a direct result of COVID-19’s aftermath have sped up the digital transformation in various corporate sectors. However, business leaders were able to turn some of the negative effects of the pandemic into positive ones through global outsourcing.
As international firms continuously adopt more flexible frameworks, employing remote workers will likely be a popular strategic practice. Offshoring to BPO providers located in other countries will help businesses tap into the global workforce, fill in talent gaps, and at the same time, save massively on operational costs.
Business process automation eliminates the need for organizations to farm out their non-core functions. However, they will still need the help of an outsourcing provider in automating and managing their automated processes.
