For bootstrapping entrepreneurs, balancing the need to fill different roles along with containing costs can be an enormous challenge. Whether it’s customer experience, HR, IT, marketing, sales, R&D, or accounting and payroll, the many business processes needed to launch and grow an organization can quickly eat up even the largest rounds of funding. For cost-conscious, but growth-oriented founders, the best solution is outsourcing BPO services to the Philippines.
“The most obvious benefit is the potential for savings on staffing costs. From call centers to back-office support and more, the Philippines has built a world-class workforce, with an average hourly rate for a premium BPO agent being US$12-14/hour. When compared to US$24-28/hour for a similar role in the U.S., a savvy entrepreneur can realize an immediate 50% savings by partnering overseas with the same kinds of premium vendors that multi-national corporations such as Facebook, Google, Alibaba, Slack, and GitHub work with,” says Ralf Ellspermann, CEO of PITON-Global, an award-winning contact center in the Philippines.
And if you’re not sure what service or role you need to be covered, outsourcing allows business owners to test different business models before committing resources. Now consider the benefits of working with a single outside provider rather than hiring multiple contractors domestically or hiring full-time employees in various geographies or time zones. Having one relationship mitigates risk and ensures there’s no possibility for uncoordinated efforts – a common problem when working with multiple vendors.
“Many businesses begin to consider outsourcing as an option after they’ve reached a certain level of growth and/or to handle an overflow of work. A better model is to partner with a business outsourcing service early and hand specific work over to a specialist.
The Philippines boasts an impressive workforce of 1.2 million agents working in a variety of specialized roles. And these are not just entry-level positions either; thousands of these support specialists receive specialized training and education in their chosen field, whether that be IT, accounting, digital marketing, or research and development,” says Ellspermann.
Additionally, consider the flexibility that’s associated with using an outsourced BPO in the Philippines. For example, as your business grows and you begin to develop new offerings, there could be a need to hire salespeople at each new office location. Depending on the city, those roles could be quite expensive.
At the same time, your global operations will need to scale to keep up with demand. And that often means hiring C-level roles like controllers, managers, and support staff across multiple departments. While you can handle these roles internally by bringing on additional permanent staff or through remote workers in other countries, there are tremendous benefits associated with flexibility.
Outsourcing allows you to keep costs low by paying only for the services needed today while enabling growth through a provider that can scale up or down as needed. This is especially true if you need specific skills or expertise that you don’t have on your team.
“In a digital and tech-driven world, many businesses require specialized technology that’s necessary to support everything from minute financial transactions to data compilations. While an in-house IT department is well-positioned to handle these kinds of highly technical projects, it means working with multiple vendors and trying to manage their interactions,” explains Ellspermann.
A business outsourcing partner has the resources and infrastructure to provide access to global services no matter where your business is located. And because they serve multiple industries, it means you never have to worry about if the technology will meet your needs.
Whether you need communications software for customer service reps, data mining services to compile demographic information, or special skills staffing to handle highly technical functions, there’s a company in the Philippines that can meet your needs. And in many cases, they’ll do so without requiring you to build out an entire IT department just for these services.
Partnering with an experienced outsourcing provider such as PITON-Global in the Philippines means getting experienced, knowledgeable professionals at a fraction of the cost and with the ability to grow with your organization as it does.