Challenges BPO buyers face
"We will help you overcome the obstacles so you can reach your goals."
While most buyers want an enhanced BPO value proposition, there are several challenges that limit their goals:
- New buyers face numerous internal struggles; the foremost being management's skeptical views regarding outsourcing. Both management and employees tend to resist the implementation as it requires cultural transition. There is also the disparity in expectations between buyer and supplier. Having no experience, the buyer may expect more than the supplier can deliver. New buyers often lack internal focus.
- Mature buyers, on the the other hand, face different challenges. First, they have to develop internal people to manage the relationship; not the process. They then have to put together a succession plan and work in partnership with their suppliers to receive continuous improvements and innovation.
Some buyers have to manage multiple suppliers; a dynamic that creates its own challenges. They have to learn to manage hands-off across boundaries. They also have to balance captive and outsourcing suppliers in their organization’s strategy. On top of that, there are supplier concentration risks. Finally, who’s going to manage and govern the various contracts?
Here are the challenges that all BPO buyers face:
- Knowledge transfer, transition, and stabilization typically takes longer and requires more effort than they expected.
- There is an initial drop in service levels.
- They have difficulty designing and implementing a governance organization.
- Buyers often have a lack of supplier management skills.
- They can’t figure out how to optimize the retained organization and it ends up either too large or too small.
- Change management is difficult because they have to ensure the entire organization is “onboard”.
- They have to integrate disparate systems landscape.
- They have trouble retaining and recruiting talent.
These challenges evolve over the course of the engagement life cycle. Typical pain points include the transition to a BPO model, governance, the retained organization, and talent management.