Australian businesses have been faced with a scarcity of talent and labour, coupled with economic challenges such as inflation and the high cost of doing business. As a result, many are proactively seeking ways to streamline their operations and reduce costs to avoid being caught off guard by a potential business crisis. Business process outsourcing, a long-accepted strategic decision for Australian businesses, is increasing in popularity for firms looking to enhance their customer experience while reducing costs.
It’s important for Australian firms to stay ahead of the curve and understand the trends and opportunities that lie ahead. To that end, we published a video with tips for business on YouTube.
And in this blog post, we’ll touch on the triggers for business process outsourcing in Australia.
How Big is the Business Process Outsourcing Industry?
According to IBISWorld, the Business Process Outsourcing Services industry growth is annualized at 1.9% from ~ $72bn by 2029. This is equivalent to approximately AUD 86.5 billion.
Trigger – Improving Financial Resilience
For Australian firms to weather economic challenges and remain competitive, they need to adopt a flexible business model that can quickly adapt to changing market conditions. This could involve outsourcing non-core functions to a third-party provider, freeing up resources to focus on core competencies and strategic initiatives. By doing so, businesses can optimize costs, saving as much as 50% on in-house efforts. This leads to broader efficiency, ultimately improving cash flow to invest in strategic initiatives.
While many take a tepid first step into outsourcing lured by the cost savings, they usually find a strong outsourcing partner that gives them the confidence to expand into more skill sets and capabilities. This is often the result that quality is at a minimum the same, but often better because the workload gets distributed efficiently. Often in an outsourcing scenario, companies that have outsourced for the first time find they have more time to pursue projects and initiatives that were on the backburner before. In our experience, the growth and savings they realize in-house offsets even the cost of outsourcing leading to a double win for the customer.
Trigger – Increased Focus on Data Security:
The Australian business environment is highly susceptible to cybersecurity incidents. According to a report by BBC , a popular cybercrime website Genesis was seized in a collaborative operation involving 17 countries, resulting in more than 120 arrests. Similarly, a news report from Reuters claimed that Latitude Group, one of Australia’s largest businesses, reported a data breach of confidential information of around 328,000 customers.
As more businesses outsource their operations, naturally, data security and data privacy has become an increasingly important topic. With the rise of cybercrime and data breaches, every business we speak with wants to ensure their data is secure. Between the efforts of our compliance office, data security, and data privacy, Premier BPO has implemented robust security measures to ensure that our clients data is protected at all times. We were recently recognized for maintaining PCI certification 5 years in a row.
Trigger – Focus on Customer Experience:
Ever since Thomas Friedman’s book “The World is Flat” described globalization and competitive threats from everywhere, companies have placed a high emphasis on customer experience (“CX”). After the pandemic and ‘The Great Realization’, finding in-house talent to manage customer service, and customer experience has been challenging due to labour market scarcity.
In the Australian market, customer experience (CX) is more important than ever. According to a survey by Deloitte, 82% of companies in Australia view customer experience as a competitive differentiator. Why isn’t it 100%? Who knows!
Australian consumers prefer self-service and find it more convenient to connect via omnichannel access. And while digital CX tools are gaining popularity, customers still crave personalised service. Until technology and AI can become more reliable (and safe), humans are still the most empathetic when a customer is having a challenge.
As a result, businesses focused on providing the best customer experience have turned to outsourcing providers and utilise a more human-based approach to engaging their customers. At Premier BPO, we ensure our team reflects the culture of our clients and helps them provide high-quality service that is appreciated by their customers, even when those calls are tough ones. We help our clients manage their costs by leveraging our workforce management expertise. We staff based on the needs of the business, by dedicating personnel to the client and deliberately overstaffing at our expense, to cover people on vacations or sick days.
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Availability and Access to CX Technology:
Never in our history have we had so many options and vendors to choose from when it comes to solving a problem with technology. Whether it is sales tech, edtech, martech, or the customer experience tech stack, companies are inundated by emails and calls from vendors. Each vendor has whitepapers and research to back up their solution so as someone evaluating these technologies, it can be very confusing.
That’s where an outsourcing partner like Premier BPO can come in to help utilise a combination of technology and services to serve end customers and stakeholders best. Our technology team is constantly looking at cutting-edge solutions for predictive analytics, ad targeting, training, automation tools, personalised recommendations, etc. Our integration team ensures we can onboard client-selected technology and utilise existing investments.
In today’s globalized and highly competitive business environment, customer experience (CX) has become a crucial differentiator for companies. However, finding and retaining skilled in-house talent to manage customer service has become increasingly difficult due to labour shortages and a human- centred approach to customer service. As a result, outsourcing providers like Premier BPO can help companies prioritize CX by providing highly skilled and culturally aligned teams that can deliver exceptional customer experiences. By leveraging our workforce management centre of excellence, we ensure our clients have the right staffing levels and dedicated teams to meet their customers’ needs and manage costs effectively.
What’s Next:
Business Process Outsourcing in Australia is poised for continued growth in the coming year, driven by a focus on customer experience and the accessibility of CX-enabling technologies (including AI and ChatGPT). The labour shortage and inflationary pressure are expected to last for several years. By partnering with an outsourcing solutions provider like Premier BPO, Australian businesses can stay ahead of the curve and remain competitive in an increasingly globalised marketplace.
