Tag Archives: BPO Companies

What is better about your BPO company?

March 26, 2013 by 123outsource
Categories: BPO | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Do you run a call center, BPO, KPO, software or IT outsourcing company? Do clients ever ask you what is better about your company? I think they should — and you should know how to answer them as well. Most companies that our staff talk to have no idea what is better about their company. Perhaps nothing is better about their company, and that is why they don’t know how to answer us. But, there SHOULD be something better about your company, otherwise how are you in business? Here are some ways to be the best BPO company possible.

(1) You could be faster at doing the same work or processes others do. I knew a pianist who could play the minute waltz in less than 33 seconds. We clocked him. It didn’t sound great being played that fast, but if you are in a hurry waiting for a train that is about to arrive, and want to hear the minute waltz, that particular pianist is the one to hire.

(2) You could have nicer staff than other BPO companies. These days, I am rarely happy about anyone’s staff. Every company seems to have one shining employee who brightens up my day, and the rest — well — the rest are the rest! Let’s put it that way.

(3) You could be cheaper. Some companies are cheaper, but don’t get the job done right. Are they really cheaper after the hassle? But, what if you really do get jobs done correctly and STILL are cheaper? Well, then you really are cheaper.

(4) You could have a nicer looking office. For outsourcing, nobody is coming to your office, so it doesn’t matter.

(5) Your receptionist could have a nicer sounding voice. A nice voice makes an impression

(6) You could have more flexible terms. Many companies are rigid these days. Having terms that benefit the client might bring you more clients. HAVING TERMS THAT BENEFIT YOU, MIGHT BRING YOU MORE YOU’S (if that is possible or desireable).

(7) You might do a better job and follow directions more.

(8) You might train your staff better.

(9) You could hire a fancier salesperson who is great at getting you new clients who you might be equally good at keeping (or losing).

(10) You might offer more related services. ONE STOP SHOPPING. If you do web design, you could also offer programming, social media, blog installation, and more. If you do call center work, you could offer data entry, surveys, statistical analysis, and virtual private assistants.

But, the bottom line is — no matter what is better about your company, if you can’t express that to the world, then it will take them a lot longer to find out what is good about you!

The back burner strategy for outsourcing

March 8, 2013 by 123outsource
Categories: Outsourcing Articles | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

I don’t see BPO companies who think like this. Most BPO companies have really obtuse pricing strategies. It is too bad, because they would be able to grow more, and pinpoint what their clients want with a bit more innovation in their pricing strategy.

Imagine that you are an outsourcing company. Imagine that you have four employees that do a type of task. Perhaps they are call center workers, or perhaps programmers. Programmers are a better example since they often do a few hours a week for one client and a few hours for another client. But, the type of work they do is immaterial. The point is that in any given type of shop environment, you might have certain workers who are just busy all the time, and others who might have free time. Or, you might want to hire someone new, but don’t have enough work to keep them busy full time. So, what do you do?

My suggestion is NOT to have a flat labor rate. The rate for labor should depend on:

(1) Which employee is assigned to a particular account

(2) How busy that employee has been during the previous quarter.

If they were really busy, then you raise their hourly rate by several percent each quarter they were booked up, until you reach an equilibrium.

(3) Charge based on the time sensitivity of the job.

Front Burner Jobs
Let’s say that you have three rates for each employee. Let’s say that Mary’s time will be billed at $100 per hour. However, if you have a rush job, Mary will put you first — no matter what. Since other people will be delayed, it is only natural that you would have to bill more for the rush job. “Front Burner” or rush jobs might be billed at $130 per hour for example. In real life, perhaps only $115 or $120. You should taylor your rate so that 15-25% of any employees monthly labor consists of “Front Burner” jobs.

Back Burner Jobs
On the other hand, what if a client wants you to work for cheap, but doesn’t care when you get the project done. In such a case, you could charge them $60 per hour for Mary’s work. However, Mary would only work on your job when she has no more medium burner or front burner jobs to do. You might be waiting for months to get even one hour of Mary’s time. The problem is that your client might LEAVE if nothing gets done on their project for months.

A Back Burner Contract Idea
So, you need a CONTRACT where you guarantee the client a certain amount of work that you will get done. In exchange for offering a low price, you need to get flexibility from the client in exchange. I feel this is fair. After all, if the client needs your company to be flexible by doing a rush job, you charge them more, right? Let’s say that the client has a job that is 200 hours of labor to complete. Let’s say that the client is willing to give you up to a year to accomplish this task, but you can go as fast as you want. However, the client wants to make sure that you are not completely slacking off, otherwise there is no point in assigning this project to you. So, you can have a contract that states that you will do at least 15 hours of work per month on their contract, but you can do as much as 100 hours per work on the job too if you like.

The Next Issue – WHO will be working on the Back Burner Job?
Back Burner jobs are perfect if you have an employee who is no longer in demand. If your previous star employee only has an average of 20 hours per week of billable work, and you don’t want to fire them, then a back burner job would cover your costs to keep that employee around. On the other hand, what if you never know which of your employees will have time to work on a project? Whichever has extra time on their hands would be perfect for that back burner project. On a brigher note, if your company is growing, your new employee might have very few paying jobs to keep him busy, so a back burner job would be great for the first few months until you can dump some high paying work on him. The problem is, that your client might like Mary to be doing the work, and if Mary gets busy, the client might not like it if John (the new guy) starts picking up where Mary left off. After all John is new and might not be any good. If you write a contract, you have to specify WHO is authorized to do the work on a particular project, or at least what skill level of people. Certain BPO jobs require a specific skill level after all.

It is complicated having different employees all with differing hourly rates, and then to add the complexity of billing based on time sensitivity. However, this way you can deliver optimal results to your clients and be more popular. To me, it makes sense if a company aims for having 10-20% of their total work being back burner work. Why? This way you have plenty of time to accept rush jobs, so you don’t keep your paying customers waiting… Think about it.

Many BPO companies will take on a new client and promise to get their project done fast. Then, they will get a much bigger client, and put the smaller client on the back burner without consent. This is a dirty business technique used by so many programming houses. They basically ruin the schedule of the smaller company, and lose them as a client. Then, the big client might dump the BPO company as well, leaving them with NO clients. It is much better to just keep time commitments by charging people enough to warrant overtime pay, and the hassle of an uneven schedule.

The end!

6 Habits of Successful Outsourcing Companies

October 23, 2012 by 123outsource
Categories: Outsourcing Articles, Popular on Twitter | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

I have been talking on the phone to some of the most successful BPO outsourcing businesses in the market. I bet that you are very interested to know what I learned about their habits. There are those who beg for BPO “processes”, and those who get so much work, that it would make you dizzy. So, what is the difference?

(1) Knowledge at your fingertips
The larger and more successful BPO companies have someone knowledgeable answer the phone. The phone rarely goes to voice mail. The person you talk to on the other line can answer most of your preliminary questions, and make you feel confident that their BPO company can get the job done. The difference I see is that some companies have a very sophisticated and knowledgeable person who will talk to you, while others merely have someone “adequate”, who knows the basic answers. Some people at BPO offices I talked to sounded a bit bored, while others sounded like amazing people. I talked to one gentleman who had been a consultant who impressed me. I asked him how he learned to speak English so clearly. He told me how he did consulting all over the United States and London. He is a breed of his own, and guys like him would be too expensive for most of us to hire. But, if you want BPO business, hire someone really good to answer your phones.

(2) 24 hour phone answering?
I just talked to a company that does IT related BPO processes in Delhi the other day (my day — their night). The guy on the other end of the line sounded bored, but he spoke good English and answered all of my questions. His company had hundreds of workers, so they were doing many things right. I prefer to speak to exciting and fascinating people, but someone who gets the job done is much better than 95% of the OTHER outsourcing outfits do.

BPO Business these days is global. If you want to catch calls from other countries, it might matter WHERE your office is — however, it matters more WHEN your office is. If you have an office in Delhi and you answer your line all night long (which is daytime in America), then you can get American clients. You will need an American phone number so you don’t scare off the Yankies. Having an office for BPO in America with locals answering the phone will make you sound local, but to me, knowledge sells much more than having an uneducated blonde on the other end of the line. Have someone who can answer basic business questions who answers the phone. Don’t make prospects work to talk to a salesman. You wait on them, they shouldn’t have to wait for you.

(3) Having the staff to do the job
Big companies have large staffs. They have staffs of different levels of experience, and different specialties too. No matter what type of BPO job you throw at them, they have the availability to get the job done. If you want to get ahead in your outsourcing outfit, you had better have people who are ready to jump on new projects, otherwise you will not get the new projects. Think ahead.

(4) Being flexible
I have notice that many of the companies with 20-40 workers can be very rigid. They want tight contracts that protect THEM, but put their client in a very constricting position. I noticed that the larger BPO outfits are often more flexible about terms. Since they have such a huge staff at large companies, they don’t NEED to lock you into a constrictive contract. In any case, you should be in business to make life easy for your clients if you want to have enough clients to have 200 workers. Think like the big guys — do you think they don’t philosophize about how to please their clients better?

(5) Having higher level workers
Many companies that offer BPO in India have low-end staff, and perhaps a few senior workers who have four or five years experience. If you want to get serious clients, please consider having high-end staff available. Some projects require higher level skills, while some require a mixture of levels of skill. If you only have low-end people, you will scare off the serious clients. If you want to grow your business big, you need big clients, and big clients want smart workers. Think ahead! Big companies in India who do outsourcing have a higher percentage of high skilled people, and they are more accessible than in medium or smaller companies where those “experts” are likely to be tied up on some other project and too busy for your new clients. If you want to get clients like the big guys, give them some skilled workers. It makes all the difference.

(6) Good communication
Some companies in India have great workers, and write good emails, but have a horrible phone manner. Little BPO companies in India almost always are horrifying on the phone. No respectable client would hire them to even pour a cup of coffee with their bad communication skills. The bigger companies seem to have a much better command of phone etiquette and English. However, even many huge companies in India still are far from perfect on the phone — phone manners seem to be a problem across the board in India. But, I will say one thing: the larger BPO companies are MORE LIKELY to have staff with good English and good phone etiquette than the smaller companies.

Are Indians too uptight in business interactions?

September 8, 2012 by admin
Categories: India, Semi-Popular | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Are Indians too uptight in business interactions?

Each region of the world has a different culture or blend of cultures.  India is no exception. India has a vast variety of people, religions, cultures, subcultures, and personalities.  But, what makes India different is that there are a lot of people who are uptight or what we might call socially ungraceful. If you are conducting a business, you need to be very smooth, otherwise others will feel less enticed to have any type of dealings with you at all. In short — being uptight will lose you a lot of business.

Examples of ungraceful behavior

I noticed that at restaurants in India, they warn me with a sense of terror if the dish I am ordering is DRY and has no sauce.  It is like they think the world will come to an end because the dish is dry.  Americans love dry food while Indians would rather perish than eat one bite of something dry.  The problem is NOT the culture difference, but how the situation is handled.  The problem for me is that the waiters are systematically extremely uptight.    Either I am ignored, or I am “uptightly” escorted to a table of THEIR choice.  Then, I am “uptightly” warned that there is a threat of having dry food.  Last, but not least, I am intruded upon by people who insist on pouring my water from MY water bottle which is sitting next to me on the table — without my consent which is very socially ungraceful behavior.    Of course, you are in the BPO, KPO, Call Center, or Programming outsource business, and not in the restaurant business, but the cultural issues are identical across these verticals.

So, what is the solution?

The polished way to handle the rough interactions in the last paragraph are as follows.  A calm, friendly and welcoming welcome are step one in any restaurant meal.  A restaurant that has no host is ignoring their clients which is bad manners even in the simplest of restaurants. It is nice to offer your patrons a choice of tables.  “Would you like a table in the center or a window seat?”.  When I order the Jammu-Kabob combination plate, rather than warning me about the dryness, the waiter could calmly say, “Would you like this dish dry, or would you prefer some masala sauce on the side?”.   Cultural knowledge is important for the water pouring point I made earlier . India is a society with a rigid class system where it is socially unacceptable for the upper classes to pour their own water or even tie their own shoes.  But, Americans of all classes are used to doing things for themselves, and I prefer to pour my own water for cultural reasons.  If someone else wants to pour my water (which is my property which you should touch), then you could at least have the courtesy to ask,”May I pour some more water for you?”

Uptightness in BPO companies

My restaurant example is fun and interesting, but BPO outfits often employ a lot of staff who appear very rigid on the phone.  Either companies need to hire staff members who are more suitable for interacting with overseas clients, or they need to be trained.  When I talk with people at Indian call centers, there is nothing specific that comes to my mind about what they are saying right or saying wrong. It is a general atmosphere of rigidity.  Part of the problem could be that they have a menacing manager looking over their shoulder who makes them feel fearful.  Part of the problem might be that they have to address certain points on a check list, and say certain words verbatum, or else they might get in trouble.  Yes — there needs to be structure in a call center job, but nobody in America wants to talk to someone uptight on the phone.

Solutions for uptight BPO workers…

The solution to uptight workers in BPO companies is to have management that understands what the overseas clients like to hear and how they like to be treated. If the manager only knows what is on a check list of things that need to be done, he will not understand the psychology of the client. This means more training not only for call center workers, but for managers as well — and that is expensive. The result is that you could win over some really large contracts if you do a good job training everyone. Large corporations can assign 1000 seats worth of work to a call center with the blink of an eye, but not if the call center does shoddy work.   The solution is to work on soft skills.  Sure, technical support workers need to be experts at their product knowledge, but understanding how to be graceful and nice in interactions is even MORE important when talking to Americans.  Americans will not want to talk to you no matter how helpful you are if you have the wrong vibe!  Understand our culture, and relax a bit!

Tweets:
(1) Each country has a different culture. What makes India different is the # of uptight or “socially ungraceful” people.
(2) Stay sharp in business, but, remain smooth in your interactions!
(3) If you’re uptight in business, your customers will become uptight too — if you still have any…
(4) Menacing Indian managers transmit tension; this makes workers fearful & rigid
(5) Which is more effective? Going down a checklist or smoothly having an interchange with a client?

(6) Is the manager’s checklist higher on the priority list than gracefully interacting with the client?
(7) The secret to BPO success is to understand how overseas clients like to be treated. Learn our culture & relax a bit.
(8) Work on your soft skills. Americans appreciate grace & manners as much as technical skills

You might also like:

How do you teach interaction and smoothness?
http://bpo.123outsource.net/2012/09/14/how-do-you-teach-interaction-and-smoothness/

Indians who ask a million questions
http://bpo.123outsource.net/2012/06/10/indians-who-ask-a-million-questions/

Power in business is about having choices

September 5, 2012 by admin
Categories: Outsourcing Articles | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Power is about having many choices

I was watching television last night, and an old businessman said, “You don’t get power, you take it”.  This is somewhat true.  But, real power is all about having choices, and good choices.  If you have a million dollars, but there is only one place that serves food where you are, and they want half a million for a hamburger, your money will soon run out. So, money alone is not power.  However, if you know how to use your money, then you have a lot more power.

On the other hand, if you only have $50,000, but there are twenty places selling hamburgers all competing with each other, and you can get your hamburger for 20 cents, and hopefully a good quality burger too, then your money will last a long time.

We live in a strange world, where money is not backed by anything. A few decades ago, American currency was backed by a gold standard. Now, it is backed by nothing, and the money supply can grow when banks “create” more money to loan out. Sure, there are laws regulating how fast they can create money, but money is just arbitrarily created, and the money itself has no inherent value.

One year you might have $100,000, and the the price of gasoline could become $20 / gallon, and all your money will be lost paying for gas.  Another year you could have $200,000, but then fall ill, and your medical expenses could take your last penny.

How does this apply to your BPO business?

In a BPO business, your power is your ability to hire good people to work for you. Rather than just hiring people and settling on them, it is better to hire more people than you need so you can get rid of the underperformers.  Most workers in any country these days are underachievers, and you need to avoid these types like a disease.  Seed and weed is the agricultural expression to describe what I am talking about.

Hiring BPO companies

Also, if you are hiring outside BPO companies to work for your company, don’t just settle for one. Do a lot of shopping around and take notes about their performance. You don’t know a company until they have worked for you a little bit. Then, you will have an idea of how they perform.

The main point of this article is to put a lot of effort into making sure you have choices, and knowing how good those choices are — otherwise you are powerless and helpless!

You might also like:

Techniques for interviewing outsourcing companies

Handling stress in a call center

Assigning billing work overseas to BPO companies

March 14, 2012 by 123outsource
Categories: BPO | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Assigning biling work overseas to BPO companies
 
This is a topic of concern to many US companies, particularly small ones who have less control.  It is nice being a big company.  You can set up huge offices anywhere in the world, get business licenses anywhere and your attorneys will do the work for you.  You can have your head office in the Caymen Islands where there is no corporate tax.  You have a lot of freedom being big.  But, for the rest of us, we do not have these luxuries.  We are at the mercy of who works for us.
 
There are many companies that hire overseas BPO companies to do their billing and credit card transactions.  It is common.  For the most part, it is business as usual.  Americans are always fearful that people in a foreign country will be more likely to cheat them, but I feel that you need to look at countries one by one. India and the Philippines do most of the BPO outsourcing in the world, and there are only scandals from time to time, and perhaps not that many more scandals than their equivalents in the United States.  I don’t have the data.  If you hire a reliable company, all it takes is one bad individual (or apple as we say over here), to spoil the bunch.  One bad employee can commit serious fraud involving credit cards, and ruin a whole company’s reputation and cost them millions. That bad guy could be anywhere. He could be in India, or Canada, or who knows where.
 
If you are in Nevada, and hire a company in Nevada to do work for you, you can have a contract, and you can sue them if they violate the contract.  If you are in Nevada and hire an Indian BPO company to do work for you, it is not so easy to sue them.  For that matter, if you are in India, it is not easy to sue someone in India due to the inefficient legal system.
 
To keep the trust of your clients, if you are a smaller company, you might be better off having your billing done domestically rather than hiring an Indian BPO, and preferably by a trusted staff member.  I would not have billing done by anyone you have worked with for less than a year if at all possible. There is a lot to lose here!

What is the best BPO work environment?

January 21, 2012 by 123outsource
Categories: BPO | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

What is the best BPO work environment?
 
If you are running a BPO, Call Center, Data Entry outsourcing company, or other outsourcing firm, you need to be refined in how to manage your work environment.  I had an interesting chat with a buddy of mine who runs a small web development company. He says that at many of the more successful American IT and marketing companies, everyone works in one large room, where the cubicles have low walls, so you can see everyone at a glance.  This was an interesting opinion. 
 
So, what is better, private cubicles, a room filled with desks and no dividers, or completely separate rooms?  If it is up to me, I like a separate room, but if I am managing others, I like to be able to hear them faintly in the distance, so if they are telling a client the wrong thing, I can run in and intervene — but I get relative peace and quiet simultaneously.  In the real world, my perfect environment is not so easy.
 
Are there studies that discuss the advantages of office set ups?  I am reading on Wikipedia that having a bunch of people working together in the same large room is called an “Open Plan”, and contributes to higher noise, higher turnover, and stress.  I can relate to that.
 
I’m reading another blog called The Good Work Circle that claims  that many larger companies are getting rid of cubicles and adopting an open workspace office set up.  The open workspace model was better for communiation and a sense of community. 
 
I like the idea of a hybrid system for BPO companies, where you get your private space and quiet part of the day, but can have togetherness during other parts of the day. 
 
Another factor is how cool the building is that you are working in.  A really pleasant work environment for BPO companies might have high ceilings, art work, a pool table, a pleasant break room, and places to interact with others. If rooms are too small or efficient, then it might not be so pleasant to be in them.  A good balance between space efficiency and coolness might win the game in the long run.  It is good to not overlook the fact that many people just don’t care about how cool the building is while others who are more tuned it will really notice and just not want to hang around if the work environment is not up to their standards for coolness!
 
Since every group of employees is different, rather that reading a book written by an “expert”, why not listen to YOUR employees and see what they say about what they think a good layout would be!  That way you please the people who you are stuck with, and can make the best out of it.  And remember, BPO companies in India have a high turnover rate, so if you can make your employees lives better, the will stay around longer!

BPO Projects – How to get them and what they entail

October 20, 2011 by 123outsource
Categories: BPO, Popular Posts | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 24 Comments

BPO Projects
BPO = Business Process Outsourcing.  BPO companies typically do data entry, call center, payment processing, and other repetitive back office services.

There are many types of BPO projects out there.  Some are voice processes while others are non-voice processes.  It is important to note, that when communicating with prospective American or Australian clients, they might not understand what you are talking about if you use the term, “non-voice process”.  When talking to Westerners, it is more clear to mention a specific type of process or work such as data mining or telemarketing for example.

What do projects entail?
BPO projects might include a call center or telemarketing project, data conversion, image processing, payment processing, data capture, or a wide variety of other types of work.  It is important to note how many seats will be involved in the work, and how long the work is expected to take unless it is intended to be continuous work on an ongoing project. 

Getting work
Getting BPO projects is not always easy.  Established companies have a steady clientele that might refer them to other overseas companies.  So long as the quality of their work stays intact, they would normally continue getting regular business.  There might be economic cycles that would effect their work volume, but a steady flow of BPO projects would be normal. 

Newer BPO companies, especially those that have weak marketing skills, will find it much harder to get steady work.  Additionally, I have found that inexperienced start-ups have management that doesn’t always have a good command of English.  If your marketing materials are in broken English, it will be hard to attract data entry or call center work, since those lines of work are language intensive.

In the beginning, you should have someone help you with your marketing materials to make sure they will attract foreign clients.  Once you establish a reputation for doing good work for a reasonable price, then business will begin to be more steady. 

How do I get initial work?
You can contact companies overseas that might need your type of services.  Making personal contact is a very effective marketing technique.  You can advertise on alibaba.com, or on 123outsource.net to gain worldwide exposure for your company as well.  The basic trick is to find companies who need your BPO services, and to make them feel confident about using your outsourcing services. Offering them a little bit of work at a discount or for free with liberal terms is the easiest way to get BPO projects fast! If you make life easy for your new clients at a great price, they’ll be very enthusiastic about your company!

More ideas for getting work
Have a website, call companies that might need your service, create a Linked In profile, advertise on large outsourcing directories, use PPC advertising on Google, network with other companies, do email blasts, etc. Please read our more up to date articles below for more thorough information.

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Marketing your BPO outsourcing company from A to Z
http://bpo.123outsource.net/2016/05/22/marketing-your-bpo-outsourcing-firm-from-a-to-z/

How to get more clients for your BPO or Call Center (compilation)
http://bpo.123outsource.net/2015/08/20/how-to-get-more-clients-for-your-bpo-or-call-center-compilation/

What is the process of setting up a BPO company?
http://bpo.123outsource.net/2012/02/04/what-is-the-process-of-setting-up-a-bpo-company/

How to get clients for call centers — contracts!
http://bpo.123outsource.net/2013/04/05/how-to-get-clients-for-call-centers-contracts/

Best Outsourcing Articles (compilation)
http://bpo.123outsource.net/2016/04/02/compilation-of-best-outsourcing-articles/

Outsourcing was first used as a business strategy in 1989
http://bpo.123outsource.net/2015/12/02/outsourcing-was-first-used-as-a-business-strategy-in-1989/

Getting new clients and nurturing them correctly
http://bpo.123outsource.net/2015/04/17/gaining-new-clients-and-nurturing-them-correctly/

Why Indian call centers fail
http://bpo.123outsource.net/2014/03/16/why-indian-call-centers-fail/

From 100 Indian call centers down to 1
http://bpo.123outsource.net/2014/01/21/from-100-indian-call-centers-down-to-1/

Get more clients for your BPO by having better TRAINING
http://bpo.123outsource.net/2013/10/05/how-to-get-more-business-for-your-call-center-better-training/

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BPO Definition and Information

September 30, 2010 by 123outsource
Categories: Outsourcing Articles | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

BPO Definition and Information
 
BPO means business process outsourcing.  It also means broker price option, but in the context of outsourcing, the first definition is the one we will concern ourselves with. There are various types of BPO outsourcing as well as specialties and it is important to understand the distinctions between them.
 
Some BPO companies stick to a particular type of specialty such as Data Entry and it’s associated specialties such as Data Mining, Data Conversion, Data Processing, etc.  Some stick to Call Center (call centre) work and it’s various specialties such as technical support, customer care, customer retention, telemarketing, etc. It is common in India for BPO companies to engage in a wide variety of functions.  I have seen many companies that will do Data Entry, Call Center, Medical Billing, SEO, Software Development, and Web Design, if not even more diverse specialties. BPO companies mostly stick to repetative back office functions like payment processing, information transcription, answering calls, etc.  However, there are other types of outsourcing operations that have very highly trained and highly educated employees.
 
There are various other types of outsourcing that include: KPO, LPO, RPO, and ITO.  There might be more acronyms or terms out there, but these ones are very common. 
 
KPO = Knowledge Process Outsourcing
LPO = Legal Process Outsourcing
RPO = Recruitment Process Outsourcing (HR work)
ITO = Information Technology Outsourcing (Software Development)
 
LPO, RPO, and ITO are easy to understand.  However, the term KPO, which is normally associated with research and analysis,  is often inclusive of legal and software work as well when used in a general way. Most KPO companies engage primarily in various types of research including market research, medical research, pharmaceutical research (a new trend in India), and other types of research.  Business analysis, data analysis, and various types of sophisticated number crunching fit neatly into the category of KPO.
 
The interesting point that one should understand is that it is common for BPO companies to engage in activities which blur the distinctions between BPO and KPO.  It is common for call centers to do surveys and data tabulation.  Taking and inputting the information (which involves call center and data entry work) fall into the general category of BPO. However, many call centers will also analyze the data for you to tell you which market segments you need to spend more time targetting.  Data entry firms will often do data analysis as part of their work.  The grunt work of entering data from forms, online, or databases into another form is low paying work.  However, the analytical work done once the data is in an appropriate format is much more intricate work.
 
Please keep in mind, that if you are browsing BPO websites on the internet, they might refer to themselves as a BPO when they are doing work that falls partly in the BPO category, and partly in KPO or even LPO categories.  You really need to read the “services” page of any website to get a clear idea of what they do.  The next question is what do they do best? Are they wonderful at legal research, but sloppy about data entry?  That question is not so easy to answer.  Good luck!

Please visit our KPO definition blog entry as well