Business process services is more than just about saving money. It can play a key role in establishing the IT agility that’s necessary for successful digital transformation.

By handing over repetitive tasks and workflows to a third party, including data-centric processes, business process services enable organizations and their IT teams to focus on more strategic initiatives, knowing they can scale as needed. They can easily and cost-effectively adjust based on the ebb and flow of their business without overprovisioning people and resources that could end up being idle.

Many processes are candidates

Businesses in any industry, no matter their size, can take advantage of business process services, including finance and insurance, transportation, health care, and even public sector organizations. This kind of service not only reduces costs, but also provides peace of mind that essential processes are getting done as the business focuses on its core products and service offerings as well as strategic initiatives on its digital transformation agenda.

A wide variety of workflows and business activities can be taken care of by business process services, including payroll, accounting, telemarketing, data recording, customer support and social media marketing. Some processes might be simple, while others more technical. Processes might take place in the front office, such as customer facing support, while back office processes that are often outsourced include billing or purchasing.

Business process services is a growth enabler

There are many benefits to business process services, not the least of which is reducing costs, but if you’re doing it strategically, you’re also fostering the IT agility necessary for digital transformation. Most of all you’re growing your business.

A common path to growth for many businesses is expanding their footprint at a regional, national or even global level. A business process services provider can reduce the investment and risk associated with serving multiple regions and time zones in multiple languages. A third-party is also able to scale up on demand more quickly in their business process services areas of expertise to support a company’s introduction of new products and services—they could easily add more customer support representatives, for example.

Just as your company has its core business offerings and expertise, so does a business process services provider, which means they can get quicker, more efficient and better results, as they have built up a track record of hiring specialists for specific workflows and processes. They can tap into the necessary talent and train new hires more quickly and effectively. They may also have expertise in regulatory framework and compliance obligations specific to certain industries.

As much as business process services offers more than just cost savings, it remains a chief benefit, as it lowers your internal labour costs, including the time and resources necessary for onboarding and training new employees, as well as office space. This is especially important for business processes that fluctuate in volume because of the seasonal ups and downs common in many industries.

Enable IT agility

Business process services relationships are often approached in a siloed manner in that processes and workflows are handed off on a case by case basis as means to save money.

While this approach does offer bottom line benefits, organizations should look at business process services to improve their IT agility and think bigger. As a managed IT services provider, Supra ITS isn’t content to just save customers money by taking over a workflow or two. We see our engagements as an opportunity to infuse key business activities with the technology levers that create IT agility.

As a Supra ITS company, FleetGain has expanded its offerings to deliver business process services with an initial focus on transportation companies. We provide offsite, extremely reliable and flexible data processing services, including order entry, billing, rating, POD entry and cube entry, coupled with experience using common transportation management systems, including popular transportation management systems such as TruckMate, Degama and Rose Rocket.

Transportation is just the beginning for business process services at FleetGain. We’re ready to work with a wide array of industries that want to hand of repetitive tasks so the can better focus on strategic initiatives. By looking at business process services as part of your larger digital transformation agenda, you can add significant value and direct business impact beyond the bottom line. Terry Holland is Director, Logistics and Supply Chain Services for Supra ITS.