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Streamlining Processes with Advanced Technologies

If you are a services organization that processes documents as part of your service offerings, it is probably not a stretch to assume you have technology implemented to streamline as much of those processes as possible. And yet, there are always benefits to reevaluating current processes and technologies. New market needs, competitive forces, and technology progression all play an integral role in a BPO’s decision to adopt and implement new technologies. The underlying need could be to reduce risk, such as lower reliance on manual labor in response to competitive pricing or to enhance revenue through the provision of new services.

Unfortunately, the BPO rarely has a partner in this process. There are plenty of technology vendors willing to sell or rent their software, but purchasing, implementing and operating technology carries with it a lot of cost and risk.

In order to really provide value, several aspects of the technology adoption process have to change. Procurement, implementation, measurement and servicing all have to move to a different model in order to really add value to a service provider’s competitiveness, operational efficiency and bottom line.

Transforming the Technology Adoption Process

Let’s start with procurement. The standard model is for a business or technology professional to identify a need and then work through their purchasing manager to locate and purchase technology. Plenty of vendors are happy to answer the call with pricing models that are outmoded and rigid. Pricing is rigid because the vendor has to establish some base level of value for their products and services in order to guarantee their own margins. It is a rare situation when the amount of money a vendor charges aligns with the revenue model and margins available to the service provider. What if, for instance, a vendor charges $1 for each transaction, but the service provider can only charge $1.10 to its customer? And what if market prices change? Currently, a major chasm exists between the value a vendor wishes to extract and the amount that the service provider can charge. Next is the implementation portion.

Concrete Guarantees for Implementation

Often times a vendor will sell value based upon their experience with similar customers or abstract and generalized cost reduction calculations. However, a service provider needs concrete guarantees in order to truly reduce risks and be assured that the procured technology actually delivers. Vendors are more than happy to sell services to get the service provider to the level they require, but we all know technology projects are more likely to fail to meet objectives than to meet or exceed them. The result is that a service provider is left to accept that a technology will more than likely fail to meet the stated goals or they pay exorbitantly to ensure that these goals are met. Why is this the case?

Measurement and Ongoing Service

This leads to the last part of the equation: Measurement and ongoing servicing of the system. Again, the traditional way is to sell licenses and services in order to meet a service provider’s needs. When it comes to cost reduction strategies, you need to spend a lot of time establishing baseline measurements and then to work repeatedly to tune the new technology in order to meet desired metrics. Once implemented, service providers need to constantly monitor the performance using real data and be prepared to make adjustments. Whether it is software or hardware, the environment always changes and these changes affect overall performance. While vendors typically deal with this by offering long-term services contracts with SLAs, they are expensive and they actually work against the motives of the original goal – to increase profitability through automation.

All of this leads the service provider down a path of risk, and this has to change.

We are so confident in our technology, our expertise and our methodology, we are not going to sell it to you. Rather, we would prefer partner with you and work together. Read More about our unique and unequaled approach to improving both revenue and reducing costs.