Thriving BPOs: 4 Trends Fueling Meteoric Growth

Is your BPO business suddenly booming? Scanning and other data capture services are facing a surge that’s almost too much to handle. Backlogs are sometimes becoming months long as more and more businesses look to digitize their data.

What’s behind the jump in data capture demand? Several trends, actually.

And experts aren’t predicting a slowdown anytime soon, with a predicted compound annual growth rate of 8.5% through 2028.ⁱ

Keep reading to discover the four trends accelerating BPO growth.

Trend #1
Decentralized Teams

Remote work took a giant leap forward during the pandemic. While it had been steadily growing in popularity for years, all of a sudden millions of workers across the globe didn’t go into the office.

For paper-reliant businesses, this became a big problem. As teams became more decentralized, the need for centralized, digitized documents skyrocketed.

Mission-critical documents mailed to the office now must be digitized in order to be accessible for the larger remote team. Suddenly, vital forms that could be filled out in-person had to be digitized and sent online. Data that used to come in one form now come in a variety of formats.

The need for centralized information has driven the demand for digitized documents. More and more businesses are turning to BPOs not just to tackle incoming information, but to digitize older records, too. That way, remote workers have access to mission-critical information anytime, anywhere.

Don’t expect this trend to wane with the pandemic. While some workers may return to the office, a Gartner survey predicted that 48% of employees will work remotely at least some of the time in the post-pandemic world.ⁱⁱ

Trend #2
Accelerated Digital-First Transformation

While remote work has driven the need for digitization, it’s only one facet of the digital transformation story. Businesses have long realized the need for digital transformation, but few operated with a digital-first mindset.

The pandemic changed that.

Many businesses had to fast-track their operations overnight. What used to be a five-year plan toward digitization suddenly became an immediate necessity. A McKinsey global report showed that businesses vaulted five years forward in digital adoption in roughly eight weeks during the early days of the pandemic.ⁱⁱⁱ

It also showed businesses that organizational change was possible—and they could do it much faster than previously thought.

As part of their pandemic-fueled digital transition, 34% of organizations saw a large shift in cloud asset migration. And they were able to do it 24 times faster than they thought possible.^iv

BPOs have been the foundation on which these transformations are built. Many businesses are relying (and will continue to rely on) outsourced data capture to facilitate these breakneck transformations.

Trend #3
Cost-Cutting Measures

Businesses have been hit hard in the last two years. They’ve faced many challenges, from supply chain issues to worker shortages, closures and more. It’s made them reassess their priorities and make business decisions accordingly.

Seventy percent of businesses reported that reducing costs was their top motivation for outsourcing in 2020, according to a recent Deloitte survey.^v While this might seem obvious, businesses actually reported speed-to-market, scale and improved customer experience as their main factors in greater numbers in the years prior.

Although many are on the road to recovery, they’re looking for a way to reduce costs that still moves their business forward. So they’re turning to BPOs.

Simple (but mission-critical) tasks like scanning and data capture are ideal for outsourcing. BPOs manage high-volume projects and scale with their customers’ needs.

And with labor shortages plaguing organizations everywhere, businesses can refocus their employees’ time on tasks that will grow the business.

Trend #4
Centralizing Business Operations

As businesses are rebuilding their teams, leaders are reimagining how they’ll structure the organization. According to a McKinsey survey, 53% of businesses have bold plans or pilots to reimagine their structure.^vi

While many teams embrace decentralization and remote working, organizations across industries are looking to centralize their business operations. Why? To reduce costs, make faster decisions and simplify scaling.

This presents a unique opportunity for BPOs to capture business operations from end to end. For data capture, this might look like scanning, extracting and delivering information to decision-makers. The opportunities are endless.

BPOs Are Thriving—And It’s Only the Beginning

What do these trends tell us? That BPOs are poised for monumental growth. The business world continues to shift toward outsourcing, and document capture is no exception. The only thing that stands in your way is your ability to keep up.

You need modern technology to maximize your throughput. Tap into unrivaled speed and intelligence with the ibml Fusion and optimize extraction with smart scanning ibml Capture Suite and Cloud Capture.

Don’t be caught unprepared. Discover how you can fuse your BPO processes with the power of ibml.

Sources:
i “Business Process Outsourcing Market Size Report, 2021-2028,” Grandview Research, 2021
ii “Prepare for the Future of Remote Work,” Gartner, 2021
iii “Global Surveys of Consumer Sentiment During the Coronavirus Crisis,” McKinsey, 2020
iv “How COVID-19 has pushed companies over the technology tipping point—and transformed business forever,” McKinsey, 2020
v “How Much Disruption? Deloitte Global Outsourcing Survey 2020,” Deloitte, 2020
vi “Organizing for the Future: Nine Keys to Becoming a Future-Ready Company,” McKinsey 2021