Small BPOs lead 2025 outsourcing impact as medium firms gain ground

MANILA, PHILIPPINES — Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) continued to make their mark on the global outsourcing industry, with the Outsource Accelerator’s latest Outsourcing Impact Review (OIR) 2025 highlighting how these firms are driving record-breaking community benefit.

Collectively mobilizing thousands of volunteers, these agile firms are shifting the industry’s focus from cost efficiency to sustainable, inclusive community impact, according to the comprehensive annual report.

Small enterprises drive grassroots impact

Small outsourcing enterprises, defined as those with 5,000 seats and below, dominated the OIR 2025, accounting for 74.4% of all participants and finalists. This continues a multi-year pattern, building on their 94.7% representation in 2024 and 88.5% in 2023. 

Their deep community roots enable highly localized and responsive programs, from Hugo Academy’s digital employment pipeline in Africa to Innodata’s DEIB Program workplace transformation.

These firms demonstrated exceptional agility in embedding social responsibility into their core business models. Booth, a Certified B Corporation, won Gold in Community Building for its “Rooted in Community” initiative, which combines environmental restoration with food security programs. 

Similarly, Arcanys secured the Gold in “Health & Wellness Program with a Charity Match” by linking employee fitness to charitable donations for preschoolers. 

Medium enterprises scale strategic initiatives

Medium-sized enterprises accounted for the remaining 25.6% of participants in 2025, demonstrating their capacity to scale impact through structured programs. 

OfficePartners360 won the Gold in DEI for achieving and sustaining 50% female representation in global leadership for three consecutive years in their “Building a Stage: How OP360 Champions Gender Equality in BPO.” Their data-driven approach includes leadership accelerators and inclusive policy frameworks.

Other medium-sized enterprises leveraged technology to deliver scalable solutions. Probe Group earned dual Gold awards for its “Solar Powered Clean Water Project” in the Philippines, serving 550 individuals with sustainable infrastructure. 

Gear Inc. also secured Gold in Health and Wellness for its tech-enabled mental health program, “From Hire to Retire: Building a Resilient Employee Journey,” which supports 3,000 content moderators across four countries.

Large enterprises absent from impact landscape

Interestingly, large enterprises had no entries in the 2025 report, mirroring the trends of 2024 and a small number of submissions in 2023 at 4.9%. 

This stable lack of impact indicates a significant gap in impact strategy between large industry players and small- and medium-sized constituents. 

Although large BPOs still operate at a large scale, their social programs are not associated with the more formal impact measurement and transparency regulations promoted by the OIR. 

The report indicates a strategic gap or reduced reporting priorities among the big firms. Their non-participation is a sharp contrast to the 39 SMEs, which collectively raised more than $100 million in funding and enlisted 31,766 volunteers to make a quantifiable change in their communities. 

SMEs dominate industry impact leaders

The award winners’ list further underscores SME dominance, with small and medium firms capturing all recognition. 

As the report notes, “A macro overview of OIR 2025 confirms that small and medium enterprises are setting the pace for responsible outsourcing, shaping the future through adaptive strategies and direct community engagement.”

The Overall Impact Champion, Hugo, represents the small enterprise category through its Academy, which graduated 1,320 participants and placed 668 in remote jobs. Fusion CX, a medium-sized enterprise, won Silver in DEI for its “Impact Sourcing” program, which has onboarded 1,300 apprentices in India.

Across all four impact categories—Community Building, DEI, Health and Wellness, and Education—SMEs delivered 100% of the awarded initiatives. 

This comprehensive leadership demonstrates their capacity to address diverse social challenges while maintaining business excellence and competitive performance for their clients.

SMEs driving responsible outsourcing transformation

The OIR 2025 makes SMEs the unquestionable driving force of the social transformation in the sector. It is not a one-off event, as evidenced by their leadership’s consistency over three years of reporting, and it is an inherent part of modern responsible outsourcing. 

With industry changes, the innovative techniques used by these smaller companies are likely to become the norm across the industry. 

Their models, deeply rooted in the community and easily adaptable, have enabled SMEs to create a new paradigm in which social impact and business success support each other. 

Their leadership in the future will also be very important as the outsourcing industry faces increasingly complex global issues.

The report concludes that “innovation and scalable impact can originate from any business, regardless of size or geography.”