Talent, technology, competition, cost identified as major challenges to BPOs

MANILA, PHILIPPINES — Talent, technology, competition, and operations costs were identified as the major challenges faced by outsourcing globally. 

During the BPO Technology Forum hosted by Amazon Web Services (AWS) at their Manila office, outsourcing professionals and experts discussed how to address these challenges.  

Zooming into the challenges further, attendees of the event mentioned compliance, cybersecurity, low employee retention, data privacy, scalability, managing employee productivity, and the global recession as the challenges their organization addresses. 

Simon Burke, AWS Head of BPO CX for the Asia Pacific region said that the global recession could have a positive impact on the BPO industry. 

“Recession could have a good outcome,” he said during the forum. 

Diving deeper into the challenge of finding and retaining talent, Mitchell Woodbury contact center operator Local Measure’s Business Development Head, acknowledged that getting the best talent is persisting challenge in the industry. 

“Talent is the hardest thing to get. If you have good staff you have to keep your good staff,” Woodbury said. 

He suggests that upskilling the “good employees” and outsourcing parts of a team is a solution to employee retention. 

He also explained that BPOs should have the ability to be agile and flexible to be able to ensure that they stay relevant. 

Woodbury explained that the “new breed of BPOs” are cloud-enabled, able to maintain latest security and privacy standards, are insights-led and customer experience-driven, offer multi and omni channels, easily scalable, and agile/flexible. 

 “Let’s stop being reactive,” he told the attendees of the forum. 

He further said that BPOs should be proactive and quick on their toes. Noting that issues within BPO organizations must be addressed quickly if not realtime.