What is BPO – Business Process Outsourcing
Post written by the Global Gi BPO Practice of Gi Group Holding
As business process outsourcing becomes increasingly prevalent across companies worldwide, it’s essential to dive deeper into what BPO truly entails. Understanding its benefits and exploring how it can drive business growth is key to leveraging its full potential.
BPO – Business Process Outsourcing – goes beyond traditional outsourcing. While outsourcing typically involves transferring a task to an external provider, BPO requires a complete assessment of processes. The provider then designs and operates a model that not only executes activities but also improves them, adding technology, expertise, and specialised labour.
Advantages of BPO
Business guru Peter Drucker coined one of the mantras associated with outsourcing: “Do what you do best and outsource the rest.” But why and how can organisations benefit from it? There are several reasons for adopting BPO. Among the main ones are:
- Agility and flexibility
BPO enables organisations to respond quickly to changing demands. By relying on a specialised provider, businesses avoid the learning curve of managing new processes internally and can scale services up or down as required. This adaptability comes with no strings attached: services can be scaled up or down as needed, avoiding long-term commitments.
- Cost control and reduction:
If the cost of performing an activity by a supplier is lower than the cost of performing it in-house, outsourcing should be considered. However, cost reduction goes far beyond the process itself. It determines the transformation of the way activities are carried out. Moreover, clients are invoiced based on results, not hours or headcount, resulting in greater efficiency and flexibility.
- Improved productivity:
By freeing the internal team to focus on core activities that generate market differentiation, the chances of achieving better business performance are increased. In addition to the gain in productivity, when the internal team focuses on the company’s core business, there is a corresponding increase in the capacity for innovation and new competitive advantages over competitors. Over time, many of the competencies introduced by the provider become part of the client’s own teams, strengthening internal capabilities. This integration not only enriches internal expertise but can also drive innovation and create a lasting competitive advantage.
- Business transformation through BPO
Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) accelerates the digital transformation of non-core business areas. By combining proven methodologies with advanced technological tools, BPO ensures faster transformation, better control, and improved operational efficiency. Teams experienced in automation can provide solutions such as Business Process Management Systems (BPMS), Robotic Process Automation (RPA), Agentic Automation, and Intelligent Document Processing. With a technology-as-a-service approach, companies can leverage innovation without the need for upfront investment.
What activities can be outsourced with BPO?
Some areas are essential to most businesses but are not activities considered core to the company. These activities are among the most commonly outsourced in a BPO project, including financial, legal, administrative, logistics, and information technology processes. Some of these functions are:
Supply Chain Management: Some activities in this category are reverse logistics, transportation, inventory and storage, process quality, customer service, registration of materials, inputs, semi-finished products or finished products, purchasing, supplies, etc.
Industrial and Manufacturing BPO: An area that includes processes related to production, such as scheduled and unscheduled maintenance, machine operation, product development, projects, etc.
Administrative Services: Many activities can be transferred, including billing management, payroll, expense control (such as telephony, fleet management, and supplier management), contracts and services, asset management, inventory control, and other related tasks.
Accounting, Tax, and Financial Management: One of the most common types of BPO includes tasks such as accounts payable and receivable, invoicing, tax receipts and tax classification, payment of taxes and bills, monitoring changes in legislation, mandatory reporting in the tax area, asset and wealth management, accounting, and more.
Compliance and Quality Control Policy: Complying with market standards and good practices is an activity that is often best carried out with the impartiality and expertise of a specialised external company. Auditing, inspection, health surveillance, inspection, and quality control services, for example, are almost exclusively performed by outsourced companies.
Sales BPO: Here, there is also a range of possibilities, such as B2B, B2C, door-to-door, after-sales, SAC, benefits, cards, products, services, customer analysis, and qualification, among others.
Human resources: This type of outsourcing allows you to ease your HR team’s work by offloading operational processes, including benefits, admission, recruitment and selection, training, vacation control, and working hours.
Back office for insurance, banking, healthcare, and mortgage: These sectors require specialised back-office solutions tailored to their specific needs. Examples of BPO services include account opening, client data validation, claim processing for insurers, credit checks, client document verification for mortgages, and medical account analysis.
Which companies can benefit from BPO?
BPO is particularly valuable in industries where non-core activities are complex, resource-intensive, or subject to seasonal peaks. It can also be instrumental in supporting companies that often face challenges such as high transaction volumes, fluctuating demand, or difficulty accessing specialised expertise. Outsourcing selected processes allows them to maintain focus on their core business while ensuring operational stability.
BPO also offers scalability. Organisations can expand into new markets, adapt to changing volumes, or manage short-term peaks without committing to long-term overheads. Our contracts are structured around results or volumes processed rather than fixed headcount, ensuring cost transparency and flexibility. For businesses with international operations or global ambitions, BPO also simplifies compliance and enables seamless cross-border process management.
For businesses operating in complex or rapidly changing environments, selecting the right partner can make the difference between merely transferring work and achieving measurable, long-term results.
How to choose a good BPO provider
Choosing a BPO provider is not just about cost; it requires proven expertise and a consultative approach. The right partner should manage processes securely, deliver consistent quality, and adapt solutions to evolving business needs.
Gi BPO has the necessary experience to support customers in transforming their business processes by performing critical processes with the required security. We associate experience in the execution of BPO in national or global companies always with the same result of high quality and governance. We are a global company with extensive experience in field service, wherever the customer is located within the national territory. Moreover, our billing model is based on results achieved, not headcount. This ensures measurable value for our clients, wherever they operate.
In need of a good provider? Get to know Gi BPO and talk to one of our consultants.