Improving Quality in Business Process Outsourcing through Technology

Sufficient evidence shows that Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) is growing rapidly. Technological and communication advances help realize the wide-spread adoption of BPO, due to their quality and cost improvements. Technology applied in BPO through the adopted software, applications and platform has a substantial long-term impact on the whole process, affecting the quality, cost and associated risks of the operation of outsourced activities. In a previous SAP white paper, the impact of technology to cost has been addressed. As one of a series of SAP white papers, we concentrate here on how technology impacts quality in BPO. In this paper, we identify the quality structure of BPO and distinguish the unique quality characteristics that are different from the traditional service industry. The quality structure includes the major quality measurement criteria, which BPO buyers should consider and BPO service providers should be focus on when offering their services. In conclusion, technology enhances the value of BPO from perspectives of enabling and leveraging the values of standardization, automation, integration, flexibility and innovation. To both BPO service providers and customers, quality and technology are two equally important elements which need to be concerned carefully. In this paper, we present a quality framework of a BPO service including seven quality dimensions: reliability, tangibility, conformance, responsiveness, flexibility, assurance and security, and four quality enablers: standardization, integration and automation, innovation.