Outsourcing is an agreement in which one company hires another company to be responsible for a planned or existing activity which otherwise is or could be carried out internally, i.e. in-house, and sometimes involves transferring employees and assets from one firm to another. The term outsourcing, which came from the phrase outside resourcing, originated no later than 1981. The concept, which The Economist says has "made its presence felt since the time of the Second World War", often involves the contracting out of a business process, operational, and/or non-core functions, such as manufacturing, facility management, call center/call center support.
Offshoring is the relocation of a business process from one country to another—typically an operational process, such as manufacturing, or supporting processes, such as accounting. Usually this refers to a company business, although state governments may also employ offshoring. More recently, technical and administrative services have been offshored.
Business process outsourcing (BPO) is a subset of outsourcing that involves the contracting of the operations and responsibilities of a specific business process to a third-party service provider. Originally, this was associated with manufacturing firms, such as Coca-Cola that outsourced large segments of its supply chain.
Knowledge process outsourcing (KPO) describes the outsourcing of core information-related business activities which are competitively important or form an integral part of a company's value chain. KPO requires advanced analytical and technical skills as well as a high degree of specialist expertise.
One of the most dynamic and fastest growing sectors in the Philippines is the information technology–business process outsourcing (IT-BPO) industry. The industry is composed of eight sub-sectors, namely, knowledge process outsourcing and back offices, animation, call centers, software development, game development, engineering design, and medical transcription. The IT-BPO industry plays a major role in the country's growth and development.
Exult Inc. was a company headquartered in Irvine, California that provided business services related to Human Resources (HR) and Business Process Outsourcing (BPO).
Business process outsourcing to India refers to the business process outsourcing services in the outsourcing industry in India, catering mainly to Western operations of multinational corporations (MNCs).
Genpact is an American professional services firm legally domiciled in Bermuda with its headquarters in New York City, New York. The company currently employs more than 100,000 people and provides services to clients in over 30 countries worldwide. Genpact is listed on the NYSE and in 2021 generated revenues of US$3.71 billion.
Legal outsourcing, also known as legal process outsourcing (LPO), refers to the practice of a law firm or corporation obtaining legal support services from an outside law firm or legal support services company. When the LPO provider is based in another country, the practice is called offshoring and involves the practice of outsourcing any activity except those where personal presence or contact is required, e.g. appearances in court and face-to-face negotiations. When the LPO provider is based in the same country, the practice of outsourcing includes agency work and other services requiring a physical presence, such as court appearances. This process is one of the incidents of the larger movement towards outsourcing. The most commonly offered services have been agency work, document review, legal research and writing, drafting of pleadings and briefs, and patent services.
A financial bureau is an accounting business whose main focus is the preparation of finance for other businesses. In the USA such firms are often run by Certified Public Accountants, though a typical financial processing company will refer to itself as a bureau rather than a CPA firm, to distinguish its finance from the general tax and accounting that are generally not offered by a financial bureau. The typical client of a bureau is a small business - one just large enough for finance to be complicated to the point of a hassle, but one still small enough to not merit its own full-time finance department.
On-demand outsourcing is a trend in outsourcing wherein major internal operations processes of a company are being shifted to a provider that is paid for by the number of transactions involved. The business transferring the services pays for the quality, special skills and the competence of the service provider's employees. There has been an expansion of the outsourcing concept to include on-demand outsourcing. This refers to the process undertaken by business managers to adopt an outsourcing policy that ensures that the specific business and supplies including technical manpower are accessed as the need arises. It focuses a business strategy to improve its goods and services and to drive a business towards quality improvement.
EXL Service is a global analytics and digital solutions company serving industries including insurance, healthcare, banking and financial services, media, retail, and others. The company is headquartered in New York and has more than 40,000 professionals in locations throughout the United States, Europe, Asia, Latin America, Australia and South Africa.
Corporate services or business services are activities which combine or consolidate certain enterprise-wide needed support services, provided based on specialized knowledge, best practices, and technology to serve internal customers and business partners. The term corporate services providers (CSPs) is also used.
Software Testing Outsourcing is software testing carried out by an independent company or a group of people not directly involved in the process of software development.
TMF Group B.V. is a Dutch multinational professional services firm headquartered in Amsterdam, Netherlands. The independent group provides accounting, tax, HR administration and global payroll services to businesses operating on an international scale. TMF Group, with 120 offices in 85 jurisdictions, employing more than 9,000 people, provides compliance and administrative services to over 35,000 clients in a €10 billion market. It also has more than €160 billion in Assets Under Administration (AUA).
Qualfon, Inc. is a global provider of call center, back office, and business process outsourcing (BPO) services. Founded in 1995, Qualfon provides outsourcing services including call centers, customer service, customer acquisition and retention, customer on-boarding, as well as back-office processing. The company is privately held. Qualfon operates in the Philippines, Guyana, Mexico, the United States, China and India.
Banking business process outsourcing or banking BPO is a highly specialized sourcing strategy used by banks and lending institutions to support the business acquisition and account servicing activities associated with the customer lending lifecycle. These specific BPO services are usually offered through multi-year service-level agreements for all or portions of the credit card lending, consumer lending or commercial lending segments of the financial services market. Some larger financial services organizations choose to extend their sourcing strategy to include other outsourced services such as ITO systems and software, human resources outsourcing and benefits services, finance and accounting outsourcing (FAO) services, procurement or training outsourcing.
Minacs was a Canadian business and technology outsourcing company, headquartered in Oshawa, Ontario. The company provided outsourced customer life cycle, marketing, finance and accounting, procurement, and information technology services.
Virtual CFO stands for virtual chief financial officer. A virtual CFO is an outsourced service provider offering high-skill assistance in the financial requirements of an organization, just like a chief financial officer does for large organizations. A virtual CFO may be a single person or an entity.
The business process outsourcing industry in China including IT and other outsourcing services for onshore and export markets surpassed 1 trillion yuan in 2016 according to the Ministry of Commerce (MOC).
$76 millionUSD (2011)