[BPO Awareness Survey] Despite Labor Shortages, BPO Utilization Remains at 25%. Alternatives include SaaS, Recruitment, and Task Elimination.

Invoice Inc. (President: Hitoshi Nitami, Headquarters: Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo), which provides consolidated billing services for communication and utility costs such as "Gi Tsushin" and "OneVoice Public," has conducted a survey primarily targeting back-office personnel in companies. The survey focused on BPO (Business Process Outsourcing) utilization, decision criteria during consideration, challenges in implementation, and future utilization intentions. The company has now released a report titled "How are you thinking about business optimization? Company-wide BPO Awareness Survey," which can be utilized for business optimization.

▼View the report here

https://media.invoice.ne.jp/dl/survey/people-vs-outsourcing-bpo.html

Survey Results

This report reveals that many companies, when promoting business optimization, consider multiple options beyond just outsourcing, including tool implementation and business process review.

The content allows for understanding each company's intentions for business optimization and BPO utilization policies from various perspectives.

The following results and graphs are excerpts from the survey report.

Have you ever utilized BPO (Business Process Outsourcing) in your business operations?

The BPO (Business Process Outsourcing) utilization status showed the following results:

"Not interested / Want to complete in-house" (34.5%)

"Have actually utilized" (25.2%)

"Have considered but not utilized" (14.5%)

"Have not considered but are interested" (13.9%)

More than 30% of companies showed a passive attitude towards BPO, and while "have actually utilized" was the second most common response, it did not reach 30%.

While BPO is being utilized in some parts of corporate operations, many companies also prioritize in-house handling, indicating variability in utilization status and interest levels.

Q: What business operations have you utilized or considered BPO for?

The survey on business operations for which BPO was utilized or considered showed the following top results:

Data entry (41.5%)

Payroll calculation (33.3%)

Attendance aggregation (26.0%)

Business processes related to administrative tasks such as data entry, payroll calculation, and attendance aggregation are frequently considered for BPO utilization.

Additionally, it suggests that BPO is considered for areas with high overall workload and ease of standardization, such as invoice issuance (22.8%) and call center operations (21.1%).

Q: What were your reasons for choosing BPO?

The survey on reasons for choosing BPO showed the following results:

Difficulty in securing talent (64.5%)

Needed only for a short period (54.8%)

High burden of training and handover (51.6%)

Lower cost than recruitment (51.6%)

It indicates that the difficulty in securing talent is a background factor for choosing BPO.

Furthermore, "wanted immediate expertise" (35.5%) also exceeded 30%, showing that many companies consider BPO for specialized skills and immediacy.

Q: What are the comparison targets when utilizing or considering BPO?

The survey on perceived barriers or comparison targets when considering BPO implementation showed the following top results:

Implementing business improvement tools or SaaS (48.8%)

Hiring in-house staff (32.5%)

Eliminating or simplifying tasks (32.5%)

Nearly half of the companies are considering implementing business improvement tools/SaaS in parallel with BPO.

Also, in-house responses such as talent recruitment and business review are comparison targets, indicating that BPO is considered while being compared with multiple options like tool implementation and in-house handling.

The survey results also showed that when considering BPO implementation, various options such as tool implementation, in-house recruitment, and business simplification are being compared. Companies are not simply considering outsourcing but are exploring optimal methods, including in-house responses and business reviews.

Furthermore, reasons for choosing BPO include difficulty in securing talent and the burden of training and handover, indicating cases where human resource and operational challenges are underlying factors.

Therefore, it is suggested that before considering the feasibility of BPO implementation, it is crucial to organize tasks to determine how much of a company's operations can be standardized, and what scope should be handled in-house, along with reviewing the system and operational methods.

This report clarifies the reality that companies considering business optimization do not solely rely on BPO (outsourcing) but compare and consider multiple options, including tool implementation and business review.

▼View the report here

https://media.invoice.ne.jp/dl/survey/peop