Improving Quality in Business Process Outsourcing through Technology

Evidence is mounting that Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) is growing at a very rapid rate, a rate even greater than that given by the most optimistic projections. Technological and communication advances have helped the widespread adoption of BPO because of the resulting quality and cost improvements. Although many factors contribute to the quality of Business Process Outsourcing (BPO), Information Technology (IT) is a critical determinant which has not yet been thoroughly analysed and measured. In fact, technology applied to BPO through the adopted software, applications, and platforms has a substantial long-term impact on the whole process, affecting the quality, cost, and associated risks of the operation of the outsourced activities. In this paper, we concentrate on how the technology impacts the quality of BPO. We identify the quality structure of BPO and distinguish the unique quality characteristics which differ from those of the traditional service industries. The quality structure includes the major quality measurement criteria that BPO buyers should consider and BPO service providers should be looking at when offering their services. We discuss how technology enhances the value of BPO from perspectives of enabling and leveraging the values of standardization, automation, integration, flexibility and innovation. In general, to both BPO service providers and customers, quality and technology are each important elements which need to be considered carefully. The quality performance of a BPO service can be measured from six perspectives. We show that these perspectives affected by technology intensively by a series of technical criteria.