03.03.2011

According to the latest research commissioned by ArchiDoc, in the last two years the interest in outsourcing services has increased by almost 10%. Among 200 enterprises taking part in this year’s research, 58% claimed to use services provided by external institutions. The financial sector (83%) and the infrastructure sector (53%) are the two sectors that the most frequently decide to undertake such measures. The most frequently outsourced areas include back-office processes and IT technology. The research was conducted for the third time by IPSOS at the order of ArchiDoc.

The research was aimed to define the scope of the institutions’ use of outsourcing services, market tendencies and plans related to the purchase of new solutions. As it clearly stems from this year’s research, more than 50% of companies taking part in the research perceive outsourcing as a chance for development of their own activities.

As the third edition of the research indicates, the areas that are the most frequently outsourced, similarly to the year 2008, are back-office processes (48%). It is in most cases enterprises from the telecommunications sector (90%) and the financial sector (77%) that use this type of services. Interestingly enough, 32% of all companies assign receivables collection to external partners, which constitutes an increase by 18% as compared with the previous research. The segments that are less frequently outsourced include sales forces service (17%) and processes related to finances, accounting and bookkeeping – only 16%.

As regards back-office services, every fourth enterprise taking part in the research indicates activities related to handling outgoing and incoming correspondence (55%) and electronic document archive (52%). As the main area of back-office process outsourcing, respondents mentioned administration (41%) and customer service (36%). Companies from the sector related to infrastructure use BPO in bookkeeping and purchasing (100%) while the commercial sector outsources administrative services (100%).

Enterprises using the services of an external company perceive considerable benefits of outsourcing. As compared with 2008, every third company perceives the following issues as important: a reduction of personal costs -65% as compared with 32% in the year 2008, access to specialist know-how and an increase in data security and confidentiality – 29% (doubled as compared with 2008).

The third edition of the research also confirms that every fourth institution that has not used the services provided by an outsourcer yet demonstrates its interest in using BPO services. The following factors have grown in importance since the year 2008: generating considerable financial savings – at present 55%, in 2008 – 34% and a beneficial offer – almost doubled from 28% to 51%. Apart from benefits resulting from assigning some processes to an external company, respondents also pointed to fears related to it. In this year’s research most entrepreneurs pointed to security of transferring processes (47%), the quality of services offered (38%) and a necessity of permanent control of the performance of the agreement (37%).

Another thing that stems from the research conducted by IPSOS is the fact that for the majority of entrepreneurs the most important criterion of evaluation of the outsourcing process is the result of the profitability assessment. It reached the highest level in 2008 – 58%, at present a slight fall by 6% has been recorded (52%). What became more important is a possibility of a reduction of employment costs – at present every fifth enterprise points to this condition. In case of other criteria, small fluctuations have been observed.

As regards prognoses of an increase in outsourcing in the scope of back-office services, every fourth company taking part in the research predicts an increase in expenditure on correspondence service. It is (inter alia) institutions from the financial sector and the telecommunications sector that intend to implement the biggest investments. The research commissioned by ArchiDoc also shows that every third company plans to spend more money on scanning documents within the next two years. The financial sector declares an increase in expenditure on call centre outsourcing.

As it is indicated in the research carried out this year by IPSOS, the management boards’ engagement in making a decision on using outsourcers’ services has increased considerably in the last four years. In the year 2006 every fifth organisation (41%) claimed that the decision on outsourcing is made by the management board, while in the year 2008 every fourth company claimed so (55%). At present this answer was given by more than 80% of companies taking part in the research. As compared with previous years, the role of persons responsible for the division that the given process concerns diminished in the process of making a decision to outsource processes – in 2006 it reached 29%, in 2008 it increased to 33% and at present it reaches not more than 10% of respondents.

This year’s research also indicated that ArchiDoc is the company that is the most frequently mentioned as an institution providing services in the scope of document management outsourcing (12%).

* The research was carried out with the use of CATI method in October 2010 on a sample of 200 persons from companies employing more than 250 employees or generating more than 100 million revenues yearly. The research was commissioned by ArchiDoc and conducted by IPSOS research agency.