Business process outsourcing (BPO) has matured rapidly in recent years. Once seen simply as a means to cut costs, it is now also viewed by many end users as a tool for increasing efficiency and enhancing performance. Datamonitor’s 2009 BPO business trends survey gathers the opinions of companies currently engaged in BPO contracts. It looks at trends across the three main horizontal areas of BPO: human resources (HR) outsourcing, finance and accounting (F&A) outsourcing, and procurement outsourcing. Key findings include: increasing revenue is the key goal of outsourcing clients. systems simplification was identified as the key way of reducing costs. HR and F&A are the most popular functions to outsource. There is a low level of desire to increase the offshoring of BPO functions. India and China are the most likely low-cost locations, while Mexico is falling in popularity.
