Due to a lack of funds and resources, startup owners, entrepreneurs, and small-to-medium business owners are frequently tempted to wear too many hats. As a result, they often succumb to the “Superman Syndrome” and take care of every aspect of their business, leaving little or no time to focus on project goals.

Though you may want to oversee all business operations on your own, it’s essential to recognize that you only have 24 hours in a day, and certain things tend to get put off if you insist on doing everything yourself. On the other hand, entrusting a portion of your mundane daily tasks to professional VAs frees up your time and energy for things that require immediate attention.

You should hire a virtual assistant or outsource virtual assistant services for your business if:

• The increased workload makes routine administrative tasks challenging to manage.
• Certain things necessitate professional assistance or a second set of eyes.
• Due to a lack of time, you are increasingly skipping scheduled appointments and events.
• You have several projects on the go but need help figuring out where to begin.
• It’s becoming increasingly more work to meet project deadlines.
• You are turning down larger client projects due to a need for a support system.
• Turnaround is irritating your customers.
• Administrative hassles, paperwork, and meeting scheduling consume all of your time.
• Projects come and go, and you want someone to help with the workload only when there is a surge.

Benefits of Outsourcing To A Virtual Assistant

Cost-effective business solution

Ensuring maximum customer satisfaction can be difficult if you need more resources to improve your business operations. However, this is a common issue for many businesses that a virtual assistant can quickly resolve, even on a tight budget.

Hiring a virtual assistant to work on automation and customer delight can save you a lot of money. In addition, the skills and knowledge of a suitable VA can help you improve your processes without spending a fortune.

More time to devote to high-priority objectives

With a mountain of tasks piling up on your plate as a solopreneur, the chances of finding time to work on the strategic side of your business are slim. So instead, you spend your time in the company doing the most tedious tasks, leaving priority goals unaffected.

Hiring a VA will alleviate this issue and the risk of burnout. You should not spend your entire day doing administrative tasks. Delegating tasks and focusing on your top priorities will help protect your most valuable asset.

Complete tasks even while sleeping.

The benefit of outsourcing is that you can hire virtual assistants from any part of the world, even if they are in different time zones. So take advantage of the time difference and keep your business running even when sleeping.

It creates a schedule that works for everyone, and the business doubles your productivity without cost.

Access to specialized/technical knowledge

The global workplace market is brimming with talented individuals and industry veterans. Outsourcing gives you access to people with world-class technical skills and specialization who can propel your company to new heights. Use this leverage to advance your operations, increase sales, and stay competitive in the global market.

Enhances business flexibility

Virtual assistants are highly adaptable and will always be available when you need them. They can work around your schedule, allowing you to complete more tasks than usual. Having a VA increases your business’s productivity because more people work to achieve the company’s goals.

How Can We Help you?

Our express virtual assistants have extensive experience performing a wide range of tasks and can efficiently handle all of your business needs. At BPOPhil, we can assist you in managing and performing various tasks from various industry verticals.

The question of whether to hire in-house or use a Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO) service is one that many of your competitors have probably considered. Both choices offer great advantages, but the decision ultimately comes down to the size of the project. First, however, we must define RPO and explain how it functions.

In the recruitment process outsourcing concept, a business or organization hands over some or all of its hiring duties to an outside agency. The outsourced service provider functions as an extension of the HR division, handling all aspects of the company’s hiring process.

Both in-house and outsourced recruitment solutions have advantages and disadvantages. Check out some key differences between hiring in-house and RPO to help you decide what’s best for your small business.

In-House Recruitment vs. Recruitment process outsourcing

Responsibilities and their scope

The benefit of having an in-house HR team is that you have their complete attention. But, on the other hand, RPO agencies can wear many hats in addition to recruiting.

In-house: Your in-house team has an advantage in understanding your company culture, industry fit, and specific hiring needs. They are in charge of various tasks, such as planning and developing the workforce, dealing with employees and unions, managing risks, ensuring employees are engaged and hiring new people.

RPO: External service providers can provide flexibility in managing responsibilities. They can help with long-term talent pools, training and development, employer branding, and effective workforce planning.

If your team is already swamped with other HR responsibilities, they may fall behind on their recruiting assignments. Similarly, hiring can divert time away from other HR responsibilities. If this is the case with your small business, it might be best to work with an RPO agency.

Cost-Savings

Hiring an in-house recruitment team requires a significant investment in money, time, and effort. Outsourcing saves money and time by keeping finances flexible rather than fixed.

In-house: Hiring new employees is not cheap. Companies would face financial difficulties due to fixed HR expenses and intangible costs such as the time required to hire a full-time team. These are in addition to compensation, benefits, training, and other overhead costs.

RPO: Working with an RPO can significantly reduce your costs when compared to hiring in-house HR employees. Finally, you would not have to pay a monthly fee to LinkedIn or other recruitment platforms or tools. The RPO agency will cover almost all your hiring needs while keeping costs down.

Hiring new team members on your own can strain your resources if you run a small business. Outsourcing your recruiting needs could be a more cost-effective option for you.

Scalability

The RPO model is meant to make it easy to scale up or down your recruitment processes and resources at a cost that won’t hurt your business.

In-house: Hiring or developing your in-house recruiters may come in handy when business is booming. But what if you realize you need to scale back after a few months? This could only leave your company with a financial dent and an excess of resources. Furthermore, scaling your business quickly can be difficult for an in-house recruitment team.

RPO: Hiring the expert services of an RPO can help you grow your team at a manageable pace. Working with an outside service provider allows you to concentrate on more important tasks while growing your team.

Outsourcing is a more scalable option for small businesses compared to having your internal recruitment team. If you want to grow your small business, working with an RPO agency is your best bet.

Control Degree

Small businesses require a high level of control. Outsourcing does not imply giving up control of your recruitment process. You will, however, have less control over a third-party recruitment team than you would have over an in-house department.

In-house: Because full-time employees are solely focused on your small business, you have more control over them. You can easily delegate tasks and set priorities and workplace practices for them to follow.

RPO: Working with an RPO may mean competing for their time with other clients. For example, when you delegate too many responsibilities to third parties, you may work with maintenance workers who only keep the lights on for as long as they are paid.

RPO and in-house recruiters can coexist in some cases. You can realign the responsibilities of your internal department to focus on more strategic initiatives and internal affairs. A third-party recruitment team can focus on finding qualified candidates and managing the hiring process.

Expertise

RPO agencies are experts in recruitment and human resource solutions. Their responsibilities extend beyond simply screening candidates and filling open positions. They handle strategic hiring and come up with solutions that an in-house team might not be able to come up with.

In-house: You would never hire an in-house recruitment team that isn’t an expert in their field, would you? But, on the other hand, some might not have enough experience in certain areas, like managing all parts of the hiring process, which is important for your company’s competitive edge.

RPO: A recruitment process outsourcing agency employs technologies that provide optimal audit trails, comprehensive management information, improved analysis, forecasting, and reporting for strategic headhunting.

RPO agencies have the broader market knowledge and spend more time in the market looking for the right talent for businesses. This is because they know what a good candidate looks like. This entails getting to business as soon as possible and minimizing project delays.

One size does not fit all when deciding between an in-house team and the recruitment process outsourcing. An in-house team is ideal for established businesses with predictable hiring requirements. On the other hand, a recruitment agency is ideal for growing businesses that need to scale quickly without breaking the bank.

You may not even have to choose between the two in some cases. For example, working with a recruitment agency while building or keeping your own team lets you take advantage of the RPO agency’s expertise while also strengthening your workforce assets.

And what if you decide to outsource your recruitment? Consider BPOPHIL, fill out the form now to schedule a free consultation, and let’s talk about how we can come up with a custom quote: Our team of experts is waiting to assist you![/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

Assume a BPO is responsible for various professional activities, including but not limited to knowledge consulting, data analytics, digital transformation, AI & data science, digital marketing, HR consulting, and office management, among others. All of this is back-office work.

While these traditional roles remain in the back office, today’s back-office support professionals serve as a visual interface between employees and management, linking an organization’s expectations and individual performance.

What exactly is a back-office position?

A back office is a company’s division that consists of support and administrative personnel. Back office employees are not client-facing and frequently handle regulatory compliance, settlements, clearances, record maintenance, accounting, and IT services.

Back office jobs are also known as admin jobs, operations jobs, support jobs, IT support jobs, etc.

Data management, market trends, projects, and claims processing are typical responsibilities of back-office professionals.

What skills do you believe back office executives should have to succeed?

The skills required vary depending on the type of back-office work you do. Likewise, they differ according to the needs of various organizations. However, some common skills apply to every industry’s framework.

In today’s business environment, let’s look at essential skill requirements for a back-office job.

Understanding of Project Processing: Project management is a critical back-office executive responsibility. While the front office works closely and directly on the project, back office operations such as ordering, tracking, and delivering goods are managed by a back office executive and their team.

Knowledge about the industry: Traditionally, a back-office employee managed the organization’s operational needs. However, the role is now more proactive in understanding how business changes affect organizational strategy and, as a result, organizational activities. Back-office workers can also meet their planning needs if they deeply understand how each department works.

Tech-savvy: As technology spreads to all areas, the back office can’t stay the same. It needs to learn, change, and take an active part in managing new technologies. In the coming years, the important trends in back-office technology will be high-quality data management, analytics, and planning tools. Back-office supports need to use their skills to stay valuable to their organization and on top of their game.

Communication Skills: Good communication skills ensure that you understand the other person’s point of view before speaking. A back-office professional must be able to communicate effectively at all levels. To foster open and honest communication, one must demonstrate integrity, fairness, and empathy.

Organizational skills: The pace and dimensions of the business environment have changed dramatically in recent years. Increasing customer expectations have played a significant role in pressuring businesses to transform. As a result, the role of the back office professional has shifted to managing the possible challenges that will add more excellent value to the business.

Furthermore, understanding the organization’s business objectives drives and manages performance in sync with business objectives, allowing a back-office professional to manage back-office operations effectively.

Understands market research: Back office executive duties include monitoring market trends and analyzing behavior to determine circumstances’ current and future impact on the company. They direct the study of consumer behavior and report user preferences about company goals. In addition, they keep track of the performance of competing brands. The company would have no guidelines for planning courses of action if back-office executive responsibilities were not assigned.

Accounting and Finance: Back office executive duties include specialists in the organization’s finances. Receipts, invoices, bills, checks, financial reports and statements, and so on all end up in the back office. Back office executives also collaborate closely with specialists in the organization’s finances.

Team Player: The backbone of any team is a strong team player. To be a great team player, you don’t have to be extroverted or engage in self-promotion. You must be an active member who supports people of all personalities. A great team player always prioritizes the team’s goals over their own. In exchange, you will gain influential connections and increased visibility to help you advance in your career.

Back office jobs today are multifaceted roles that require diverse skills and ultimately focus on daily activities as the primary means of achieving organizational goals. Back offices, despite their invisibility, perform critical functions for the organization and have multiple responsibilities.

To generate sales and profits, your front office requires assistance. The core of your business relies on accounting, bookkeeping, data entry, and other administrative tasks. Although these functions are unrelated to your core business model, they play a crucial role in overall business operations. 

Professional management of your back office is required, but having an in-house team can be costly. If you own or manage a small business, you may decide to outsource back-office functions.

Most modern businesses recognize the importance of data. This frequently requires small businesses to rely on reports generated by the individual software platforms they employ for daily operations. However, there will come a time when consolidating this data into a single, standardized source is preferable. To effectively organize and secure this data, a process known as a data management solution is required.

What exactly is a data management strategy?

Simply put, a data management strategy is an organization’s road map for utilizing data to achieve its objectives. This roadmap ensures that all data management 

activities—from collection to collaboration—work together effectively and efficiently to be as valuable and easy to govern as possible. As a result, your company can avoid some of these standard data challenges by implementing a data management strategy:

• Data from undocumented or inconsistently documented sources that are incompatible, duplicate, or missing
• Projects that use the same data but duplicate the efforts and costs associated with that data are known as silos.
• Data activities that consume time and resources but contribute nothing to overall business goals

A data management strategy will provide a strong foundation for consistent project approaches, successful integration, and business growth.

Listed below are the most significant step to an effective data management strategy:

If your company is facing such difficulties, it is time to develop a business data management strategy. Of course, it will take time to fine-tune and finalize the best strategy for your company, but you can begin with these five steps.

1. Determine business objectives

Your company generates billions of data points every day. If your business objectives are not informed by your data management strategy, you may waste valuable time and resources collecting, storing, and analyzing the wrong types of data. Most of the time, asking questions like

• What are your organization’s overall objectives?
• What information is required to achieve these goals?
• What kinds of insights and data are needed to make progress on these initiatives?

Build your strategy around your company’s data’s three to five most critical use cases. Then, with your business goal in mind, these priorities will help determine processes, tools, governance, and other aspects.

2. Create vital data processes

Now that you are aware of the purposes for which you will put your data, it is time to consider the procedures that will be put in place for gathering, preparing, storing, and disseminating the data.

3. Identify the appropriate technology

Developing a data management strategy requires identifying the appropriate tools, platforms, or technological solutions. Consider carefully what hardware or software you will require to build a solid data infrastructure.

4. Implement data governance

Increased data use and the expansion of your data infrastructure bring not only significant benefits but also a significant responsibility. Don’t skimp on data governance; take the time to develop and communicate policies and procedures for proper data usage. Some topics to consider:

• Data quality: How do you ensure that your data is accurate, complete, and up to date?
• Data security: What steps are you taking to keep data safe?
• Data protection: Do you have the authorization to collect and use data?
• Data disclosure: How can an ethical data environment be fostered?

Data governance guarantees that information is used correctly and consistently throughout the organization, so everyone should communicate and understand policies and procedures, not just owners and stakeholders. This is an excellent first step toward fostering an organizational-wide data culture.

5. Practice and execute

The fact that the organization’s data owners are not data experts can be the most difficult challenge in effectively using data. Therefore, an essential factor of your data management strategy will be to provide your team with the knowledge and skills they need to analyze and comprehend the data. This could imply putting data analysis tools in the hands of departments other than IT or gaining leadership support for your data initiatives. This ensures everyone understands the company’s data management strategy and how to carry out their responsibilities effectively.

If your organization wants to be more purposeful with data and drive efficiencies, a solid foundation begins with a data management strategy. Learn how our data management solutions can help your organization break down data silos, streamline processes, and implement self-service analytics.

Finding qualified and reliable accountants for your business takes time and effort, but there is a faster and wiser way—outsourcing accounting. Outsourcing allows you to access a global talent pool and hire the right people every time.

There are numerous reasons why businesses choose to outsource bookkeeping and accounting services. However, they all share one desire: a better way of doing business. Outsourcing gives them that opportunity and, as is often the case, can provide benefits they weren’t expecting.

If a company wants to grow successfully and scale exponentially, its accounting and financial compliance functions must run like clockwork.

Here are some of the advantages of outsourcing accounting services to your company.

1. Cost-Saving: Most businesses consider outsourcing an extra cost they don’t need to pay. It is not at all the right way to think about it. It’s the other way around. Our clients who outsource their accounting want to cut costs, but most importantly, they don’t want to lose quality. Most of the time, outsourcing saves a lot of money because most companies can offer their services at lower prices (typically due to lower labor costs at their location).Furthermore, outsourcing saves money on salaries, taxes, office supplies, and benefits for full-time or part-time employees. You pay only for what you require. There is no reduction in productivity costs associated with hiring full-time employees.

2. Efficiencies. When a company outsources its accounting and bookkeeping to a competent and experienced specialist organization, it gains the ability to streamline its operations for maximum efficiency. Processing, negotiating, and dealing with complex functions in this manner can lead to not only improved efficiency in specific tasks but also increased overall business productivity.

3. Time Management: As your business expands, you will spend more time managing your finances and less time scaling the company. Therefore, outsourcing administrative tasks such as accounting and bookkeeping allows you to concentrate your time, energy, and resources on developing business strategies. In addition, it will bring in more money and make it easier to meet new people and build customer relationships.
4. Recruitment and training. Consider a world where staff recruitment, training, and onboarding are seamless. There will be no back-to-back days of candidate interviews. No lost productivity hours will be spent guiding newcomers through systems and processes.
   
5. Scalability. The accounting service provider can scale your services without significant lag. For example, suppose your bookkeeping and accounting tasks exceed the number of functions for a single employee. In that case, you can easily hire more people without going through a lengthy hiring process.
   
   Accounting and bookkeeping services are also charged on an hourly basis. It means you can change the number of hours without interruption.

6. Automation Technologies. Accounting automation software is used by most businesses to save time. It saves time, but more importantly, it reduces risks:

• Accounting automation reduces human errors.
• Accounting software provides real-time reports to accountants. It will reduce the likelihood of internal fraud.
• Most accounting service providers are well-versed in automation tools such as Quickbooks, Sage, Visma, Xero, Microsoft Dynamics, SAP, and others. You are wasting time and money if your accountants still use Excel sheets.

When Should You Outsource Your Accounting and Bookkeeping?

• A small business does not need a full-time bookkeeper, but it does require someone with more skills than the office manager or receptionist can provide.
• A company of any size cannot find a full-time employee with the necessary skills at an affordable price.
• A growing business always looks for ways to expand its accounting and bookkeeping services.
• Temporary services are required, for example, extra assistance with end-of-year reports or if a full-time employee is going on vacation, maternity leave, etc.

Despite the apparent benefits of outsourcing accounting and bookkeeping services, making the transition can be intimidating. Before making a decision, it is crucial to devote a substantial amount of time and effort to research, as there is no simple answer to whether or not it is the right move for a specific business. We offer reliable accounting services to small and medium-sized businesses. You can view our accounting and bookkeeping services or submit a quote request.

This data must be analyzed in order to improve decision-making. However, there are some Big Data challenges that businesses face. These include data quality, storage, a lack of data science professionals, data validation, and data aggregation from various sources.

We will look more closely at these Big data processing challenges and how to overcome them.

Challenge #1: Lack of proper understanding of Big Data

Companies frequently fail to understand even the most fundamental concepts, such as what big data is, what its benefits are, what infrastructure is required, and so on. A big data adoption project without a clear understanding is doomed to fail. Companies may waste a lot of time and money on things they don’t even understand how to use.

And if employees do not understand the value of big data and do not want to change existing processes to adopt it, they can resist it and hinder the company’s progress.

Solution:

As a significant change for a company, big data should be accepted first by top management and then down the ladder. Therefore, IT departments must organize numerous training and workshops to ensure understanding and acceptance of big data at all levels.

To increase big data adoption, the implementation and use of the new big data solution must be monitored and controlled. Top management, on the other hand, should exercise restraint because it can backfire.

Challenge #2 Problems with data growth

One of the most pressing challenges of Big Data is appropriately storing all of these massive sets of data. The amount of data stored in corporate data centers and databases is rapidly increasing. As these data sets grow exponentially over time, they become challenging to manage.

Most of the data is unstructured and originates from documents, videos, audio, text files, and other sources. This means they cannot be found in databases. This can present significant Big Data analytics challenges that must be addressed as soon as possible, or the company’s growth will be hampered.

Solution

Companies use modern compression, tiering, and deduplication techniques to handle these large data sets. Compression reduces the number of bits in data, decreasing its overall size. The process of removing duplicate and unwanted data from a data set is called deduplication.

Data tiering enables businesses to store data in various storage tiers. It ensures that the data is stored in the most appropriate location. Depending on the size and importance of the data, data tiers can be public cloud, private cloud, or flash storage.

Challenge #3 Confusion with Big Data tool technologies

It’s easy to get lost in the vast number of big data technologies on the market. Is Spark required, or will the speeds of Hadoop MapReduce suffice? Is Cassandra or HBase better for data storage? It can be challenging to find the answers. It’s even easier to make poor choices when swimming in a sea of technological possibilities without a clear idea of what you need.

Solution:

If you are new to big data, it is best to seek professional assistance. You could hire an expert or turn to a vendor for big data consulting. In both cases, collaborative efforts will allow you to develop a strategy and, from there, select the appropriate technology stack.

Challenge #4  Lack of data professionals

Companies require skilled data professionals to run these modern technologies and Big Data tools. These experts will include data scientists, analysts, and engineers with prior experience working with tools and making sense of large data sets.

Companies are facing a shortage of Big Data professionals. Data handling tools have evolved rapidly, but most professionals have not. Actionable steps must be taken to close this gap.

Solution

Companies are spending more money on recruiting skilled professionals. However, they must also provide training programs for existing employees to get the most out of them.

Another critical step that organizations take is to purchase data analytics solutions powered by artificial intelligence/machine learning. These tools can be used by professionals who are not data scientists but have a basic understanding of the subject. This step allows businesses to save a significant amount of money on recruitment.

Challenge #5 Data security

One of the most difficult challenges of Big Data is securing these massive amounts of data. Unfortunately, companies are frequently so preoccupied with understanding, storing, and analyzing their data sets that they postpone data security. However, this is a bad idea because unprotected data repositories can be breeding grounds for malicious hackers.

A stolen record or a data breach can cost a company up to $3.7 million.

Solution

Companies are hiring more cybersecurity experts to protect their data. Other measures taken to secure data include:

• Encryption of data
• Data separation
• Identity and access management
• Endpoint security implementation
• Security monitoring in real time
• Make use of Big Data security tools like IBM Guardian.

Challenge #6 Salary Increases for Skilled Big Data Professionals

Big Data salaries have risen significantly. For example, the average salary for an entry-level prominent data engineer (1-3 years of experience) is ₱568,057. A senior-level engineer of big data (8+ years of experience, on the other hand, earns an average salary of ₱1,013,381.

Solution: To address the talent shortage, organizations have had to increase their budgets and efforts to recruit and retain employees. As a result, these organizations are training their current employees to have the skills from within the company.

Some are also looking to technology, such as self-service analytics solutions with machine learning capabilities. These solutions are intended for use by professionals who do not have extensive knowledge of data science. It is thus possible to achieve big data objectives without spending money on big data experts.

It is critical to stay competitive in today’s data-driven economy. While Big Data challenges can arise at any stage, it is critical to recognize that everyone approaches them differently. In addition, Big Data has an infinite scope, which makes it ever-changing.

BPOPHIL is dedicated to assisting businesses in gaining control of their data by providing cutting-edge data input and data processing solutions that are both accurate and efficient, all while remaining reasonably priced. Learn more, and let us know how we can assist you. https://bpophil.com/