The Best Practices in Data Capture Outsourcing

Everywhere you look, you know the times are changing. In the last two decades, especially, the world and subsequently, businesses have gradually shifted into the digital sphere. It seems that every day, there is a new opportunity to digitize a new function of b business, making industries and markets follow suit.

With these modern changes come new contemporary challenges. Companies must continually find new ways to keep abreast of the changing times; one viable way is Data Capture Outsourcing.

The demand for data capture outsourcing is becoming more robust than ever. As demand for such external services rises, accordingly, more data capture service providers emerge. Companies now face a new challenge: finding the right, ideal partner to take data capture requirements off their hands. Companies can then shift their focus to higher-value processes that can lead to exponential growth if they partner with a successful outsourcer partner that employs only the best practices.

Factors Behind Outsourcing Data Capture

Now more than ever, companies are flooded with an influx of data to process. To keep a competitive stance in the market ranks, companies must constantly employ new strategies to manage the processing and storing of data to maintain seamless business operations. However, for many possible reasons, companies cannot do just that and might necessitate the help of an external service provider.

Data capture outsourcing is slowly becoming the norm among companies. Essentially, data capture outsourcing rids in-house employees of mundane, time-consuming, non-core areas of business tasks.

However helpful, partnering with the wrong outsourcing partner can only equate to costly losses. Thus, companies must remain critical in fishing the best data capture outsourcing partner out of the sea of data capture service providers.

With that, here are some factors to consider to do just that:

Quality

An essential element to ensure is quality of service. Companies must ensure that the external company offering data capture outsourcing services must have a functional audit system that can track errors to process data more correctly and accurately. An ideal data capture provider must have a separate quality check and assurance unit specializing in testing outputs to yield high-quality, actionable data.

Turnaround

In this day and age where time is money, having immediate access to relevant data when needed is of utmost criticality. Thus, companies must establish how their potential outsourcing partner is with meeting deadlines.

Companies must keep a firm stance on maintaining and upholding set goals and deadlines. Once the outsourcing partner consistently fails to meet set quality standards, this can be grounds for the termination of the contract.

Cost

Although costs should not be much of a significant factor in choosing a data capture service partner, for some companies, it is. However, companies must never compromise quality for cheaper service plans. After all, with the plethora of data capture service providers in existence, there will always be a more affordable provider that offers high-quality service.

Ultimately, one of the reasons companies turn to data capture outsourcing is to save costs. Although initial costs might be contradictory to such a goal, the long-term cost benefits of having better quality outputs and organizational growth will make outsourcing worth it.

Study Their Portfolio

It might be wise for companies to evaluate their portfolio, along with certifications, references to back their experiences to establish the ethics, quality, and style of an outsourced data capture service provider.

Companies may ask a vendor for a quick mock-up or a basic work plan if a portfolio is not available. However, companies must not cross the line by confusing a mock-up for a finished work “on spec.” Keep in mind that external service providers are still professionals, and thus, must be compensated accordingly.

Take Note of After Services

For outsourcing services that involve technology projects, it is practical for companies to negotiate a support clause and specify a warranty to have some amount of continuing support from the service provider after completing the project. It is important to note that bringing up a support clause must be done during the contract negotiation and not after it gets completed.

Provide Full Details and Specifications to the Service Provider

Companies must communicate full details of project specifications and expectations to yield successful outsourcing results. By laying out all the necessary project details, companies can give the data capture service provider a good grasp of what they want and deliver outcomes that meet their set standards.

Ensure Data Security And Regulatory Requirements Are Met

In undertaking outsourcing, especially with IT-related projects, companies must establish how the service provider can safeguard their company’s data and customers. Companies must ensure that the service provider employs the best practices that reduce the risks of data breaches.

Parties involved must create and adhere to strict Service Level Agreements to guarantee data protection.

In-House vs. Outsourced Data Capture

The call to manage data processes internally or externally is a continuing topic for debate. Although there are companies capable of housing an internal team for secondary business functions, no company should have to come up with additional support teams to do mundane tasks. Instead, companies can outsource such tasks to external providers who make a living out of this function.

Data capture outsourcing is a viable, if not the best, option for companies searching for a cost-effective and efficient solution to manage their data without undertaking major changes such as restructuring existing architecture, implementing new technologies, and hiring and training new personnel.

Ultimately, by opting to outsource data capture requirements to organizations who specialize in handling critical tasks quickly, cost-effectively, and with a specific company’s goals in mind, companies can better manage accurate and highly organized actionable data to facilitate growth.

Companies that Outsource Data Capture

Companies recognize the criticality of accurate data capture in creating optimal business decisions to facilitate organizational growth and development. However, data capture processes and management require a considerable amount of time and attention, lending such tasks demanding and nearly impossible to do, especially for small businesses. What is even more challenging at that double-checking data is still necessary to prevent data inconsistencies and inaccuracies.

As data capture outsourcing is gradually becoming the norm across industries, here are some of the biggest companies that outsource data capture requirements and other data management tasks:

Xerox

With over 100 years of specialization in office technology, Xerox is an American global corporation providing print and digital document products and services in over 160 countries worldwide.

Recently, Xerox acquired an IT company that provided business process outsourcing solutions. In late 2016, Xerox finally transferred all its business service solutions to its recently acquired divestiture. Moreover, Xerox also turned to outsource part of its data capture requirements to an external service provider in London.

Amazon

Amazon is a Washington-based online retail company, which has expanded its business operations to include artificial intelligence, digital streaming, web services, and cloud computing to its services after a massive success as an online retailer.

Amazon has a reputation for outsourcing some of its functions, especially those in line with customer service. Moreover, its data capture processes remained nearshore, outsourcing to an external service provider based in England.

Walmart

Walmart recognizes the importance of data capture processes in establishing better customer service and undertaking better business decision-making. Thus, it may come as no surprise that the retail giant has heavily invested in its offshore development center in Bangalore to strengthen its data and analytics technology to achieve higher operational efficiency.

Unlike most companies, Walmart’s outsourcing plan did not have the goal of cutting costs; instead, it was a way to take advantage of global external talent and advanced technologies to improve customer service.

BOSCH

Founded in 1886, BOSCH is one of Germany’s ten most prominent companies with a respectable reputation in engineering and technology. BOSCH manufactures and trades automotive products, industrial equipment, security systems, among many other things.

BOSCH outsourced its data capture processes to a company GDPR-compliant outsourcing company in the United Kingdom. Moreover, as part of its strategy to become the leading company in electromobility, BOSCH also contracted its cell manufacturing operations to external service providers.

HubSpot

Well known for its software products for inbound sales, marketing, and customer service, HubSpot is a reputable software company based in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

HubSpot outsources its data capture processes to an external service provider based in Hillsborough, New Jersey. Furthermore, HubSpot also outsources parts of its sales and customer service to other contracting firms.

Elwyn

Established in 1852, Elwyn has grown to be one of the oldest and largest US-based care facilities that provide education, support services, and treatment to children and adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities, mental illnesses, and other behavioral challenges.

Internationally recognized as a human services, nonprofit organization, an American business process outsourcing company has taken the facility’s data management into its hands.

The Emergence of Data Capture Technology

As data capture outsourcing grows bigger, new data capture technologies emerge to provide better outsourcing services. Among the latest, most cost-effective technologies are the following:

Machine Learning-Assisted OCR

Machine Learning-assisted Optical Character Recognition (OCR) is one of today’s most implemented data capture methods. Essentially, OCR allows for a digitized scanning and recognition of written and printed text. The OCR works by photo-scanning the text, analyzing it, and translating it into character codes that can be easily accessed and edited digitally.

Ultimately, OCR improves the data capture process by quickly transforming scanned documents into searchable and editable text files.

Robotic Process Automation

Robotic Process Automation allows developers to input user-filled forms into the application directly. Through the RPA, important data from user-filled forms are easily identifiable and detected. More specifically, the forms processing server can grab images, process the information, and transports the data to the RPA bot, lending it transferable into a legacy system, even if it requires keystrokes to function.

Conclusion

As established, data capture outsourcing can be the best option to manage actionable data better. Even more helpful is the emergence of new automation tools that can operate 24/7 and work significantly faster than a team of experts can. Ultimately, by opting for data capture outsourcing, companies eliminate the instances of human error, cut costs as contracting is far less expensive than accommodating the work in-house, and pave the path towards organizational growth and development.

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IDS Commander iTech2021

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