What is the outsourcing summit?

The Outsourcing Summit season is upon us again!

Global businesses are slowly picking up in outsourcing their services onshore and offshore. With this, outsourcing leaders around the world make the move to continuously educate and encourage companies about outsourcing and its benefits.

What better way to do this than by holding an annual summit!

Outsourcing summit provides opportunities for businesses, outsourcing companies, and public institutions to learn from each other.

With the success of last year’s edition, Outsource Accelerator, the leading outsourcing market in the world, looks forward to contributing to the development of the Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) industry with the OS2021.

Let’s learn how the summit works, as well as the perks of attending an outsourcing summit.

Outsourcing summit definition

The outsourcing summit is an immersive experience that aims to highlight the country’s BPO industry. It gathers a meticulously chosen group of industry experts, BPO leaders, and government institutions to share insights, trends, and best practices in the BPO sector.

The summit provides an opportunity for businesses to develop their network, offer eye-catching staffing deals, and learn about leveraging remote staffing. Its theme, meanwhile, varies depending on the challenges and innovations the host organization aims to tackle. 

For instance, IT outsourcing organizations could discuss the threat of automation that looms in global outsourcing, how BPOs overcome this challenge and their next action for this issue. 

Businesses can organize outsourcing summits through physical, virtual, or blended modes. Due to the mobility restrictions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, organizations are holding virtual outsourcing summits in the meantime.

Outsourcing Summit Structure

A typical outsourcing summit is composed of a series of discussions and presentations featuring key speakers and industry players. This includes:

Keynote messages

A keynote speech sets the tone of the summit’s central theme. It raises the interest of the audience in the event by laying out the main discussion at the start of the summit. 

In an outsourcing summit, keynote speakers are usually industry leaders from the public and private sectors. They present current statistics and data that participants should know as a way to highlight the importance of talking about the summit’s theme. 

Panel sessions

In panel sessions, industry leaders and key BPO players are invited to sit for a discussion on a certain topic. They will then answer a set of questions prepared by the host about the topic, supplementing them with facts, figures, personal opinions, and data projections.

Panel discussions aim to spark conversation between the industry leaders about controversial or interesting topics. It also helps the audience learn a thing or two from these conversations.

Open forums

Open forums open the floor for the audience to speak their minds regarding the discussion or the entire summit. Known as the question and answer (Q&A) part, these are allotted by the organizer every after a panel discussion or before the summit ends. 

Here, invited thought leaders will then answer questions coming from the audience about their earlier discussions. This aims to stir engagement and interaction between the audience and the industry leaders and learn from each other’s points of view.

In a usual conference, open forums as well demonstrate the “democracy” practiced within the outsourcing industry.

Virtual office tours and presentations

Lastly, outsourcing summits won’t be completed without virtual office tours and presentations from BPO companies.

In this part, top BPOs from around the world give a peek at their offices, day-to-day operations, compliances, and even work cultures. They also provide their pricing structures and other regulations.

Through this portion, industry leaders provide prospects an insight into how they operate and serve their clients. This also helps in eradicating the misconceptions of outsourcing companies being “sweatshops” and shaping their decisions as to which BPO suits their needs.

Why attend the outsourcing summit

Outsourcing summits are more than just a simple event for outsourcing enthusiasts, experts, and clients. This provides a great place to learn, build a network, and develop businesses during and after the event.

It also benefits every participant in several ways.

Industry leaders

Industry leaders and experts could gain insight from their peers during discussions and open forums. From here, their knowledge about the industry enriches by breaking biases and misconceptions to help them develop their outlook better.

Outsourcing suppliers

For outsourcing suppliers, they get to expose their brand and identity through the summit. This event is a great way to introduce their company to the industry, connect with their clients, and get approval from them.

This is also a way for them to build their network whether they’re new to the game or already a major player.

Government institutions

It’s even more important for government institutions to attend the outsourcing summit. As the governing body that enables the industry, they need to formulate regulations and programs that can benefit foreign investors in the country, especially BPOs.

Through attending the outsourcing summit, they gain ideas directly from the people within the outsourcing sector. The knowledge they get from this event can be used to develop new regulations and attract more clients to invest in the country.

Current and potential clients

Lastly, the outsourcing summit helps clients build their networks and have informed decisions in outsourcing their services.

They get to learn more about outsourcing from its key players, co-clients, and government institutions that regulate them. 

Benefits of attending the outsourcing summit

Aside from the knowledge, world outsourcing summits usually offer perks to their attendees. They mostly benefit first-timers in outsourcing in terms of:

Discounts

BPO companies offer generous discounts exclusively for companies signing up within the event. New clients get to experience at least 30% savings on outsourcing costs when they decide to push through with their offers.

Free and limited trials

Summits also offer free and paid trials for different roles. Participants can claim this offer in the event itself or for a certain period, depending on the outsourcing company offering it.

With this limited trial, clients get to try outsourcing in action without tie-ins to see what company fits their needs.

Company and industry updates

Through the summit, participants can get to know BPO and industry updates first as they deliver them in the event. 

Outsourcing summits around the world

The COVID pandemic may have changed the gameplay for in-person events such as outsourcing summits. Yet, it did not shake the industry and the leaders that organize them.

For instance, Outsource Accelerator holds an outsourcing summit every year. Last year, it was held through an immersive virtual conference without the boring Zoom interviews and with lots of interaction.

Aside from this, other institutions have also innovated and found ways to connect the industry with their clients and government institutions altogether. Here are some of them:

IAOP’s Outsourcing World Summit

The International Association of Outsourcing Professionals (IAOP) is one of the established institutions holding outsourcing summits since 1998. They held over 30 conferences in five continents around the world tackling different issues in the industry. 

This year’s OWS2021 was held virtually with immersive Zoom conferences, Q&A forums, and breakout sessions. The edition mainly focused on business continuity and resiliency for global companies.

The Virtual American Pharma Outsourcing Summit

The Generis American Pharma Outsourcing Summit, as mentioned on their website, sets “the standards on how the industry should connect and exchange ideas”.

This summit brings pharmaceutical executives, supply chain leaders, and healthcare institutions within North America. Their 2021 edition aims to share insights on the trends, regulations, procedures, and advantages of outsourcing in adapting to the new normal.

SSO Network’s Future of Outsourcing Summit 

A part of their Shared Services and Outsourcing Week, the SSO Networks hosts an annual outsourcing summit on introducing and encouraging outsourcing and shared services to global businesses.

Last year, the summit discussed the effect of automation and AI on the outsourcing industry. Industry leaders were invited to discuss how companies can get the best out of their teams through different outsourcing models.

HR Shared Services Transformation Summit

Another installment from the SSO Network, the HR Shared Services Transformation Summit is aimed at HR and Shared Services leaders, government institutions, HR BPOs, and global clients. Each installment of the summit tackles the trends and issues on human capital management.

For this year, the summit tackles mixing automated HR processes with human engagement and maintaining organizational culture amid remote work.

Smart Outsourcing Summit

Lastly, the Smart Outsourcing Summit brought together delegates from the global outsourcing industry to discuss the UAE’s potential in becoming an OSS market.

The last year’s summit is a part of the CEI Group’s Smart Summit series discussing a wide range of topics in the global business climate.