Put Business Process Services on Your Digital Transformation Agenda

Business process services is more than just about saving money. It can play a key role in establishing the IT agility that’s necessary for successful digital transformation.

By handing over repetitive tasks and workflows to a third party, including data-centric processes, business process services enable organizations and their IT teams to focus on more strategic initiatives, knowing they can scale as needed. They can easily and cost-effectively adjust based on the ebb and flow of their business without overprovisioning people and resources that could end up being idle.

Many processes are candidates

Businesses in any industry, no matter their size, can take advantage of business process services, including finance and insurance, transportation, health care, and even public sector organizations. This kind of service not only reduces costs, but also provides peace of mind that essential processes are getting done as the business focuses on its core products and service offerings as well as strategic initiatives on its digital transformation agenda.

A wide variety of workflows and business activities can be taken care of by business process services, including payroll, accounting, telemarketing, data recording, customer support and social media marketing. Some processes might be simple, while others more technical. Processes might take place in the front office, such as customer facing support, while back office processes that are often outsourced include billing or purchasing.

Business process services is a growth enabler

There are many benefits to business process services, not the least of which is reducing costs, but if you’re doing it strategically, you’re also fostering the IT agility necessary for digital transformation. Most of all you’re growing your business.

A common path to growth for many businesses is expanding their footprint at a regional, national or even global level. A business process services provider can reduce the investment and risk associated with serving multiple regions and time zones in multiple languages. A third-party is also able to scale up on demand more quickly in their business process services areas of expertise to support a company’s introduction of new products and services—they could easily add more customer support representatives, for example.

Just as your company has its core business offerings and expertise, so does a business process services provider, which means they can get quicker, more efficient and better results, as they have built up a track record of hiring specialists for specific workflows and processes. They can tap into the necessary talent and train new hires more quickly and effectively. They may also have expertise in regulatory framework and compliance obligations specific to certain industries.

As much as business process services offers more than just cost savings, it remains a chief benefit, as it lowers your internal labour costs, including the time and resources necessary for onboarding and training new employees, as well as office space. This is especially important for business processes that fluctuate in volume because of the seasonal ups and downs common in many industries.

Enable IT agility

Business process services relationships are often approached in a siloed manner in that processes and workflows are handed off on a case by case basis as means to save money.

While this approach does offer bottom line benefits, organizations should look at business process services to improve their IT agility and think bigger. As a managed IT services provider, Supra ITS isn’t content to just save customers money by taking over a workflow or two. We see our engagements as an opportunity to infuse key business activities with the technology levers that create IT agility.

As a Supra ITS company, FleetGain has expanded its offerings to deliver business process services with an initial focus on transportation companies. We provide offsite, extremely reliable and flexible data processing services, including order entry, billing, rating, POD entry and cube entry, coupled with experience using common transportation management systems, including popular transportation management systems such as TruckMate, Degama and Rose Rocket.

Transportation is just the beginning for business process services at FleetGain. We’re ready to work with a wide array of industries that want to hand of repetitive tasks so the can better focus on strategic initiatives. By looking at business process services as part of your larger digital transformation agenda, you can add significant value and direct business impact beyond the bottom line. Terry Holland is Director, Logistics and Supply Chain Services for Supra ITS.

There are many ways artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning already impact cybersecurity. You can expect that trend to continue in 2024 – both as tools for data protection as well as a threat.

Balancing Cybersecurity Innovation Amid Evolving Threat Landscapes

Even as you implement AI and machine learning into your cybersecurity strategy through the adoption of tools like Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response (SOAR), Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) and Managed Detection and Response (MDR), so are threat actors. They will continue to update and evolve their own methodologies and tools to compromise their targets by applying AI and machine learning to how they use ransomware, malware and deepfakes.

With small and medium-sized businesses just much at risk as their large enterprise counterparts, SMBs must take advantage of AI and machine learning as mush possible. AI-directed attacks are expected to rise in 2024 in the form of deepfake technologies that make phishing and impersonation more effective, as well as evolving ransomware and malware.

Deepfake social engineering techniques

Deepfake technologies that leverage AI are especially worrisome, as they can create fake content that spurs employees and organizations to work against their best interests. Hackers can use deepfakes to create massive changes with serious financial consequences, including altering stock prices.

Deepfake social engineering techniques will only improve with the use of AI, increasing the likelihood of data breaches through unauthorized access to systems and more authentic looking phishing messages that are more personalized, and hence, more effective.

Countering Cyber Threats and Harnessing Innovation in 2024

If hackers are keen on leveraging AI and machine learning to defeat your cybersecurity, you must be ready to combat them in equal measure – just as AI and machine learning will create new challenges in 2024, they can also help you bolster your cybersecurity. While regulations are being developed to foster ethical use of AI, threat actors are not likely to follow them.

AI will also affect your cyber insurance as your providers will use it to assess your resilience against cyberattacks and adjust your premium payments accordingly. AI presents an opportunity for you to improve your cybersecurity to keep those insurance costs under control.

Conclusion

There’s a lot of doom being predicted around the growing use of AI and machine learning. And while it does pose a risk to your organization and its sensitive data, you can use it to bolster your cybersecurity even as threat actors leverage AI to up the ante. A managed service provider with a focus on security can help you use AI and machine learning to protect your organization as we head into 2024.

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