Visualization of Progress inside BPO! (An example of fulfillment BPO)

What is BPO? (Business Process Outsourcing)

Speaking of BPO in Japan, many people would imagine 'Customer-facing' and 'Orders management'. Words of

• 'Customer-facing'->"Call center"
• 'Orders management'=>"Fulfillment"

might be familiar for a business person who works in the BPO industry. Alone, each of these segments are growing up market size in about 3-5 billion US dollar.

However, I think these numbers a still small in comparison with the Economy-size of Japan. Plainly speaking, I think the numbers representing the reality that 'Japanese companies are reluctant to outsource'. In other words, outsourcer is always anxious against outsourcee, worrying about

• Are they sure to treat gift-wrapping options?
• How far did they process the order of 100, now?, etc..

The following is a Workflow of 'Pick, Pack and Ship' which would be outsourced from a mail-order company to logistic company. The mail-order company will put the shipping address data and Goods information data into the flow. In accordance with these shipping instructions, Pic, Pack and Ship will be performed in the logistic company. By the way, the operations of 'Order reception from consumer' and 'Billing to customer' are not outsourced in this example.

[Pick, Pack and Ship flow]

Although it's obvious if you look at the process diagram, the jobs that have been entrusted to the logistics company are "(4) Packing" and "(5) X-ray inspection". That is a split that, when packing apparel products, shoes and bags, etc., packing-boxes will be the subjects for X-ray examination after packing, and then put a sticker of "X-ray inspected' on them.

The job for the personnel in charge in the logistic company only checks the Packing task (Inspection task) one by one, and clicking on the 'Finish' button at its completion. The authorized workers in mail-order company and logistic company will be able to understand

• who when performed "(4) Packing"
• who when performed "(5) X-ray inspection", in real time.

In addition, there are some more ideas besides this such as "Automatic sending of payment completion mail", "Automatic generation of invoice", "Automatic sending of shipping completion mail", etc.. I guess there are possibilities of improvement from on-site point of view, such as who to be sent or the order of sending... Moreover, there may be more different room for improvement such as Intentional retention on the timer when 'the Specified delivery date' was optioned at the order reception or, automate until printing out of the invoices. In any case, we should actively discuss about "the optimal Business Processes" to every outsourcing contract, even after running it.


P.s.: Well, thinking in the standpoint of a logistic company which is an outsourcee, I want to put the requests from more than one mail-order companies into this workflow, naturally. However, there are likely to come out "Problem" on the data viewing authority... <a href="#">To be continued</a>

[Pick, Pack and Ship flow:'1. Enter Shipping instruction' screen]

[Data Items List]

[Free Download]

• Business Template: Pick, Pack and Ship flow

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[Japanese Entry (和文記事)]