Business Process Outsourcing is the delegation of some business processes such as human resource to a third party contractor or service provider. Many companies nowadays outsource large segments of their product and service supply chain. Due to the rapid growth in sub contracting, the BPO industry has expanded to include various types of services BPO a company can opt for. Of these, data entry is one of the most popular types of outsourcing. Data entry outsourcing has to a great extent been made possible with availability of high speed fibre optic cables in the developing world as well as internet access. The following are some of the most important types of data entry services BPO.

First, data processing. This involves all types of data processing services such as form processing, check processing, insurance processing, survey processing and image processing. The repetitive tasks involved in data processing outsourcing helps a business to lower its costs and get rid of time consuming processes. Data conversion is another type of BPO service. Here the provider takes raw data and converts it into different outputs depending on the requirements and formats the client prefers. For instance, there is PDF conversion, Document conversion, XML conversion, Document digitizing and RTF Conversion. The BPO service provider may convert from tables into databases or convert information from one system into a format that can be read by another system.

Numeric data entry is another data entry services BPO that has seen growth. The processes covered here include telecom billing and medical billing. Given the nature of the data, accuracy is the most important thing. Just a seemingly simple mistake can cause a negative ripple effect on the company’s reputation and its relationship with clients.

Another type of data entry is online data entry. Here, the services BPO provider is expected to provide the information exclusively through the internet. Strictly speaking, this is not a type of data entry but a means of entering data. Its counter method is offline data entry. Another type of data entry that can also be considered simply as a means of entering data is Optical Character Recognition (OCR). OCR uses technology to convert printed documents, filled forms and in some cases hand written text into a digital data that can be manipulated in the same way as computer entered data. Other types of data entry services BPO is the creation of e-Books.

Daven Michaels Author of the book Outsource This!