From payroll processing to updating product information, data entry is an inevitable task in any business. While data entry is a non-core administrative function, it still plays a critical role in our day-to-day operations. Data entry establishes a database of information that can be used for data analytics and decision-making.
However, data entry is often taken for granted. If businesses are not careful, data can be a destructive force to reckon with — a missing zero or an outdated customer information can spiral into inaccurate reporting and hefty penalties!
If your company is swamped with data and you have a small in-house data entry team, processing and organizing all that information can be a herculean task. Not to mention that increasing your team’s headcount through local hiring may not be the most financially sustainable move.
In this case, it’s a sign to outsource data entry services to a Philippine-based BPO company like KDCI Outsourcing. In this article, we’ll show why an offshore data entry team is vital for optimizing labor costs and ensuring data accuracy.
The Challenges Surrounding Data Entry
Data entry is not an easy job. Below are the three most common challenges in data encoding:
Manual Data Input
You may have the fastest and most accurate data entry professional in your team, but that doesn’t mean they’re immune to typos — especially if data entry is done manually due to a lack of advanced data entry tools. Manual data entry increases the risk of human error, which can spell financial trouble for your business.
Time-Intensive
The job responsibilities of a data entry professional not only involve encoding data, but also cross-checking and verifying information. When done manually, data encoding can take a significant amount of time to complete. If your in-house data entry team is overwhelmed with unprocessed data, catching up with pending data entry work can be challenging.
Repetitive
Doing data entry work for hours across five business days can be physically and mentally draining. Consequently, this can lead to a loss of focus and poorer performance, affecting overall productivity.
A Closer Look At In-House Data Entry Teams
Across industries, data entry work is unavoidable. Many companies have dedicated in-house data entry to organize, verify, input, and update data in a database management system. However, the ability to maintain an in-house team long-term raises questions regarding overhead and operational efficiency.
The sections below weigh the pros and cons of maintaining an in-house data entry team.
Pros
Tight Collaboration
An in-house data entry team works in the same time zone and location as their employer, creating a seamless cycle of collaboration, knowledge-sharing, communication, and feedback between data encoders and managers.
Because local employees understand the cultural and linguistic nuances of their home country, there are little to no barriers to communication, which strengthens teamwork and avoids misunderstandings.
Familiarity With Institutional Knowledge and Data Compliance
Local data entry teams have first-hand exposure to institutional knowledge and norms. This equips staff with the internal know-how of their company’s workplace culture and processes. Thanks to their familiarity with their country’s local data compliance standards, all data sets are accurate and compliant.
Better Oversight
Proximity and time zone advantage allow for better oversight of your in-house data entry team. The ability to set quality standards, implement feedback mechanisms, and oversee daily workflow ensures that your in-house data encoders can perform well and produce the required data entry work.
Cons
Expensive to Maintain
While there is beauty in face-to-face collaboration, the cost to maintain an in-house data entry team can strain your budget. From employee benefits to annual subscriptions, the costs add up over time. As a consequence, you have fewer resources for strategic or high-impact business initiatives.
Employee turnover — whether voluntary or involuntary — can cost you half or twice a data encoder’s salary. The more data entry clerks quit, the more data your team will process, resulting in delays, poor productivity, and increased turnover.
Poor Scalability
In-house data entry teams are harder to scale. In the US, the average annual salary of a data entry specialist is $42,098 USD per year. If your company has a slew of data to encode, adjusting your staffing needs by hiring locally can be the most exorbitant move you’ll ever make.
Not only do you need to invest more in recruitment and onboarding, but you also need to pay for additional equipment and software subscriptions. Furthermore, the time and resources spent on training new hires can potentially affect data accuracy and team productivity.
Outdated Technology
In some cases, companies lack the proper technology to streamline data tasks. Perhaps they’re still relying on outdated software or engaging in tedious manual data entry. Technology upgrades are expensive, and training your internal data entry team to use new tools costs time and money.
This may result in errors and inefficiencies as your in-house data entry professionals are still acclimating to the newly introduced tool.
What KDCI Outsourcing Brings to the Table
KDCI Outsourcing is a data entry BPO company that offers tailored offshore staffing solutions to clients around the globe. Having worked with brands such as Apple and Amazon, the firm has garnered a wealth of experience providing outsourced services, including data entry and data processing.
That being said, this data entry outsourcing company can power up your data entry processes with advanced technologies and scalable support. Here’s what KDCI Outsourcing offers to overwhelmed companies:
Higher Cost Savings
Offshore outsourcing is the cheapest outsourcing model. You save on company expenses, as wages and cost of living are lower in developing countries.
According to Jobstreet, a Filipino data entry specialist earns an average of $582 USD to $758 USD a month — that’s $6,984 USD to $9,096 USD per year! Since the Philippines has a cheaper cost of labor, you can hire several data entry specialists for the price of a single US-based data entry specialist ($42,098 USD a year).
Like other BPO companies, the cost of equipment, software subscriptions, recruitment, training, and turnover is paid for by KDCI Outsourcing — effectively slashing your operational costs by a whopping 70%! By leveraging data entry outsourcing, your company will have greater financial confidence to invest in strategic business ventures.
Unparalleled Accuracy and Efficiency
KDCI Outsourcing takes data accuracy seriously. With the sharp eye of KDCI’s data entry specialists, they can accurately input and cross-check customer or financial data from any data source, such as receipts and reports.
Their mastery of Microsoft Excel, Tableau, and Power BI enables them to organize and visualize data for further analysis. Combined with their fast typing speeds, the company’s offshore data entry team can ensure speed and accuracy in every data entry task.
Due to the repetitive nature of data entry, KDCI’s offshore data entry team optimizes data encoding and processing by leveraging AI and automation tools that extract scanned text, identify data patterns, and detect data inaccuracies. These tools minimize human error, improve operational efficiency, and simplify data organization, review, and correction.
Overall, when you outsource data entry services to KDCI Outsourcing, you get the privilege to work with detail-oriented professionals who embrace AI and automation in any data entry project.
Faster Scalability
Counting on your in-house data entry team to handle large data volumes is not healthy or feasible. To keep up with the increase in workload, your team will put in more hours, making them susceptible to burnout. For any company, burned-out employees mark the beginning of turnover. Unless you scale your business operations, your data entry professionals will leave for better opportunities.
KDCI’s offshore data entry outsourcing services are scalable. With the cost-effectiveness of Filipino talent, you can support your internal data entry team with additional headcount within 25 days (or less), accelerating data encoding and processing to make the workload more manageable for your data encoders. In case of fewer data entry tasks post-busy seasons, you can freely downsize your offshore data entry team.
With KDCI Outsourcing, you can scale your team as needed and maintain a high level of operational efficiency without worrying about labor costs.
Time Zone Advantage
Some companies may shy away from offshore outsourcing due to time zone differences. But believe it or not, this can be a huge advantage. Outsourcing companies operate all year round, 24/7. Whether it’s the Fourth of July or Christmas, KDCI Outsourcing can provide the needed support to keep your business running even if you’re internal team is out on holiday.
KDCI Outsourcing has outsourced data entry specialist teams that work round-the-clock — including graveyard shifts — so all your data entry needs are met during your team’s working hours and downtimes. Because there’s an alignment in working hours, communicating with your outsourced data entry team is much more seamless.
Tailored Offshore Outsourcing Data Entry Services
Businesses have complex needs and goals that require nuanced, flexible, and long-term solutions. That’s why KDCI Outsourcing and other BPO companies don’t subscribe to the one-size-fits-all approach to outsourcing.
KDCI Outsourcing has a team of outsourcing experts who can deliver a carefully crafted outsourcing solution based on your needs, goals, and workplace culture.
With KDCI’s tailored offshore outsourcing solutions, your company can adapt to changes in data entry processes and industry needs, drive measurable results in your internal data entry team, and foster alignment in goals and expectations.
Multiple Data Entry Outsourcing Roles
Aside from data entry specialists, KDCI Outsourcing offers other outsourced data encoding and processing roles:
- Data conversion specialists
- Data cleansing specialists
- Database administrators
- Accounting encoders
- E-commerce encoders
- Order entry specialists
- Indexing clerks
- Mailing list compilers
Whether you need help with product data entry or data cleansing, KDCI’s diverse roster of offshore data entry professionals can get any data entry work done.
Rigorous Hiring Process
Many outsourcing companies, including KDCI Outsourcing, follow strict hiring processes. They work with the client to define qualifications and requirements for outsourced professionals. Most clients, for example, prefer candidates with some experience in data encoding and who are computer-literate, proactive, detail-oriented, and cooperative.
To meet a client’s standards and expectations, KDCIs HR Outsourcing reviews candidates’ resumes and vets them through an assessment test and a series of interviews. These tests and interviews predict a candidate’s potential performance, behavior, and compatibility with the client.
However, depending on a client’s preference, they may assist KDCI’s recruitment team in assessing potential candidates, so all onboarded data entry professionals meet the highest standards. By hiring top candidates, the client can count on their offshore data entry outsourcing team to accomplish data entry projects with accuracy and compliance in mind.
Strong Commitment to Privacy and Security
Data entry professionals work with sensitive information, including customer and financial data. For many companies planning to outsource data entry services, data security and privacy are at the top of their concerns. In industries where customer, financial, and health data are processed, a single data breach is enough to lose customer trust and tarnish a firm’s reputation.
At KDCI Outsourcing, data privacy and security are a priority. It demonstrates its commitment to data privacy by deploying robust encryption solutions as a protective measure against breaches and theft. As part of KDCI’s onboarding process, a non-disclosure agreement is signed by each outsourced data entry specialist so they can uphold data confidentiality and anonymity while working with you.
With a round-the-clock team of IT professionals performing regular security audits, rest assured that all your data is in safe hands.
Streamline Data Entry Work With KDCI Outsourcing
Today, data is accessible with a click of a button. But with information coming in left and right, companies with small or no dedicated internal data entry teams risk falling behind in data entry work and productivity.
By outsourcing data entry tasks to KDCI, you can build a full offshore team of data encoding and processing professionals who can skillfully and efficiently process, input, and organize all data to free up your in-house team and maintain smooth operations throughout.
Ready to optimize your data entry processes? Get in touch with KDCI Outsourcing today, so you can experience the unmatched accuracy of our data entry specialists first-hand!
