All posts in Business Processes

BPO Examples, Risks, and Benefits to Better Your Processes

Business process outsourcing concept: a manager presenting a call-center headset that represents outsourced customer support and help-desk BPO work

BPO examples are worth knowing because most growing companies eventually reach a point where they need to hand an intensive process to an outside provider. This delegation, usually called Business Process Outsourcing (BPO), helps small businesses avoid hiring full-time teams to manage and measure every function. Done well, it can lower costs, sharpen your competitive edge, and help new and growing businesses scale more efficiently.

Outsourcing a business process is not risk-free, though. The more work you push to an external provider, the more organizational information and control you put on the line, and hidden costs are the threat businesses underestimate most. This guide walks through the main BPO examples, the benefits worth chasing, and the risks to mitigate before you sign a contract.

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Company Knowledge Has an Axis Problem, Not a Documentation Problem

Knowledge Has An Axis Problem

There is a reason Eurasia ran the table for most of human history, and it has nothing to do with the people who lived there.

Jared Diamond’s argument in Guns, Germs, and Steel is that the continent runs east to west. Crops, animals, and tools spread along a single band of climate. Same latitude, same growing season, no adaptation needed. Something invented in one place worked a thousand miles away on day one. The Americas run north to south. Cross a few hundred miles and the climate flips, so every good idea had to be reinvented before it could travel. One continent compounded its knowledge. The other kept starting over.

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An Introduction to Blockchain: The Potential for Process Management and Beyond

Black-and-white operations architect beside a bridge of linked ledger blocks representing blockchain and process management

Blockchain technology is a shared, tamper-evident ledger that lets multiple parties agree on a record of transactions without relying on one party’s database. Transactions are grouped into blocks, cryptographically linked to earlier blocks, copied across participating nodes, and added according to validation and consensus rules.

Bitcoin, cryptocurrency, and blockchain still form a distributed ledger of hype. The useful question is narrower: does the process involve several independent parties that need a shared record but cannot reasonably trust one organization to control it? That test reveals the potential for blockchain in process management and beyond, without treating the technology as a silver bullet.

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9 Benefits of Business Process Management (BPM) and Why You’ll Love It

Header image: Business Process Management BPM Benefits

Business Process Management BPM helps teams turn messy recurring work into processes they can see, run, measure, and improve. The benefits of BPM show up in lower costs, faster handoffs, better customer experiences, stronger compliance, and fewer surprises when operations change.

That matters because BPM is no longer just a diagramming exercise. Modern BPM connects process mapping, workflow automation, approvals, integrations, AI support, and audit trails so teams can prove work happened the right way.

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8 Time-Saving Hacks & Shortcuts for Process Building (From Our Team)

Workflow specialist building a modular process line to show time-saving process building hacks.

Process building is how a team turns repeated work into a documented, runnable system. A strong process documentation habit gives people the steps, owners, due dates, and context they need to do the work consistently without rebuilding the same instructions every time.

These eight time-saving hacks come from the Process Street team and focus on practical ways to build clearer workflows faster. They cover task structure, spreadsheet imports, media, comments, Conditional Logic, custom tasks, dynamic due dates, and one-task processes inside Process Street, the Compliance Operations Platform for building, running, and improving recurring work with Docs, Ops, and built-in AI.

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8 Example Processes to Guarantee Consistency in Your Business

Operations manager organizing eight example business processes into a repeatable workflow model

Example processes are useful because they show how repeatable work should happen in the real world. The right workflow can guarantee consistency across onboarding, approvals, surveys, invoices, meetings, CRM handoffs, and sales qualification.

These 8 example processes show practical ways to turn recurring work into workflows your team can copy, run, and improve inside Process Street.

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Audit Procedures: A Quick Tour with 19 (Free) Templates

Internal auditor examining records through a large inspection magnifier, illustrating audit procedures

What are audit procedures, and how do you actually run them without missing a step? It is a question most teams fumble, even though audits are exactly where a missed step turns into a finding.

This guide breaks audit procedures down from the ground up: what they are, how the audit process works, the main types of internal audit, and how to run each one as an automated, auditable workflow. You also get 19 free Process Street templates you can copy and start using today.

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Basics of Enterprise Risk Management (ERM): How to Get Started

Enterprise risk officer carrying a compartmentalized case that represents integrated enterprise risk management

Enterprise risk management (ERM) is the organization-wide practice of identifying, assessing, responding to, and monitoring uncertainty that could affect strategic objectives. It connects risk decisions to strategy, performance, governance, and day-to-day execution instead of leaving each department to manage risk in isolation.

The basics of enterprise risk management help teams get started with a shared view of risk, clear ownership, defined response thresholds, and evidence that controls are working. A strong ERM program does not guarantee outcomes, but it helps leaders make better decisions, respond earlier, and pursue opportunities without taking unmanaged exposure.

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9 Lean Manufacturing Principles to Get Quality Results

Manufacturing engineer guiding a compact material tugger for lean flow

Lean manufacturing principles help teams deliver more customer value with less wasted time, motion, inventory, and effort. They provide a practical system for improving flow, solving problems at the source, and building quality into everyday work.

This guide explains nine principles drawn from the Toyota Production System and broader lean practice, then shows how they work together in real production environments.

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7 Insightful Company Policy Tips from Basecamp’s Employee Handbook

Black-and-white people operations lead presenting a company policy approval stamp for handbook guidance.

While we were writing our guide to writing an employee handbook, it was striking how few public employee handbooks there were out there to read. Obviously, most companies don’t want to expose their internal workings, and that’s sometimes for a good reason. However, you can usually trust startups, excluding Uber and Zenefits, to be transparent about their operations.

And, when it comes to transparency, Basecamp’s handbook is an amazing example. It’s both a useful resource for companies looking to write their own policies from scratch, and a genuinely interesting read. In fact, it might be the first interesting company document I’ve ever read.

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