Business Process Outsourcing in the European Financial Industry

Seminar paper from the year 2005 in the subject Business economics - Banking, Stock Exchanges, Insurance, Accounting, grade: 1,3, European Business School - International University Schloß Reichartshausen Oestrich-Winkel (Supply Management Institute, Lehrstuhl fuer Supply Management und Logistik), language: English, abstract: Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) is one of the current major developments in the European economy. For many companies, it is a possibility for establishing a new pres-ence in a different industry or branch. One example for this trend is the fact that Kienbaum Management Service GmbH offers BPO services in the field of document logistics. Besides establishing a new presence in new markets, BPO also leads to significant cost reductions and quality of service improvements. Therefore it is an important strategic tool for the European financial sector which has experienced increasing costs and shrinking margins during the last ten years. This seminar paper focuses principally on BPO in the European financial sector. Therefore, other industries are only relevant in comparisons with the European financial sector. To highlight the current European de-velopment from diversified banks to specialized financial institutions, transaction bank-ing is explained as one of the specialized banking forms with the highest growth rate during the next years. An emphasis is also set in this paper on document logistics in the European financial sector and BPO possibilities in this field. The field of document lo-gistics in the financial sector is not heavily researched. Therefore academic publications in this field are of high interest for the academic community as well as for professionals managing document logistics. After a foreword in chapter one, chapters two and three focus on the introduction to the European financial sector and BPO and include basic definitions. After that, chapter four includes the main part of this seminar paper and puts an emphasis on BPO in the European financial sector. After describing a generic value chain and stating BPO trends, an introduction is given to the field of document logistics and BPO possibilities in this field. Chapter five then gives a conclusion and highlights the future development of BPO in the European financial sector. Finally, an appendix includes the figures which are not integrated in the text and is followed by the references section.