What is a Business Service Provider and Why Your Company Needs One

What Is a Business Service Provider?

A business service provider is an external company that handles non-core functions like virtual assistants (VAs), customer service, administration, IT support, and other tasks. Outsourcing lets businesses save time, cut costs, and access skilled professionals without the load of hiring full-time employees. 

Running a business requires managing daily operations to keep everything running flawlessly. 

What if you could focus your efforts only on your business's core tasks while someone else takes care of the rest?

Here’s when a business service provider comes in as a savior. 

Today, we’ll discuss:

• What a business service provider is
• Why your company needs one
• Real-world benefits of outsourcing  
• How we can help you

Let’s see each point in depth. 

What Exactly is a Business Service Provider?

A business service provider (BSP) is a third-party firm that handles non-primary tasks such as admin, support, IT, or HR so companies can cut overhead, fill skill gaps, and stay focused on revenue-generating activities.   

These outsourcing providers offer a plethora of services, including:

• Virtual assistant services
• Customer service management (including inbound and outbound call center services)
• IT maintenance and support
• HR (human resources) and payroll processing
• Marketing and sales duties

Instead of hiring full-time employees for every task, businesses hire a business service provider company to access skilled professionals on demand. 

Why Your Company Needs a Business Service Provider

If you are a business facing time constraints, rising labor costs, or a lack of efficiency in daily operations, working with a business service provider can be your long-awaited solution. 

We invite you to review some general figures that speak for themselves. We’ll also discuss several specific reasons why delegating to a business service provider is proliferating and why your company needs to adhere to this practice as well. 

Note that the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) estimates that hiring a new employee costs around $4,700. Sometimes it goes up to four times the salary, due to training and ramp-up time. After these initial costs, come the equipment, utilities, and benefits you’ll have to pay. 

Not surprisingly, as reported by Straits Research, only the global IT outsourcing market, valued at $ 374.36 billion in 2024, is estimated to reach 409.29 billion in 2025, and $833.66 billion by 2033. Meanwhile, Research and Markets estimates that the global outsourcing market is about $854.637 billion in 2025. They forecast it will reach a total of $ 1.11 trillion in 2030. 

Below are some of the reasons why your company needs to hire a business service provider: 

1. Save Time and Focus on Business Growth

As a business person, your time is priceless. Delegating repetitive or complex tasks to a reliable business service provider lets you regain hours a week. You can spend those hours in a truly productive way: using your skills to generate revenue. 

Think of it this way: if you count on a reliable team of pros supporting your operation, you’ll have the mental peace to invest your energy into creating strategies and innovating. You’ll also have a better mood and concentration for building strong relationships with your clients or acquiring new ones. 

Overall, you’ll concentrate and act towards developing your business or professional practice. 

2. Reduce Expenses, Utilities, and Labor Costs

When we think of hiring in-house staff, the first word that comes to our minds is “salaries”. But what about the recruitment and training costs? And additional office space, hardware, software or any elements needed to do the job? And of course, add insurance and benefits to the list. 

One great advantage of outsourcing to a business service provider is that you eliminate all those costs. Not a minor benefit. And the process is crystal clear: you pay only for the services you receive, when you need them. You won’t have any hidden fees, nor be stuck in long-term commitments. 

Another factor that makes a significant difference is that most service providers hire professionals from regions where the population is highly educated. Moreover, in 2021, Forbes published that delegating to offshore remote staff helped businesses save up to 70% due to lower salaries. 

Labor costs are lower, and they reflect this in their fees. Take a look at our pricing page, and you’ll be surprised by the affordable fees we offer at Virtudesk. 

3. Scale Quickly Without Increasing Your Staff

As any business person or leader knows, you can relate to how stressful it is when peak season arrives or when the company is about to launch a new product. All of a sudden, your business seems to be understaffed, and you need more help right away.

A business service provider gives you the capability to scale up or down instantly. It saves you from the lengthy process of hiring and training new personnel. And, as we’ve just seen, without having to make any investments.

4. Immediate Access to Specialized Skills 

Finding the right person you need takes a lot of time and is highly expensive. With a business service provider, you get instant access to trained professionals across any industry field and role. 

Outsourcing is a worldwide growing trend. Along with its growth, the need to cover more and more roles has increased. See which roles you could outsource today. 

Another good thing about working with a service provider is that geography is not a boundary. From virtual assistants, digital marketing specialists, to technical support, or customer service representatives, you can hire top talent from anywhere in the world. 

The reason behind this fact is that most business service providers have trained staff located worldwide. This increases the chances of finding the required skills quickly and allows for easy provision of 24/7 support. 

Real-World Examples of Companies That Benefited from Outsourcing

From Slack outsourcing early app development to Alibaba delegating to external IT specialists, real-world case studies demonstrate that startups and big enterprises alike reduce costs, accelerate launches, and secure global talent by trusting specialized providers for secondary or routine tasks. 

Even large corporations have adopted this practice to enable faster growth, operate with more efficiency, and use their financial and human resources more wisely. 

Here are some examples of companies you’ll surely have heard about:

• WhatsApp. It outsourced the development of the iPhone version of the app to a Russian team.
• Slack. Slack initially outsourced the development of its app and later expanded to delegating customer support and marketing tasks. 
• Shopify. One of the world’s top e-commerce platforms reduced its costs and improved its customer service by outsourcing customer support to offshore teams. 
• Alibaba. The e-commerce giant has been outsourcing IT infrastructure and customer service, allowing the company to scale at an incredible fast pace. 

While big corporations keep benefiting from outsourcing, small businesses and solo entrepreneurs can experience even more dramatic improvements in cost reduction and efficiency. In our blog post “How much money you can save by outsourcing”, we show you the cost-saving benefits in detail. 

So, delegating tasks to a service provider is a smart decision any business can make, regardless of its size or industry. 

How Virtudesk Can Help Your Company

Virtudesk offers trained virtual assistants, back-office personnel, and other industry-specific professionals who integrate with your operations, provide flexible hourly or flat-rate modes, and use key performance indicators (KPIs) tracking to augment productivity. 

At Virtudesk, we are the business service provider you should consider if you are looking for premium quality, scalable support tailored to the unique needs of your business. 

We guarantee you:

• Pre-vetted and professionally trained personnel
• Experienced account management
• Transparent fees, no hidden costs
• Exclusive time-tracking tool (Timedly)

We commit to helping you improve your operations, reduce your stress and that of your in-office teams, and give your business a push toward success. And all while saving you money and improving efficiency.:

Some of the areas we cover:

1. Administrative Services

These tasks allow your business run flawlessly from back-end:

• Data entry
• E-mail calendar management
• Process management
• Database management

2. Customer Services

Deliver extraordinary customer experiences with: 

• Concierge services
• Customer support (multichannel support)
• Technical support

3. Executive Virtual Assistant 

We provide superior support for leaders: 

• Prospecting services
• Administrative services
• Marketing

4. Marketing 

Virtudesk helps you grow your digital presence through:

• Social media management
• E-mail marketing and campaigns
• Content management
• Multimedia design

5. Sales Prospecting Services

Some of our services that help you expand your reach are:

• Outbound calling
• Script library
• Client relationship management
• Lead processing
• Prospecting outreach

6. Virtudesk Lite Services

If you need flexible support, Virtudesk Lite is our flexible solution that offers 10 weekly hours of virtual assistant support.

7. Transaction Coordinators

These services are perfect for real estate professionals: 

• Administrators
• Quality control
• Client coordination
• Data management
• Contract-to-close
• Schedule management

8. Management  

Do you want someone else to manage your remote team? Virtudesk management services can manage any number of remote staff to ensure professionalism and efficiency.   

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Our FAQs clarifies common doubts, from pricing, data protection, contract terms, work models and anything decision-makers need to know before engaging with a business service provider. 

Q: What does a business service provider do?

A business service provider gives external support for non-core business functions such as virtual assistance, IT, customer service, among others, enabling companies to save time and money.

Q: What is the difference between hiring a business service provider and hiring freelancers?

A: Unlike freelancers, a professional service provider like Virtudesk offers you hand-picked, trained professionals who provide you with consistent support and management. You can scale up your staff immediately, and if one of your outsourced employees has medical issues, the provider ensures an instant replacement. 

Q: Is outsourcing through a business service provider cost-effective?

A: Yes, because a trusted provider reduces labor, training, recruitment, and overhead costs and offers a flexible scaling option. 

Q: Which tasks can I outsource to a business service provider?

A: The most common roles include admin tasks, email management, social media management, marketing, customer support, data entry, and team management. 

Do you have any other questions? Take a look at Virtudesk’s FAQs page. If you still have any doubts, contact our team and we’ll be delighted to assist you.  

Conclusion- Are You Ready to Move Forward? 

If the benefits described resonate with you, the next step is simple: get in touch with us, explain to us your needs, and let’s create a customized outsourcing roadmap to transform fixed in-site burdens into flexible, scalable, and cost-efficient support. 

Outsourcing through a business service provider is about delegating tasks, cutting costs, fueling growth, increasing efficiency, and regaining peace of mind. 

At Virtudesk, we make it easy for you to find the exact support your business needs, regardless of the size of your company or your industry.

Are you curious about how we can help your company? Schedule a free discovery call with our team at Virtudesk, or call us at +1 (800) 470-8136 and find out how our professionals can transform and improve your workflow.