.png)
Scalability is when companies can handle the rigors of increased workload while maintaining optimal performance and minimizing costs. Scaling helps businesses stay relevant amid growing competition.
However, it is not an on-a-whim initiative; scaling requires significant investment, careful planning, brand messaging consistency, and assessment tools for monitoring success. When executed by a skilled business leader, scalability can be an avenue for sustainable business growth. This article takes a deep dive into how US companies scale without increasing costs.
Three Ways How US Companies Scale Without Additional Costs
Scalability is about sustainable growth and innovation. This section explores how US companies scale with remote teams, outsourcing, and AI and automation.
1. Remote Teams
While the COVID-19 pandemic marked the era of working from home, employers in the United States and employees are now opening their doors to in-office and hybrid work models. In an American Staffing Association (ASA)-commissioned survey titled “Workforce Monitor,” the report found that working in-person or hybrid was preferred by over half (68%) of American workers.
Likewise, most employers have plans (75%) or are already implementing (71%) a hybrid set-up in their companies. Despite the shift to hybrid and return-to-office (RTO) work models, the remote work model stands strong, with remote-first companies and employers who build 100% remote teams taking center stage in the post-pandemic era.
The remote-first model is a practice where employees work remotely, but are given the flexibility to work on-site, a co-working space, or a satellite office. While face-to-face interactions and meetings are a staple of this model, they usually only occur a few times a year. Despite the similarities between remote-first companies and 100% remote, there’s one big difference between the two: the latter model involves little to no face-to-face interactions.
Both remote work models widen the scope of hiring new team members, allowing companies to source candidates from a different city, state, or country to fill job openings and close talent shortages.
Remote teams also promote cost savings. In fact — for every employee that works half-time remotely — companies in the United States can incur savings of around $11,000 USD a year, as per the estimate of GlobalWorkplaceAnalytics.com. Because overhead costs are significantly reduced, companies can pool more resources on business expansion and operational continuity.
2. Outsourcing Partners
Outsourcing is also how US companies scale without ballooning costs. To start, outsourcing is a business practice that involves entering into a contract with a service provider to perform specific job functions. There are three outsourcing models:
- Onshore: This outsourcing model involves working with a third-party provider within the country. For example, a company based in Washington can outsource tasks to a third-party company in Mississippi.
- Offshore: Offshore outsourcing involves a company delegating tasks to a service provider in a faraway country. An American business owner, for example, may outsource IT to Philippine or Eastern European companies where labor costs are cheaper than in companies in the United States.
- Nearshore: This type of outsourcing method involves an American company outsourcing job functions to a neighboring country like Mexico. Minimal time zone difference between countries is the signature of nearshore outsourcing.
US companies leverage outsourcing solutions to reduce costs and improve efficiency while increasing profits. Apart from these, though, there’s another reason why the United States is outsourcing job functions — albeit more locally rooted: talent shortage.
According to the “2024 Global Talent Shortage” report by Manpower Group, the United States has a labor shortage rate of 70% (versus the global average of 75%), clearly showing the struggles of American business owners in hiring top talent and filling job openings. The country’s talent scarcity stems from employees quitting their jobs in search of greener pastures, particularly job opportunities with better work-life balance.
Furthermore, the appeal of entrepreneurship spurs the increase of business applications by former employees, and the extra income earned through digital commerce breaks the glass ceiling of salaries. With more profitable opportunities online and America’s increasingly aging population, attracting young, qualified talent becomes a pressing concern for business owners.
Outsourcing can address talent shortages and fill vacancies. American companies can outsource to countries with a younger workforce with the same skills, experience, and acumen as local candidates without increasing overhead.
Overall, outsourcing is a cornerstone of US business strategies. With no less than one department being outsourced by 66% of American business owners, the United States has become a key stakeholder in the BPO industry, creating 300,000 outsourced jobs a year and generating a staggering $81,445.9 million USD in revenue.
3. AI and Automation
Automation is defined as the use of technology to perform mundane tasks with little manual input from humans. Automation technologies also follow pre-set rules. AI, on the other hand, is a technology designed to mirror a human’s cognitive and intellectual functions. Hence, AI can make decisions and generate human-like content on behalf of the user.
As AI and automation play a more prominent role in today’s landscape, US companies are now taking advantage of these technologies. In the 2024 “The CFO Survey” by the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, and the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University, an overwhelming majority (85%) of large businesses reported the deployment of automation technology in the last year.
Companies of various sizes are drawn to the game-changing perks of AI and automation. In the same survey, businesses of all sizes reported their rationale for implementing such technologies within the last year:
- Business operations improvement: 87.2%
- Improvement of quality of outputs: 57.7%
- Improvement of quantity of outputs: 48.7%
- Labor cost reduction: 46.8%
- Closing of skill/talent gaps due to failure of hiring or employee retention: 32.8%
US companies can scale by enhancing their workforce, not necessarily replacing all employees with technology. Human employees can efficiently accomplish more high-value work, leaving AI and automation tools to handle low-value tasks or operations that require minimal input.
Such technologies also improve customer service by handling customer care queries and providing recommendations without hiring additional manpower. While there’s no denying their impact on employees, AI and automation are an asset to US businesses.
Top 4 US Companies That Scale Smart
Let’s look at the success stories of these companies that take advantage of remote teams, outsourcing partners, and automation to expand their reach while ensuring cost savings and productivity.
1. Quora: The Glow-Up From In-Office to Remote-First
Quora is a platform where users can ask or answer questions. Founded by CEO Adam D’Angelo, it is a remote company with a skilled workforce of employees from different countries. Its transition from an in-office to a remote work model was all thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic and D’Angelo’s leadership skills.
The transition involved a lot of research on D’Angelo’s end. His efforts paid off, as he found that Quora employees grapple with poor mental health exacerbated by exhausting commutes and hefty Bay Area housing prices as well as housing scarcity. Due to restrictions on immigration, Quora could not leverage the knowledge and skills of overseas employees, severely limiting its hiring scope to the local scene.
Since becoming a remote-first company, employees can collaborate with their peers at a specific time, fostering seamless communication between teams. Quora’s Mountain View office has also become a co-working space where team members can work and get their much-needed social interaction.
Thanks to Quora’s remote-first initiative, the American company has expanded its hiring reach to 15 countries — increasing its access to a wider pool of talent. Cost-wise, the initiative helped reduce spending on in-office expenditures, including rent. Compliance with local laws and regulations also meant establishing a local subsidiary entity — in this case, Quora India.
Despite the challenges of getting adequate social interaction (even through virtual means) and working with employees from different countries, Quora’s success story is a testament to the power of remote teams.
2. Google: A Long-Time Outsourcer of Jobs
Google is a multinational tech company founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin. Known for its eponymous search engine and a suite of tech and productivity tools, Google is also one of those large companies that leverage outsourcing.
Its first foray into outsourcing was in 2011 — a year when the tech company partnered with call centers from all over the globe to outsource job openings for AdWords’ customer care. Throughout its outsourcing history, Google has not only outsourced customer support but also software development, infrastructure management, and IT services.
Due to Google’s commitment to outsourcing, cost-effectiveness, and even AI, many of its in-house workforce have been laid off. Despite the economic repercussions of this move, the tech company’s outsourcing ventures enable it to expand and maintain a global workforce for seamless operations while maintaining flexibility and ensuring optimal cost savings.
3. Facebook: The Power of AI and Human Labor
Facebook is a social networking platform with billions of active users. Like Google, this California-based company is also a leading outsourcer of jobs, especially content moderation — which is a process of reviewing users’ digital content.
Facebook enlisted the help of Accenture and other foreign companies like Sama to moderate content, scaling its global content moderation initiatives according to demand and saving on labor costs with its contractual employees. The best part? It uses AI to help human moderators review user-generated content.
While Facebook’s AI has successfully taken down inappropriate content, there are instances when human moderators analyze user-generated content the AI has passed to the moderation team for manual review. When this happens, the moderators decide whether the content will be removed from the platform.
Though the technology is trained to analyze whether a particular user-generated content contains inappropriate text or imagery, AI still needs a human touch to help ensure user safety. The more Facebook’s AI learns from manually reviewed content, the more sophisticated it becomes. The platform’s success with AI automation shows the inherent synergy between humans and AI, whereas its global workforce drives operational efficiency and cost savings.
4. Unity Technologies: Elevating Customer Care With Technology
Unity is a game engine created by Unity Technologies, a San Francisco-based company. Initially, Unity faced an influx of customer query tickets from users via Zendesk — a customer service solutions program. Scaling its workforce became even more imminent, but there’s a risk of investing more resources in additional manpower to manage large ticket volumes.
Former Unity Technologies’ services support senior manager, David Schroeder, took matters into his own hands by taking advantage of Zendesk’s AI and automation solutions. Through Zendesk’s AI agent, Unity saw an improvement in its operational efficiency, speeding up customer support and making ticket handling more manageable.
The firm also took advantage of self-service customer support, one of the most powerful trends in customer service. Doing so meant updating and writing new FAQ content based on recurring customer needs and insights generated by Zendesk. This way, users can access AI-provided FAQ articles without unnecessary wait times.
Thanks to Unity’s self-service support and AI agent, the company was able to slash customer care ticket numbers by nearly 8,000— translating to a seven-hour reduction in customer resolution and an impressive cost savings of $1.3 million USD. As a result of Unity’s success with AI and automation, the team will continue to finetune the company’s customer support system.
This success story proves companies don’t need new employees to manage increased ticket volume. When businesses explore and take advantage of new tech, they can enjoy the newfound operational efficiency that AI and automation tools bring to the workflow.
Scale Your Business With KDCI Today!
Scaling smart involves taking calculated risks and priming your business for future success and sustainable growth. If you’re looking to scale via outsourcing, look no further than KDCI Outsourcing.
As one of the top BPO companies in the Philippines, we provide cost-effective outsourcing solutions to medium-sized and large companies in and outside the United States. Our suite of services includes IT and software development, customer support, finance and accounting, digital marketing, and many more. With KDCI Outsourcing’s personalized and strategic outsourcing solutions, we can meet your business scaling needs and ensure your business’s success.
Let’s help you scale smart with our team of offshore Filipino staff. For inquiries, price quotes, and proposals, contact us now!
