Outsourcing should accelerate growth. But sometimes, it quietly starts to drag.

You stop seeing new ideas. The same problems reappear. Delivery continues, but the spark is gone. Your BPO starts feeling less like a partner - and more like a cost centre going through the motions.

This isn’t always incompetence. Often, it’s structural. And if you don’t intervene, the slow stall turns into long-term friction.

This article is about how to spot the stall, diagnose what’s behind it, and either re-energise the team - or rethink the relationship.

1. Reconnect the team to the destination

BPO teams rarely stall because they’re lazy. They stall because they’re blind.

If your internal goals have evolved - but your BPO still sees last quarter’s Jira board - they’re flying with outdated coordinates.

Fix:

Record a short update (Loom, doc, call) answering three things:

• What are we building this quarter?
• What changed in our priorities?
• What does “great” look like from your side?

Include examples of real customer needs, strategic shifts, or internal challenges. Context isn’t overhead. It’s fuel.

2. Audit your check-ins for signs of passivity

If your regular syncs have become status updates and ticket reviews, you’re training your BPO to operate like a task handler - not a thinking partner.

Fix:

Once a month, add a segment called “What should we change?”

Ask:

• What’s wasting time?
• What’s not landing with users or stakeholders?
• What’s the most frustrating part of your week?
• What would you change if we were starting this from scratch?

You’re not just collecting feedback - you’re signalling that insight is valued, not punished.

3. Check if your structure rewards stagnation

BPO contracts often lock in incentives that kill initiative. Flat-rate pricing, rigid scopes, or unclear escalation paths can make teams cautious - even when they spot opportunities.

Fix:

Ask your BPO leadership:

• What would make your team feel more empowered to suggest improvements?
• Is there a way to pilot new ideas without triggering change requests?

You’re not promising scope creep. You’re creating breathing room for contribution.

4. Name the blockers they won’t

Sometimes, it’s not about mindset - it’s about friction that’s gone unspoken.

Common quiet blockers:

• A tool your team switched, but the BPO wasn’t trained on
• A process you streamlined internally, but never updated externally
• A timezone overlap that’s evaporated as your org scaled

Fix:

Run a “blocker sweep.” Ask your BPO:

“If you could wave a wand and remove three things slowing you down, what would they be?”

Then act. One removal often unlocks ten ideas.

5. Test whether the stall is fixable - or terminal

If you’ve clarified goals, opened space, and removed blockers — but the team still feels flat — it’s time to ask the harder question.

Test:

If you replaced this vendor tomorrow, what would improve immediately?

What would you lose?

If the only thing keeping the BPO in place is inertia or sunk cost, that’s a signal - not a strategy.

And if it is the end, challenge yourself: Was there something in the setup of the relationship that ultimately led to the failure? Something that you can avoid repeating?

Final thought: Flat doesn’t mean fatal - unless you let it linger

Every partnership hits a plateau. The question is what you do when it happens.

Re-energising a BPO team isn’t about pep talks or tighter KPIs. It’s about re-establishing relevance, purpose, and permission to evolve.

Do that, and your BPO becomes an engine again. You can reignite the spark in your relationship.

Ignore it, and the drag only deepens.

This article is part of our “Outsourcing Without Regret” series - practical guidance for selecting and managing BPOs with confidence.