What is Lift and Shift in BPO? 8 Challenges & 7 Strategies

Lift and shift in BPO is a way to move an existing outsourced process to a new setup without trying to change everything at the same time. It focuses on keeping service steady first, then improving what needs improving once the new team is fully up and running.

That said, switching business process outsourcing (BPO) providers can be tricky because the work still has to get done every day.

However, there are workarounds and quality solutions for a successful transition. Let’s dive into the details and check the common challenges and strategies for a successful lift and shift.

What is Lift and Shift in BPO?

The Reality of Lift and Shift in BPO

In BPO, lift and shift usually comes up when the process itself is not the issue, but the current setup is no longer working well. That can mean performance is inconsistent, visibility is limited, staffing is unstable, or service levels are not being met. Lift and shift keeps the process familiar while the provider and working setup change.

For example, a customer support team may keep the same ticket types, scripts, and escalation rules, but move to a provider that can hire faster and run the team more consistently. A finance operations team might keep the same steps for invoice processing but move to a setup with clearer reporting and tighter handling of approvals.

What “Lift and Shift” Usually Means in Business Process Outsourcing (BPO)

To keep the definition strict, lift and shift BPO meaning is about moving an outsourced operation without rebuilding it during the move. That makes it easier to keep results steady, then make improvements once the new setup is stable.

People also refer to this when they mean a provider transition, a team migration, or moving delivery from one location or model to another.

7 Strategies for Successful Lift and Shift in BPO

Most lift-and-shift transitions go better when the move stays simple at first, and the improvements are handled after the new setup is working smoothly. The goal is steady delivery during the switch, not big change all at once.

For that to happen, check out the following 7 strategies:

Strategy #1: Keep the first phase focused on the move

When lift and shift goes sideways, it’s often because the transition turns into a renovation halfway through. Keeping the first phase focused on the handover tends to make the switch calmer, because everyone is still working to the same steps and the same targets. The catch is you might have to sit with a few annoyances for a bit, since cleanup and improvements usually land after things are stable again.

Strategy #2: Call out handoffs and dependencies early

Even if the process stays the same, the work still depends on other things lining up. Access approvals, who signs off on exceptions, which team sends the inputs, when files arrive, who gets copied when something breaks. When those links are obvious up front, the move usually feels smoother. When they’re not, you get a lot of last-minute “wait, who owns this?” moments, and those slow everything down.

Strategy #3: Pick a transition style that fits the work

Some teams prefer a clean switch. Others feel better with a staged move or a short overlap. There isn’t one “right” style across BPO, because it depends on how sensitive the work is and how much disruption people can tolerate. The safer options can take more coordination, though, because you’re basically running two versions of the setup for a short period.

Strategy #4: Make it clear who decides what

During a transition, small questions pile up fast. A borderline case. A missing file. A request that’s slightly out of scope. If it isn’t clear who gets to decide, work can stall over tiny things. When decision ownership is clear, the team keeps moving. It can feel a bit more formal than the old setup, but it usually saves a lot of back-and-forth.

Strategy #5: Use real examples during knowledge transfer

The most useful knowledge transfer is usually not long explanations. It’s examples. Real work samples. Common exceptions. A few “this is what good looks like” references that people can copy. That’s what helps a new team get consistent quickly. The only downside is gathering those examples takes time, and it’s easy to forget how many edge cases show up in normal day-to-day work.

Strategy #6: Protect the parts users feel most

Most people don’t judge a transition by how neat the internal workflow looks. They judge it by what they can feel. Response times, turnaround times, clarity of updates, fewer things slipping through the cracks. When those stay steady, confidence stays steady too. The trade-off is that the team may need to focus on visible delivery first, and leave some behind-the-scenes cleanup until the transition dust settles.

Strategy #7: Improve after the new setup is stable

Lift and shift usually works best when it does what it says on the tin. Move first, then improve. Once the new setup is running reliably, it’s easier to tell what needs fixing and what is just transition noise. The only real catch is pacing. The biggest improvements often show up in the second phase, not on day one, because the team needs a stable baseline before changes start paying off.

8 Common Challenges of Lift and Shift in BPO

Most challenges in lift and shift are normal transition issues. They don’t mean outsourcing is a bad idea. They just show what needs to be planned so service stays steady during the move.

Lift and shift sounds simple on paper: keep the process the same, change the provider, keep things running. In real life, the friction usually comes from the stuff around the process. People, access, approvals, reporting, and all the edge cases no one thinks about until they show up. That’s why most lift-and-shift transitions succeed or fail on planning and follow-through, not on the headline idea.

Challenge #1: “Same process” but different expectations

Even when two teams are doing the same work, they might not mean the same thing by “good.” One group treats a partial answer as acceptable, another expects full detail. One group escalates quickly, another tries to solve everything quietly first. Those small differences add up fast.

The usual way through this is getting specific early. A short quality checklist, a few real examples of “this is a good output,” and quick calibration can prevent weeks of confusion later.

Challenge #2: A short-term dip while everyone adjusts

Even with minimal process change, there’s still change. New points of contact, new response habits, new tools, new routines. Teams often feel a temporary slowdown just because the rhythm is different.

What tends to smooth this out is having a clear “early days” rhythm. Fast escalation, quick check-ins, and clear owners for blockers reduce the time spent waiting around for answers. Cognizant also points out that transitions often need more change management than teams expect, even when the work itself stays familiar.

Challenge #3: Access and permissions become the real bottleneck

A lift-and-shift transition can look ready on paper, then fall over on day one because access is not. Someone can’t log in. A permission is missing. A system owner is on leave. Work gets stuck behind admin steps that were never visible when the team was already in place.

Teams usually get ahead of this by treating access as its own workstream, not a last-minute checkbox. Role-based access lists, named approvers, and early testing remove a lot of avoidable delays.

Challenge #4: Exceptions show up immediately

Most BPO work has a “happy path,” but real life is made of exceptions. Missing information, unclear requests, unusual customer cases, special approvals, one-off rules that were never written down. When a new setup takes over, those exceptions show up fast.

A simple way to keep momentum is to capture the common exceptions early and make it clear who decides what. The goal isn’t perfect documentation. It’s avoiding the situation where every edge case turns into a mini crisis.

Challenge #5: Reporting gets messy, even if performance didn’t change

A common frustration during transitions is the feeling that metrics “suddenly changed.” Often, it’s not because service got worse. It’s because definitions shifted. What counts as resolved, what counts as backlog, what counts as a valid first response. Small definition changes can make dashboards look dramatically different.

This usually settles down when reporting definitions are locked early and checked against historical numbers for a short period. Once the team is measuring the same way, it becomes much easier to see what’s actually happening.

Challenge #6: The cutover style doesn’t match the work

Some work can switch in one go without much drama. Other work is too time-sensitive or too dependent on upstream inputs to risk a hard cut. If the cutover style doesn’t match the work, issues feel bigger than they need to be.

That’s why some teams move in phases or keep a short overlap. It can take more coordination, but it often makes the transition feel calmer because there’s room to validate and adjust.

Challenge #7: Everyone tries to improve things mid-move

This one is incredibly common. People see the transition as a chance to fix long-standing issues, so requests start piling on. New fields, new steps, new approvals, new tools. The move slowly turns into a redesign, and then it becomes harder to tell what’s causing problems.

Many teams keep things smoother by separating “move” from “improve.” Improvements still happen, they just happen once the new setup is stable enough to handle change without disrupting delivery.

Challenge #8: Lift and shift gets mistaken for the finish line

Lift and shift is usually a transition approach, not the final operating model. If it gets treated as “we’re done,” the opportunity to improve quality, consistency, and visibility can get lost.

The smoother pattern is move first, stabilize, then improve with clearer baselines. That’s also the heart of what is lift and shift in BPO in practical terms: keep service steady during change, then make improvements once the ground is stable.

Concluding Remarks

Lift and shift in BPO is a transition approach that keeps work moving while an outsourced operation changes providers or delivery setup. It’s often used when teams want continuity first, then improvements once the new setup is steady.

The transition can still feel busy, not because the process is new, but because people, access, reporting, and exceptions all have to line up at the same time.