The global marketplace is undeniably becoming more dynamic and intensely competitive with each passing day. The volatile nature of the market, coupled with the rising costs across the industry verticals, is compelling organizations to concentrate more on their core competencies to enhance the quality of their services. In this light, shared services are becoming extremely popular IT additions for organizations.
The shared services model reduces costs while increasing the efficiency of the business processes, improving the quality of services, and profoundly accelerating the adoption of new technologies in enterprises. Many leading global organization operating in the industry verticals including banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI) as well as healthcare are establishing shared services departments, and most of these brands have their sights set on the loftier goal of instituting Global Business Services (GBS).
From incremental to transformational and hybrid models, the outsourcing and shared services industry have been in a seemingly endless state of flux. Consequently, the focus today has re-channelized towards transaction based models, process efficiency, and standardization.
As we embark on a new digital journey and look forward to the future, let us peek into the top 5 latest trends that will rethink the value positioning of the shared services business model.
1) Emergence of robotics process automation
Enterprises across the globe are evaluating the possibilities of repetitive tasks being automated while the people managing these responsibilities should be upskilled to deliver strategical and tactical outputs. Plus, organizations are looking at trimming-down their costs and bringing in value-driven results to their customers. This has paved the way to notions such as robotic process automation which are aligned to automate repetitive tasks by using computer systems driven by robotic software.
Robotics process automation (RPA) is a comprehensive IT solution, which is developed through advanced technologies such as AI, intelligent systems, and automated software programs. While there are several simple activities in a process value chain which have already been automated, the future will witness even more logic based and complex processes being automated.
2) Analytics as the next big thing in shared services
From the time business shared services was established, it has inevitably become the largest processor of data. Though unstructured, but valuable. As a result, it makes the most apt beginning point for analytics to be implemented to drive business revolution within an organization. Analytics services are largely being deployed to use the unstructured information gathered from various online channels and create structured data that delivers meaningful insights.
In the era of digital revolution, big data analytics is the new discipline that has created a niche in the sphere of the shared services industry. Positioned seamlessly at the juncture between cognitive business intelligence and commoditized transactions, data analytics is all set to redefine the way value-added shared services are going to be presented in the future.
3) Rise of integrated and multi-function shared services
Globally, hastening advances in technology and prodigious changes in business models are transforming the rules and risks of the game in the shared service industry. These comprise of global business services, which encompass the single or multi-function model to include globally aligned methods and integrated business services.
The processes such as procure-to-pay and accounting are managed efficiently through integrated shared services for greater control and flexibility. Consequently, organizations can plan their sourcing strategies appropriately and prepare an effective financial model to increase the revenue and improve customer service.
4) Digital Transformation: The winning card in shared services
Over the past few years, businesses have taken several routes to digitizing the front ends of their enterprises to create seamless customer interactions. However, ensuring greater success with these efforts significantly entails the digitization of their back-office functions, which in many companies are handled by shared-services organizations.
Digital technologies, including big data and analytics, business intelligence, virtualizations, and cloud computing are expected to have massive impact on value-added shared services. Organizations today are widely adopting digital technologies for operational excellence, cost reduction, increased productivity, and business process integration.
5) Advent of customized shared service centers (SSCs)
Today, numerous enterprises are implementing shared services to precisely manage their functional departments including finance, HR, marketing, and CRM. Customized SSCs are rightly designed to manage specific functions of different business units within a large organization.
This provides flexibility to precisely manage some of the functions through in-house IT service management, and the remaining functions can be managed using SSCs. This trend is popular among European nations where organizations prefer to set up FSSCs or HRSSCs to manage their strategic business units.
Every single innovation that seeds a revolutionary new thought is made better with strong technology. Shared Services in the future will witness a leap in its value proposition within their parent organizations with trends including robotic process automation, integrated analytics, digital transformation, customized shared service centers and multifunctional shared services.
We anticipate that this overview would have given you an idea of what is in store next. Source the complete analysis of the fast-growing global shared service market, duly identified by industry experts at Technavio, as a free sample research report from the links listed herein.
