| |July 20179CIOReviewdisjointed or ad-hoc manner. So, is the telecom sector missing out? Missing out on reaping the rewards of a truly global business services model? A model which can act as a catalyst to transform the cost base and inject much needed funds to keep future investment at the pace it needs to be at.It's clear, businesses with vision and imagi-nation have moved beyond tentative steps to improve operational efficiency. Businesses be-gan using shared service centres and outsourc-ing to improve back-office efficiency more than two decades ago. Finance shared services led the way, followed by IT. The intention was to move routine, transactional work to specialists dedi-cated to processing it more efficiently at lower cost. This left the business free to be more flex-ible and focus on its customers. Shared service centres were the in-house solution, while out-sourcing firms provided external options. Over the last 25 years, both shared services and out-sourcing have become more sophisticated. Businesses have explored offshoring, scouring the globe for the optimal location and the best providers. They have ex-perimented with hybrid models using both shared ser-vices and outsourcing. And they have taken advantage of steadily improving technology, such as procure to pay systems, robotics and artificial intelligence (AI). The re-sults have been impressive, with organizations routinely able to capture improved performance at lower cost from their support functions. Shared Services Model of the FutureHowever, it's now time for the next stage of this evolu-tion: Implementing a multifunctional approach to shared services. This is the global business services model. Global business services operations make it possible for the rest of the company to concentrate its energy on successful and sustainable growth. Companies need a framework where customer-facing business functions can concentrate on delivering value to their customers while their day to day operations are managed in a con-sistent and transparent way. Today, many high-performing companies have aban-doned structures defined by narrow business functions led shared services such as Finance, Procurement or IT. Instead, they choose to focus on delivering standard-ized, end-to-end processes. Companies recognize their business needs more than rigorous attention to cost. This remains vital, of course, but added value, strategic input and analytics are also required. It's no coincidence that top performing companies stand out precisely be-cause they have achieved many of these benefits. The best breed of the business services model is a single global shared services organization operating through regional and global centres. However, the unit is no longer organized on the basis of the functions it serves, concentrating instead on service products. This enables full integration with enterprise processes and complete end-to-end process integration throughout the organi-sation. Led by a single global business services head re-porting into the C-suite, or may be a member of it.Labour arbitrage is no longer the only game in town. CFOs are increasingly of the view that labour arbitrage is a one off exercise. It's baked into the forecast. Now, it's about value generation and improving the customer experience. It's about driving standardisation, and end to end process re-engineering. And it's about automa-tion and leveraging the potential of big data to make management decisions based on pro-active business analytics and driving operational efficiency through operational hydraulics. The business services model brings together people practises, which deliver a single employee experience. This in turn drives reduced churn especially in low cost economies and delivers operational consistency, improv-ing customer experience. The model has the potential to deliver three to five times more financial benefit than labour arbitrage alone.This is the future!
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