Shared services and BPO recommended for business

16-May-2012

By Hiran H.Senewiratne

The shared services of Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) could be employed by business organizations as business as a transformation tool not just as a functional method, a top financial specialist said. "Sharing of services and out sourcing appears to be the two most popular strategies in recent times. But the most important thing is these methods must fit the organization and increases its business values rather than just a functional or cost cutting mechanism," Group Finance Director and Executive Director of John Keells Holdings Plc Ronnie Peiris said at the Executive Briefing Series on Finance Transactions: Expert insights on shares services and out sourcing.

He said that in general in very complex organizations the more popular model is the Central Shared services, which helps for greater proximity to the core business, effective relationship, and talent control and manage turnover, skills development and engagement within the organization. "But when out sourced to another party their entire process it would become more quicker than it was by reducing the operational risk, rigidness for the entity" he said.

Peiris said that a question to ask by companies whether to purchase shared services/outsourcing for cost saving through scale or more strategically one has to look at the outset whether those systems get greater effectiveness in deriving competitive advantages. When companies was selecting providers of out sources or shared services they had to look at their unique selling proposition including their operational excellence and more strategic in approach using a combination of process efficiency and analytical capabilities, he said He also said that it was never easy to take people on a journey when they did not know where they were going or they were not convinced about the ultimate objective because the function was working well today and had worked in the manner for a long time, which would make people to change. Therefore, it should come from the top management to decide the company should share its services with other providers, he added.

He added that to overcome those issues the top management should adopt a proper communication strategy and a changed strategy to work with all employees including service providers to make business decisions easy. He said that accountants should have more business management skill than the financial skill, if not they would not take anywhere since the shared services and out sourcing activities demanded more business management skills for today’s developed world.