Cliff Justice, Service Network Leader, Shared Services and Outsourcing Advisory, KPMG in the US

If we stand back and look at our firms’ clients, and look at what they are planning in terms of business services, the market in general has clearly matured. Clients have become more sophisticated in how they design and deploy their services. The more mature clients are starting to focus on how to align their entire service delivery model in a way that supports the business objectives, the growth objectives and the business strategy at a global level.

We’re seeing a much broader focus on how the enterprise services organizations are structured and how they’re deployed through the use of outsourcing, shared services and high value competencies, to create a competitive advantage in a particular industry or business.

But more immediately, what we’re seeing is companies becoming more focused on how to seek efficiencies, not just within a function but also across the functions. For example, companies that have a mix of third party service providers and shared services organizations supporting internal finance, human resources or IT are looking at how to better integrate those providers and internal services groups to achieve higher value business outcomes as opposed to only transactional services. Taking this one step further, companies are making great strides at end-to-end processes to deliver efficiencies across a multitude of functions and drive more measurable outcomes for the business.

There is also a lot more interest in creating a more global commercial orientation within the internal shared services group and better aligning with the portfolio of third party service providers – the goal of which is generating more efficiencies from different regions and moving towards globally integrated service delivery models.

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Filed under: Market Trends and News, Outsourcing, Shared Services by EquaTerra