2021: GBS, Shared Services and Outsourcing Trends to Watch
Rakesh Sangani
Proservartner CEO | Operational Transformation Leader | Senior Advisor for GBS | Key Note Speaker | Thought Leader
Following on from my RPA predictions, there will also be seismic shifts in the Shared Services landscape.
Here are 7 trends we can expect to see:
- Insourcing will increase in popularity
With organisations seeking to gain better control of their process and leverage automation to generate the further benefit in their processes.
2. Process centricity will be on the up
There will be more global process owners in place, with the influence and authority to drive change and process alignment across their businesses.
3. Remote working models will expand
Driven by lower cost and higher capabilities, remote working models will leverage lower cost resource in particular cities, with language requirements being provided in host country or from different locations where that language is prevalent.
4. Business analyst skills will be the most “sought after”
The skills to be able identify the process improvement and automation opportunities will be in short supply.
5. RPA and process mining will become the norm
Whilst BPO providers have been early adopters, captive shared services and GBS have been slow to adopt. 2021 will be the year that shared services and GBS organisations embrace RPA, and make their businesses cases work.
6. Multifunctional GBS will prevail and silos will be eliminated
As organisations rethink their ways of working, challenged by economic conditions and Covid-19, the silo hierarchical models will become challenged and waste eliminated.
7. More agility
Agile scrum-based approaches for Process Improvement and Automation will become increasingly popular as businesses start to move away from long design cycles to build the solutions for the future, and embrace more testing and improvement cycles.
What shifts do you see on the horizon? What are you already implementing in your business? Where will you experience push back?
But let us not forget:
Perhaps just as important for this year, beyond trends and processes, is how we treat our people. The drive for efficiency and agility must be balanced with human conversations with our colleagues. Our managers should be equipped with the skills to have hard conversations and a willingness to connect with teams in spite of the technological barriers. Above all, this is what our people will remember this year.
Business IT Leader | Animated Digital Transformation Leader | Energizing Conversationalist Speaker | Purpose-Driven-Creative Change Agent | Demand & Programme Shaper | Mentor in Cultivating Tech-Forward Cultures
3 年I agree with your article. Signs of such has been there prior to 2021 depending on maturity of the organisation and readiness to take more, especially effects of Digital Transformation and disruption of one's organization. It makes sense to focus on in sourcing to keep knowledge retained especially in process and data knowledge to fully leverage on advance data analytics and hyperautomation. If most knowledge of process and data is outsourced then leveraging on such with the right organisational agility will be a challenge, as we have layers of constant ping pong matches on commercials, contextual understanding and business acumen with outsource parties. Some of these could be done quickly if we have a good grasps and control of our process and data within our own people which is key. Some things we can get partners to do like tech enablement etc but know ong what you have it's not an outsourced job.
Global Lead -Training and Development, Maersk Global
3 年Great read Rakesh and all valuable points that you have mentioned. I believe this time around, more than anything else, employee centricity will top any company's to-do list- in letter and spirit. Recent times have shown us that the true treasure is an engaged and competent workforce across levels. That is the one key differentiator irrespective of industry or lifecycle.?
Global Finance Transformation Change Manager ABB Business Services
3 年Helen Wood interesting :)
Global Finance Transformation Change Manager ABB Business Services
3 年Thank you Rakesh Sangani - as always pleasure to read!
Global Invoice to Pay Strategy & Business Partner Lead
3 年I agree with all your points Rakesh. I would also put more focus on developing strong organizational culture with sr leadership’s support as it’s a critical component for success. Many organizations underestimate the importance of this; they have the right theory but when it comes to practice, the culture is a big roadblock and often eats the strategy.