How to empower Shared Services Centers (SSC) / GBS through RPA & Intelligent automation, Data & Analytics (whitepaper)
This article explains how Global Business Services (GBS) and Share Services companies (SSC) struggle to achieve productivity improvements and how RPA and advanced technologies offer much needed help. The article offers methodology, use cases and case studies that the author has worked on throughout dozens of projects worldwide.
GBS / SSC need new alternatives to improve further
Over decades companies across industries have built and successfully implemented Shared Service Centers (SSC) and Global Business Services (GBS) and achieved remarkable results & benefits in terms of quality, service and cost efficiency. Companies have increasingly leveraged and mastered outsourcing in lower cost locations.
Now, notable productivity improvements have become difficult. At the same time SSC and GBS face every mounting pressure to provide better, faster and more personalized customer service, and/ or to manage more transactions at same/ less costs.
Read my article that explains RPA and all automation tools in detail
RPA and other Intelligent automation & Insight driven Technologies provide the answer for many of those challenges. RPA. Cognitive, AI and Analytics do not only support existing work, but also enable new ways of doing work, creating a human and robotic work force that, leverages its unique individual strengths, while augmenting and enabling each other. RPA, Cognitive, AI and Analytics have become the key enablers of the digital transformation for enterprises and global service providers. They also help SSC / GBS to newly define their roles and service propositions in order to maximize their value contributions.
Current efforts at SSC / GBS
Traditionally many companies have moved their existing business processes to Shared Service Centres using a "lift and shift" approach. However, the SSC/ GBS often only replicated the existing situation creating a number of challenges:
Many processes have a large proportion of tasks handled manually. Processes from individual departments not harmonized across the regions and countries. Cumbersome processes with redundant steps. Legacy systems increasingly difficult to maintain (rare skillsets required at high SME fees, raising complexity, inability to serve clients near/ real-time, etc.).
The nature of SSC, GBS and Outsourcing creates a number of additional challenges
1) Focus has been on completing lower level manual tasks and overall cost benefit. Performance of the serving parties has been typically measured and incentivized by number of transactions, time handled and similar KPIs. However, the market pressure for every increasing customer service, customization, handling speed, etc. reduces the value of cost benefit alone. Further, while the cost benefit of SSC and GBS per transaction is still notably better as in the home location, the steep rise of transaction numbers becomes cost prohibitive even at lower off-shore costs.
2) Changing processes requires approvals for the clients across the world, which often demands tedious cycles of engagement with business functions, legal, compliance and IT departments; review & discussion of outsourcing contracts, SLAs, OLAs and KPIs.
New Opportunities for SSC/ GBS to add value
Companies need to identify and implement ways to handle increasing work & complexity volume at as sustainable cost. Shared Service Centres can take on a leading role as follow: Proactively identify ways to leverage the full breadth of RPA and Intelligent Automation and Insight driven technologies. Create innovative and efficient service options to the individual business functions of their serving organization. Serve as advisors for business value. Shift at least part of their business/ operation model from cost centre to revenue generator. For example: leverage incoming customer requests for up/ cross sell opportunities. Some SSC/ GBS centres have automated processes, freed agents and assigned them to sell to customers.
There are numerous areas where Robotic Process Automation can bring immediate value (cost savings, quality improvements, speed to market, throughput, compliance & regulatory benefits, etc.). Machine learning, Cognitive, BI & Visualization, AI and Advanced Analytics can help automate and augment further.
Specific Benefits of RPA
There are numerous benefits that thousands of RPA projects across industries have demonstrated:
Cost benefits:
The average fully-loaded cost of a robot FTE is about one third of the average Shared Service Employee! It means that robots can handle much more transaction volume than people (often at 100% accuracy or same volume at just 33% of costs. Only process exceptions require human intervention. Machine learning/ AI can further eliminate or minimize that required human effort.
Hundreds of projects have shown that RPA can achieve on average at least 20-30% automation of processes. Some process can be automated up-to 100%. Process re-engineering and use of additional intelligent automation technologies can further increase that automation results by an additional 20 to 40% (depends much on use case and particular client situation).
Numbers depend much on the underlying processes and what had been already implemented earlier. Therefore it is often misleading to compare a certain process in one company with the same process in another company. The automation potential may be completely different.
Read my articles that explains how this applies to the Marketing, Sales and Customer service functions
RPA and related technologies improve workforce satisfaction!
RPA focuses on eliminating tedious, mundane tasks that are cumbersome and error prone for employees. The turnover rate in the Shared Services Industry is therefore very high and requires companies to constantly search for, hire, and train new employees. RPA helps employees focus on more interesting parts of work, experience higher job satisfaction and thus tend to stay longer with the company. It reduces the significant turnover related costs. (See case studies in later section)
Throughput Robots of RPA can work 24/7. (Some maintenance work may be required infrequently.) If transactions exceed volume that a robot can handle, additional robots are easily added to support the process. Configuration takes only minutes. Only business and technical exceptions (not to do with robot) require manual intervention.
Accuracy & quality Once properly configured the robots will process the work at a 100% accuracy for a defined process. Accuracy and work quality plays an ever increasing role in customer handling and satisfaction.
Speed Often the process works notably faster than a human. External factors such as lack of bandwidth, network latency and time slot restriction may slow down a robot. These limitations can be overcome with proper IT architecture.
Compliance & Risk Mistakes lead to loss of customers, business and revenues. Breaches of policies, rules, laws and regulations can result in fines, reputational and brand damage, even the license to operate. RPA offers detailed audit trails that help monitor operations that enable systematic root cause analysis for continuous improvements.
Better data, better insights, better results RPA can bridge across data silos & systems and gather/ process data across the entire organization, supply & value chain, and ecosystem.
RPA can feed mission critical decision making, analytics and forecasting tools with crucial data! Many people see RPA only an automation tool. They miss that the most exciting AI and Analytics tools depend on data. RPA can provide the crucially needed data.
RPA and other advanced technologies together can cover many core parts of human work and across typical GBS/ Shared Service Centers
Many companies claim to know/ do RPA, but most do it not well or miss out on much better results!
Leaders of Shared Service Centres/ GBS need to take a fact-based sober look at their current operations and ask a number of questions: How many full-time-employee productivity gains has your company achieved? Benchmark it with world leading companies who have achieved thousands of FTEs… How much have you improved productivity and cost savings compared to earlier year in percentage points and dollar figures? By how much have you increased the work transaction volume while keeping the costs same? What is the FTE take out rate per process and bot? Can you show a prioritized target list of most suitable process for automation in the next 3, 6, 12 months? Can you explain to your leadership the business case and ROI for each process automation and overall efforts? Can you show a detailed technology roadmap that explains the orderly use, combination and integration of the most suitable tools & technologies across the intelligent automation & insight driven technology spectrum. Do you have a clear roadmap for increasingly transform your SSC/ GBS into Innovator, Value driver, Revenue generator, Cost optimization leader? How well does your Center of Excellence identify automation and value potential across the SSC/ GBS? What are your targets? How do they compare to industry leaders? Have you identified required skill needs for the next, 1-5 years and what is your progress of implementing a training and hiring plan accordingly. How effectively supports your operating and governance model the work across the entire organization? How well do you engage with and secure support of individual key stakeholders? How effectively do you communicate and educate the entire organization on automation and insight driven topics? How is your adoption rate? How effectively are you shaping the organizational culture?
These questions above and similar are good eye-openers for people, especially in leadership, in SSC/ GBS. The "big RPA / automation programs" that SSC/ GBS centres often initially brag about, show often not more as a few dozen automation efforts with little hard-fact measurable results… If you wonder about the meaning of above questions or have difficulty readily answering, then your company has need for assistance.
How an experience RPA & Intelligent automation expert can help you
An automation expert can have an informal conversation with the leader & team of Shared Service Center about your automation program, efforts and progress. He can help your clarify your objectives, needs interests, pain points. He can give you a preliminary assessment of your automation journey and provide guidance. Then he can offer more diligent steps in follow-up projects.
Make sure that you get a true RPA & automation expert. He & his team will then be able to guide and support you through your entire automation journey, develop customized automation strategies & roadmaps, design/ implement automation function & program, lead/ support automation projects hands-on, build necessary capabilities and assure your success.
Example Case studies that the author directed, supported and/ or advised
30,000+ FTE productivity gains in 4 years
A large Service and Outsourcing provider achieved 30,000+ FTE productivity gains in 4 years. The company supports operations of hundreds of clients as well as own operations through its Global Business Services and Shared Services Centres. The company leveraged RPA and other automation technologies. None of the 30,000+ people lost their jobs. Company reassigned job descriptions & roles and transferred to more value adding work. It resulted in a higher job satisfaction and better career opportunities for the Shared services staff. Consequently, the turnover rate declined to some of the lowest in the industry. The company proceeds with its efforts and has set clear annual targets for productivity gains for automation (10,000 to 15,000 FTE productivity gains per year). At the same time, the company leverages insight driven and analytical tools to empower its workforce. Automation is a distinct part in the transformation journey of the company.
Large transformation of telecom operator through automation and related technologies
Helping one of the largest European telecom operators map, modernize and automate processes end-to-end across customer services, sales, operations and networks. The company deals with 7 different customer and 11 billing systems that are often used in parallel. Organizational structures and process have grown organically.
Analyzed 140+ processes on level 1-3. Identified most important KPIs based on industry standards and competitor analysis. Determined 24 prioritized processes. Streamlining, reengineering and automating these large processes leveraging full spectrum of automation technologies; leveraging lean management and six sigma methodologies.
Consumer Health products/ FMCG Company
Helping global shared services centre of one the largest Consumer Goods Company to manage their operations globally. Started with one regional SSC centre and expanded to other regions. Analyzed 250 processes across all key business functions (except supply chain). Identified 170+ automation opportunities and prioritized by complexity vs. benefits. Leveraged RPA, OCR and ML for each process analysis. Achieved simplification of support processes for local teams and Better alignment/ working together between global business services, product lines and local teams.
Automation of Incoming calls in Health Care/ Insurance
The service & call centre of a large insurance company needed to better handle incoming calls of customers requiring medical intervention and seeking a doctor. Agents had to gather information from numerous systems, while keeping customer on wait. An attended RPA solution helped gather all necessary information on behalf of 20 part-time agents. Benefits: Call time substantially reduced. Customer satisfaction increased. Agent could use time to build relationship and to up/ cross sell to customer. Solution will be scaled across regions.
Ongoing automation & transformation for one of the largest beverage companies in the world
Managing the entire annual marketing spend worldwide, 8 billion dollars, from Shared Service Centre since 2009. Automated hundreds of processes across the world, using full range of automation technologies (RPA, Cognitive, BI & Visualizations, SAP, client proprietary tools). Main processes in: P2P, R2R, General ledger, Marketing (budget & business planning), Master Data Management, Create campaigns, Accounting (journal entries, defer expenses, accounting routines); creation of hundreds of different reports.
Conclusion
Automation technologies offer a great opportunity for Shared Service (SSC) and Global Business Services (GBS) companies to achieve great productivity gains and cost savings. Many companies –regardless of size, brand or industry –have still to learn and master of how to use RPA and related intelligent automation & insight driven technologies in their companies effectively. An automation expert can help achieve remarkable results.
The following article provides additional thoughts...
If you have any questions, please reach out to me personally. You can communicate with me through email at [email protected] or WeChat (ID: alexwsteinberg2 ).
About the author - Alex Steinberg
Alex Steinberg has 20+ year management/ business/ technology consulting experience working for top brands in EMEA, APAC and Americas. Alex was key contributor to build Accenture's award-wining RPA & Intelligent Automation practice. Later was asked by executives to expand work across entire technology spectrum including Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence and Analytics globally. In team effort, he developed solutions, sold, implemented and advised automation engagements for top brands in the Banking & Insurance, FMCG/ Consumer Goods, Telecom & Media, Pharmaceuticals & Life Science, Electronics Manufacturing and Automotive industries.
Alex worked across entire automation life cycle end-to-end through all project stages and service offerings: Automation strategy& roadmaps; Operating & Governance models; Robotics Factories & Center of Excellences; Process Analysis, Re-engineering, Design, Pre-selection, Prioritization; Business Case and value propositions; POCs, Pilots, full Process Implementations; Large Scale Automation programs; Change Management & Transformation.
With Accenture, Alex was one of the first to develop some of the largest automation programs in the industry. Alex has done much international project work, travelled in 90+ countries and conducted business in 7 languages (E, G, S, F, I, C, R).
Legal disclaimer: This article represents my personal opinion and does not reflect that of my current/ previous employer(s) or clients. The article intends to increase awareness, understanding and dialog about key issues to serve the industry. It does not present any offer or advice in a legal sense. Markets and technology change quickly and information gets out-of-date. The reader is advised to get individual analysis & consultation.