INTERVIEW OF THE MONTH
INTERVIEW WITH Ms. Sangeetha Jambagi,
Finance Shared Service Director at Upfield
How do you believe shared services of the future will look like? What will they deliver beyond providing a fixed portfolio of scale services?
Shared Services began with the premise of helping organizations achieve efficiencies and cost reduction. Labour arbitrage being one of the key drivers. These are no more the real value drivers as most organizations are already at this maturity curve or are getting there. Shared Services is now an evolving concept which looks beyond process standardization, IT leverage and cheap labour. Still very valid but, to sustain and stay relevant, Shared Services should move to the next level of value generation. Which means it needs to focus on not only Reengineering but also Reimagining processes, adopt advanced technologies such as Robotics and AI. It needs to break away from functional silos and operate as an integrated business services function. It needs to embrace digitization. It needs to adopt a unified governance approach. None of these are major shifts but, simply naturally progression in Shared Services Model. Companies will gain benefits at operational, strategic and tactical levels from such integrated, digitally savvy and expansive governance Shared Service organizations.
What are shared service organizations doing to deliver game-changing performance from their shared services? Is there any change in terms of preparedness that you’re seeing now versus say five years back?
Shared Services organizations have certainly departed from traditional models and approaches which focused primarily on cost reduction and process efficiencies. 5 years ago, Shared Services played a vital role in delivering transactional services through offshore/nearshore locations, providing cost reduction, improving SLAs and processes. Shared Services have gradually transitioned to Centres of Excellence over the years, driving enterprise-wide process simplification, acting as guardians of controls driving discipline across organizations, providing greater information transparency, giving businesses data insights for decision making and embracing the digital culture.
How do you believe digital has enabled shared service organizations to deliver improved business impact? Could you please detail with some examples?
Digital has equipped Shared Services organizations with the power of data analytics besides process automation. There is higher attention to stories that data convey rather than processes since the digital trend has taken Shared Services by storm. Businesses are relying more and more on digital and data analytics capabilities of Shared Services, for decision making and enterprise-wide reduction of process complexities.
How do people within shared services need to be reskilled to get ready for the future? What should enterprises be doing about it?
As people and Robots collaborate, people’s skills begin to get redefined and reconfigured. Traditional job descriptions will become obsolete and jobs will be more insight driven. With the changing mindset of millennials towards jobs and life, it is also important for organizations to open-up to new HR models that are compatible with such mindsets.