What is a shared service center?
A shared service center (SSC) provides support services for non-core business activities. SSC can also be defined as a centralised business function that caters to the back-office responsibilities, of different internal departments. SSC enables the consolidation of multiple business operations, such as finance, human resources, security, and others, allowing the company to focus on its core business goals.
Let’s take an example to better understand SSC. HR is commonly run as a shared service across an organisation, allowing the organisation to manage risks, whether legal or compliance-related, from a single center of excellence.
Here are the most popular SSC functions:
- Financial shared service center
- HR
- Payroll
- Compliance
- IT
- Legal
- Customer Service
Shared services can be deployed from different physical locations. In most cases, a shared service is an internal function that is run by company employees. Sometimes, businesses also engage the services of external consultants. When a shared service is outsourced, the external provider must adhere to a contract and defined performance metrics.
5 Benefits of Shared Services
There are many benefits of using shared services. They help to improve cost-effectiveness, and service levels, and implement best practices. These advantages are realized through service consolidation, advanced technology, and redefining business processes. Here are the benefits:
- Cost Reduction: The prime benefit is SSC’s ability to save time and money. Consolidation of various functions allows organisations to use one center of excellence to address the requirements of all departments, while at the same time reducing any duplication of effort across the organisation.
- Improved Service Levels: By centralizing non-core functions, businesses can deploy standardised processes, and track their progress easily. This data centralization also helps with reporting and analytics, which empowers decision-making.
- Collaboration between Teams: SSC allows for collaboration between diverse teams. It can also improve communication between different departments by promoting healthy information exchange.
- Better Productivity: When your team members use the same platform or service to complete their tasks, it makes information exchange and collaboration much easier.
- Flexibility: When it comes to scaling, SSC gives a certain degree of flexibility to organisations. SSC helps organisations to cater to increased demand without making significant personnel changes.
Final Thoughts
Shared service models have witnessed an evolution, from being delivery centers of cost reduction to becoming multi-functional centers of excellence. Finance and accounting shared service centers help organisations to focus on their core competency by leaving the non-core functions in capable hands that observe processes according to global standards.
A shared service delivery model is designed to take care of the end users’ needs. By embracing automation and reducing repetitive tasks, Mynd’s financial shared center provides greater value to businesses. Mynd Solutions offers a competitive edge in shared services for finance and accounting due to:
- Consolidation of Finance and Accounting (F&A) processes in SSC
- AI and Robotics Process Automation
- Shared supervision layers at the back end to cut the overlay
- Standardisation of processes across functions and geographies
Mynd’s Shared Service Center offers a unique blend of front-end and back-end office support, along with technology platforms to address the demand for traditional opportunities in Finance and Accounting, as well as future-ready opportunities in Mobility, Analytics, and Cloud.
Read also: 5 Reasons Finance and Accounting Automation is the Future