Shared Services
Shared services can be said to be the consolidation of various support functions like capital, procurement, human resources, and Information Technology to form one separate entity in an organization. This is done to enhance delivery and competence in the services a company or organization offers. Organizations formulate shared services to cut costs, give good services, and generate profits. Shared services also involve the convergence and reformation of an organization’s functions to guarantee that they deliver services to the organization. Most of the time, this entails centralizing roles such as HR and Finance but applies to the middle. The crucial merit of this union is that it allows for authorization within the function and can permit multi-functionality (e.g. connecting HR and Finance), where there it is possible to create synergies.
Outsourcing
Outsourcing is contracting out of business function. It happens when an organization feels, within itself, that it may not be able to perform a certain required service. Thus, it looks for external providers to assist it in the provision of that service. The difference between these two is that in shared services a company or an organization still takes responsibility for the provision of the services required. It is only that it has separately allocated resources to address that provision. In outsourcing, the responsibility for the provision of the services is given away to another organization. A large number of organizations prefer this option because it saves on production costs, time, manpower, and it causes the sharing of liabilities. However, it has its challenges, as well. For example, delay in the delivery of the services required.
Business Process Redesign (BPR)
BPR is the intrinsic (within) and extrinsic (between) analysis and design of workflows and methodologies. It reduces the number of distinctive business processes by creating international finance policies and sets business processes. One of the benefits of BPR is that it leads to the creation of other regional services in the organization. Another benefit is it implements standard universal enterprise and workflow systems which lead to a considerable move of work.
Reuter’s background about BPR
Reuters had many business processes. After incorporating Business Process Redesign, the figure was reduced, though key control standards were implemented at the same time under the new international template. Even so, challenges occurred in implementation. Clients were hard to get, and the business units had to accept changes caused by the business process redesign. There was a problem in making changes in sources of payment. There was a need to implement a policy that would cause most employees not to purchase orders. In some cases, there was no accountability for expenditure.
The phases of BPR in Reuters
There were two major phases. These were overlapping phases. Phase 1 began in 2001 to 2004. This phase had three sections. The first section was the redesign process that involved making new processes and concluded in the acceptance of the business. They had to reorganize the staff and maintain them in their departments. They also had to ensure that the process implemented would support the technology used.
Phase two had three programs planned, which were: Process Redesign, Source Redesign, and Organizational Redesign. They were to ensure that all these processes were working. In this phase, the company had to reorganize its plan again. More responsibilities were given to different departments. Hence there was a lot of shifting from the main centralized business points to the regional centers. Also, more transactions were moved to India. They still needed to make sure that all these changes would bring revenue to the company.