With an eye on overall process performance, one of the constant objectives of forward-looking or more mature Shared Services Centers (SSC) are more control of a process from end-to-end. A recent report published by SSON, “2017 SSON State of the Industry Report,” states that more than two thirds of respondents are targeting end-to-end process management, implying Shared Services’ ability to deliver improved performance by exercising control over inputs as well as outputs for each task, leverage synergies, and benefit from greater transparency across the entire process.

In addition, SSCs are making the move from transactional and administrative work to knowledge work. The historic driver for Shared Services was more efficient management of transactional processing in the back office. With so many of these processes involving manual activity and handoffs, the potential to standardize, centralize and automate promised big return. Today, while the same requirements hold true, increased specialization and smarter resourcing – including the use of new technology automation – has engineered an undeniable shift from transaction and administrative to knowledge, or value-add, services. While only 1 out of 10 Shared Services today is focused mainly on knowledge services, 70% of respondents confirm that they are actively shifting in this direction.

So how can your SSC manage the financial close process from end-to-end and focus less on the transactional activities and more on knowledge work?

View our webinar with SSON, “Optimizing Your Shared Services Center with Risk Intelligent RPA™”, below to find out!

 

Written by: Kelli Shoevlin