TMCnews Featured Article

Budgets, human capital and other back-office functions cost companies greatly - in both time and money. In most cases, processes are inefficient and productivity is low due to lack of resources. Shared services provide an opportunity, not only for improved efficiency and savings, but also for enhancing the quality of the services involved.

Companies are fast realizing this fact. In its recent survey, KPMG LLP, the audit, tax and advisory firm, stated that the growth of both domestic and offshore shared services continues to outpace that of traditional outsourcing. According to the company, this trend has been growing over the past 24 months.

According to the survey, the growth of outsourcing has slowed while it remains a core component of GBS efforts. This has been especially true with traditional business process outsourcing (BPO). In the survey, only 27 percent of advisers stated this as the strongest growth area, the company stated in a press release.

“These relatively weak BPO growth expectations reflect diminished demand for more traditional, generic, transaction-oriented outsourcing arrangements, such as in finance and accounting, in contrast to the greater demand for more specialized BPO," said Stan Lepeak, global director of research for KPMG Shared Services and Outsourcing Advisory. “This trend in focusing on more specialized outsourcing is an outgrowth of the expanding number of quality global sourcing locations with highly skilled resources, the ability of Indian services providers to diversify delivery capabilities beyond their home markets.”

Recently, TMC’s Kerry Doyle reported that KMPG released a new survey where it stated that in excess of 40 percent of government respondents all over the world say they are already testing or implementing cloud solutions. Also, about 30 percent are working on a cloud strategy. Almost half (47 percent) of the 429 government executives and managers from 10 countries cited security as their main concern.