About the Survey

Survey Project and Timeline

• Identified gaps in Finance Shared Services performance benchmarks
• Engaged APQC to conduct custom study; ScottMadden designed questions
  • First cycle – spring/summer 2014
  • Second cycle – spring/summer 2015
  • Third cycle– summer/fall 2016
• Leveraged APQC’s benchmarking methodology and member network

Survey scope covers four major areas:

• Delivery model
• Scope of services
• Staffing
• Performance

 

2016 Participant Demographics

ScottMadden’s 2016 Finance Shared Services survey attracted a diverse set of 108 participants

• Majority of this year’s participants are based in Europe. 35 are US companies, accounting for a third of the group
• More than 40% of participants come from large organizations with over $20 billion revenue
• Majority of this year’s participants come from mature shared service centers
  • 53% have been operating for 5-10 years and 19% for 10 or more years

 

Combined Cycle Demographics

Combining data from all three cycles of the study, we have 302 participants in total

• More than half of the total participants are US or Canada based
• Overall size of the participating organizations is relatively smaller than 2016 data
• A higher level of service center maturity is reflected in the combined data compared to just 2016

 

Multi-Center, Multi-Country Models are Common

• 66% of total participants have more than one SSC, and 67% serve more than one country
  • We continue to see the declining trend of the “one-country” model, with the number of single-country SSCs decreasing from 50% in 2014 to 19% in 2016
• Among all participants, North America is the most popular location, followed by Europe
• Labor factors and tax considerations are the top location selection criteria

 

Global Regional Model Dominates, GPO Role is on the Rise

• Global Business Services (GBS) models, defined as those with global management and integration, are most common
  • 42% have regional centers with global management and integration, and 27% have centralized into global hubs
• The global process owner role and service level agreements are the most leveraged process governance model
  • 68% report using global process owner; 61% report using SLAs
  • 75% of participants use multiple governance methods

 

Policy Differences Become the Primary Global Challenges

• Half of participants indicated policy differences as the most significant issue in implementing global services
• SSCs rely most often on consulting firms to interpret foreign laws and regulations

 

Technologies and Analytics are Increasingly Leveraged

• Over 90% of total participants indicated using a vendor portal to access payable information
• 89% report using data analytics, with two thirds of those who do indicating comprehensive or predictive-focused data analytics
• 67% of SSCs have already implemented or are thinking about using process robotics

 

E2E Processes- Many Have, What’s the Impact?

The majority of organizations are adopting E2E processes. Most SSCs observed cost savings as a result of the implementation of the E2E processes

• 97% of total participants have at least one E2E process in scope
• 76% of participants achieved non-labor savings from implementing E2E processes and 53% achieved labor savings
• Of the SSCs who have observed non-labor savings, 96% reported a reduction in spending
• Estimated non-labor savings range from $208K to $788K per $1 billion revenue

 

Degree of Centralization

Traditional transactional processes are more centralized than higher value processes  

Metric Highlights

• Combined cycle benchmark values are well aligned with APQC OSBC benchmarks for larger organizations
  • The aggregated APQC OSBC benchmarks generally align with small to medium size companies, and demonstrate lower performance than our combined cycle benchmark values
• For high value functional areas, combined cycle benchmark values generally demonstrate more efficient staffing levels than aggregated APQC OSBC benchmarks

 

Staffing Metrics Comparison

Top performing finance shared services have significantly better staffing ratios  

Cost Metrics Comparison

Top Performing SSCs showed significantly lower overall finance cost and cost to operate the SSCs