CSR – corporate greenwash?

CSR – corporate greenwash

Putting 'who' into 'what'... and why?

Putting 'who' into 'what'... and why

Shared services and data analytics: a case of sunlight uplands and bear traps?

Shared services and data analytics: a case of sunlight uplands and bear traps

The transformation of the finance function through new organisation models

The transformation of the finance function through new organisation model

The shared services model and new opportunities for the global professional service firm

The shared services model and new opportunities for the global professional service fir

How students can combine earning with learning through flexible business process sourcing: a proposition

Research by the Centre for Global Sourcing and Services at Loughborough University has highlighted an emerging skills gap between the entry-level of those professional careers that form the bedrock of business support services within organisations and the ‘talent pipeline’ to senior roles such as business partner. The reconfiguration, re-engineering and relocation of many back and middle-office roles through business process outsourcing (BPO) and shared service centres (SSC) is causing a serious career entry problem, because the training 'nurseries', where the skills, knowledge and behaviours of a life-long professional career, are forged. At present this trend is largely under the media radar because the SSC operates within company boundaries and migration to offshore locations is generally both piecemeal and phased. Economic effects are also masked by a 'honeymoon' effect of lower costs for organisations but little resistance from displaced workers as they retire, receive redundancy compensation or leave through natural wastage when migration is phased. However, portents of the future are already manifesting: Indeed, typical student debt has now risen to around £50,000, graduate entry jobs are now falling (Association of Graduate Recruiters, 2016) and at the same time there is evidence emerging that the 'talent pipeline' into mid-level career roles such as business partners and data analysis experts is drying up. More positively, our report suggests that it should be attractive for organisations to employ undergraduates in ‘middle-office’ work on an Earn-to-Learn basis throughout the course of their degree programmes. The idea is to enable students to access quality work-based learning which will allow them to improve their work-readiness and graduate with lower debt, and perhaps near to debt-free especially where schemes are able to access graduate apprenticeship funding. There are significant advantages for a range of stakeholders. Universities have an opportunity to widen access by encouraging those potential students who may be put off by high graduation debt and thus, improve employability rates. Organisations will have access to a new, intelligent, flexible workforce, at an attractive cost relative to many offshore destinations, especially with the lower Sterling exchange rate. Moreover, there is the opportunity to rebuild the talent pipeline and contribute to Corporate Social Responsibility by helping young people to get a career start. For government and regional economies there is a chance to stem the outflow of good quality service work and build capability in new knowledge work by designing programmes for data analytics and robotic process automation solutions. Moving forward will require a partnership between organisations, universities, professional bodies and regional policy makers and each group must be flexible in its demands; there are rewards for all parties but nothing will be achieved without co-operation

Getting more for less in finance shared services

Arguably the cost of the typical finance function has halved over the last two decades, during which time expectations from the business have almost doubled. A series of transformation programs have implemented ERP systems, established shared services centres (SSCs) and addressed the stringent demands for greater control and regulatory compliance. At the same time, the pressure to benchmark performance against ‘world’s best practice’ have also increased, together with the demand from business units for better and more comprehensive decision relevant information based on a single version of the truth. In this article David Mitchell and Ian Herbert look at the nature of ‘continuous improvement’, as a ‘business as usual’ (BAU) process, and the emerging role for accountants as the executive managers of global business processes (often titled “Global Process Owners”)

Royal Dutch Shell: a global perspective

Royal Dutch Shell: a global perspectiv

New standard: not just BS(i)

New standard: not just BS(i

The AI challenge

In this article, Ian Herbert and Alex Zarifis from Loughborough University look at a typical industry disruption scenario through the eyes of a hypothetical division that has been tasked by head office with planning a digital transformation. The current context and challenges of the hypothetical insurer are outlined first and then a plan to utilise AI is discussed