The 21st HR Shared Services & Outsourcing Summit, organized by IQPC, was held this week in Chicago from May 15th to May 18th, 2017.
The first day of the conference was focused on learning more about Latin America as a potential shared services and outsourcing destination for the participating organizations. Some of the companies attending the workshop included Amazon, McCormick, and Arrow Electronics.
I was invited as one of the speakers and facilitators of the workshop due to Auxis’ extensive experience in the Nearshoring and Latin America Shared Services industry. My session, “Report from the Front: How are SSCs in Latin America Really Operating”, focused on providing a real-world perspective of the shared services market in the region, and key considerations to keep in mind if your organization is embarking in this type of initiatives.
As part of the presentation, I also shared the key insights of Auxis’ 2016 Shared Services Survey Report, A Deeper Exploration of Shared Services in Latin America.
The key take-aways from my session included:
- Latin America is a great location alternative for a Pan-Regional or Americas model
- You don’t have to be a huge company to make the case for Shared Services – average SSC in LatAm is 150 employees / 90% are multi-function
- Defining a clear strategy and objectives from the beginning is critical!
- Truly understanding the business case and where the opportunities are coming from will help avoid surprises in the future
- Your cost savings will be driven from the markets you are going from and going to – inclusion of North America will significantly increase savings
- Understanding your organizational culture and who you will be serving is key to deciding where to locate
- Establishing your center in a country where you already have operations is much easier and will require significantly less investments.
- Even if your company does not have operations in Latin America, you can still leverage the labor arbitrage of the region through a nearshore outsourcing partner.
To get a copy of the full presentation, you can download it here.
If you want to learn more about our Back Office Optimization Services, please visit our Shared Services Solutions or Nearshore Outsourcing page.
