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When you’re comparing shares vs property in an attempt to decide where you’ll invest your hard earned money next, it’s never a case of one being entirely good or entirely bad. Shares and property both have their benefits and downsides. The important thing is to look for good choices in each sector, and to decide which option fits your particular situation. For a while, the shares versus property argument was going in favor of property, as far as most people were concerned. Investing in property was fashionable. With the recent real estate crisis in America property investment is losing its appeal for many. However, that doesn’t mean that investment property isn’t a viable choice. Buying property to rent is still a good option, and there’s plenty of opportunity available in commercial property. Stocks and shares have bounced back and forth recently, and many people are concerned about their future prospects. However, the right choice can mean that, for you, the shares vs. property debate comes up in favor of the stock market. It all depends on your situation – there are good things about both of them. Anyone who argues that one is definitely superior to the other hasn’t done his or her homework. Benefits of Property In general, property wins the shares vs property argument for people interested in stability and long term growth. Property offers good leverage and strong capital gains. Established properties fare better, and it’s important to choose carefully. Look for good locations and opportunities for price appreciation. If you want to be sure of income, think about rental locations as a safe bet. Property investment is something that many find easier to understand than share investment. There’s a certain level of knowledge and sophistication required, but less technical understanding. In terms of shares vs property, property is also more tangible – you’ll be able to see where your money is going. Investing in property can also give you more control over your investment. Property investors have complete control over the investment, where share investors have only the influence of their voting power. In terms of shares vs property, Property also gives you the ability to personally add value if you choose to renovate or develop it. Benefits of Shares When we talk about shares vs. property, shares offer high liquidity and good cash flow prospects. They’re easier to profit on in the short term, if you keep a good eye on shares prices. Income is one of the most certain parts of any investment return. That means you should look for companies you know to be well managed, which have a good profit record if you think shares are the best choice in the shares vs. property debate. In addition to the above, when it comes to shares vs. property, shares are much more divisible. You can sell down portions of your portfolio without selling the whole thing – something that can’t be said about property. The minimum investment is also usually lower. If you can only invest five thousand dollars, that’s not a problem. Transaction costs are lower in the shares vs. property debate, too. The only costs required are brokerage on acquisition and disposal. On the other hand, property will have a number of extra costs on both ends, plus the cost of maintaining it. Direct share ownership actually has no ongoing costs at all.

The concept of Time Share evolved in Europe, sometime around 1960. A property developer found a method of increasing revenue from one of his ski resorts by offering partial ownership of the resort to his guests or patrons. The hotel ownership covered a week every year. The guests and patrons were satisfied and soon other hotels and resorts followed the same method.
Types of contracts
The week in question is a contract of real property, also called a Time Share interval. The contract indicates this in years.
The owners choice determines what type of contract is used.
i) The deeded contract
This type of contract cuts the resort’s use into a week. A part of the ownership comes form the weekly increment. Patrons use these recognizable real properties. If a patron wants a deed contract, there are some choices:
a. The period of use of the Share
The owner can use the Time Share for a vacation. Every year, one week of vacation in a chosen resort is possible.
b. Time Share period rental
The deeded contract owners can opt for a resale of the Time Share.
c. A Time Share gift
The deeded contract owners can give the Share as a present.
d. Time Share internal exchange
The owner can exchange the Time Share with other resort groups. The purchasers usually think of rental or resale because the vacation resort becomes redundant.
This method of exchanging the Time Share within a resort group affects the Time Share rental and resale status.
e. Time Shares external exchange
There are five thousand Time Share resorts worldwide. The industry operates globally, making the shares available to any client.
This has made the industry more fluid. The flexibility and annual sale increased to 9 billion dollars.
2. The Right to use contracts
Right to use contracts are another type of contract. The Time Share buyer is granted rights to the resort but with some limitations. There are some stipulations in the contract.
This also has a date of termination when all the rights are returned to the developer.
Members of vacation clubs usually utilize this type of contract.
The difference between right to contract and deeded contract is that the owners of the former have only limited authority over the property. There is no option for rental or resale.
The Time Share purchaser can use the resort for a stipulated time. Rights are granted to the purchaser, with certain limitations, and it is up to the purchaser to use it accordingly.
Therefore, there is no possibility for a resale of the Time Share as the purchaser does not have complete authority over the property.
Additionally, usually countries that have restrictions on the ownership of a foreign property usually observe this type of contract. For instance, in Mexico, the Time Share resorts are developed but offered through the right to use contract. Here, resale of the Time Share cannot be done and therefore the purchaser cannot do what he or she wants with the property.
Vacation Club’s use of the right to use contract.
Vacation clubs are usually organizations that might invest on many Time Shares. They own many Time Share deeds at different resorts worldwide.
These clubs can sell their share units to club members through right to use contracts or deeded ones. This is called Time Share resale as the club is reselling the already bought Time Share resort.
The Disney Vacation Club is one such example. Here the club members buy a Time Share sale and reserve a vacation time at resorts owned by the vacation club.

The photos we take are all about experiences – photos from our last trip, photos of friends and family and of places we visited. We also want to share those photos with our family and close friends and by that to share our experiences. In this article we will go over a few options for doing just that.
There are a few methods for sharing photos. Before the digital era sharing was done by printing photos and arranging them in photo albums. Then when family or friends gather they could go over those albums viewing each photo and talking about their experiences. Another way to share photos with people that were physically far away was via mail. Printed photos were put in an envelope and mailed.
The digital era made sharing photos and experiences much easier and almost instant. For example with digital photography you can share a photo at the instance it was taken with anyone in the world.
There are a few ways to sharing digital photos:
Sharing by email: Photos are computer files and like any other file they can be sent as an email attachment to any number of email recipients. To share a photo over email simply create a new email, enter the email addresses of the people you want to share the photo with, write a small description in the email body and then attach the photo files.
There are a few things to consider when sharing photos by email. Most ISPs and free email services limit the size of the attachments that can be sent. Many limit those to just a few megabytes. Some providers also limit the size of the email mailbox and thus sending a large number of big photo files can clog the recipient’s mailbox.
It is not considered ‘ok’ to email large attachments unless you personally know the recipient and he or she expects to receive such an email. It is highly recommended that you resize the photos before sending them by email. In most cases the recipient will only use the files to view the photo on the computer screen. For that purpose a photo resolution of 640X480 or 800X600 is more than enough and the reduced resolution files will be much smaller. If the recipient needs to print the photo then a high resolution version should be emailed.
Sharing using online sharing services: There are many online services that offer photo sharing for free. Using the service you can either share photos with a private group of people or share photos with the public. Sites such as www. flickr. com or www. shutterfly. com are very popular sharing sites. In addition to photo sharing they offer many other services such as photo printing. Using these services is simple: create an account with one of the services and start uploading your photos. When you’re done simply send the site’s link to whoever you want to share your photos with.
Sharing photos this way is very easy and efficient. You only need to upload the photos once and whoever you share the photos with can at their own time login to the site and view the albums. Most sites will resize the photo and reduce their resolution for faster viewing. However they will not allow the viewers to download the original full resolution file. In most cases this is not a problem as users can order prints directly from the sharing site. If they do need the original high resolution file you can always separately send it to them by email.
Sharing by FTP or other file transfer utilities: In this method the photos are just uploaded to an FTP server. The people you want to share the photos with will login to the FTP server and download the photos. This can also be done using online storage services that allow users to upload any file and then other users to download them. Similar to photo sharing services these services allow the sharing of files. They do not limit the users in downloading the full resolution photo files but they also lack the advantages of easily browsing through photo albums and quickly previewing low resolution version of the photos. Usually FTP servers are used by professionals or companies that need to share a large amount of data between them. Also professional printing services will sometime host an FPT server and have users upload full resolution photo files to this server for printing.
Sharing by burning CD/DVDs: This method is similar to the old fashion method of mailing printed photos. Instead of printing paper prints and mailing them you burn all the images for sharing on a CD (or DVD if more space is needed) and mail the CD/DVD to the people you want to share it with. This method is slow and used usually only when the amount of photos to share is very big and transferring so much data online is a hassle. An example for using this method is sending a large number of high resolution photos for a printing service
In conclusion there are many ways to share photos. For most users who simply want to share photos for viewing on the computer screen and maybe print a few photos using the online photo sharing and printing services is the best. These free services provide all the functionality most users need. Occasionally when you need to share a high resolution photo for printing you can easily send it by email.

It seems at the moment that there’s hardly time to draw breath: the events of the last year have been so vast in impact and so profound in consequence that the repercussions continue to roll over shared services and outsourcing, and the global economy as a whole, with seismic force. Nevertheless, it’s traditional at this time of year to take stock of the previous twelve months – and so here at SSON we’ve enlisted the help of some key players from right across the space to assess the events and trends which characterized 2008. (For a glimpse of what’s coming up next year for shared services and outsourcing, check out our ” Predictions for 2009 ” feature. . . )*Helen Neale Senior HRO Analyst and HRO Research Manager, NelsonHallMany HR professionals will look back on 2008 as a year of significant change for HR organizations on a global basis. Companies, particularly within the financial services and construction industries, are still experiencing very difficult times, and will unquestionably do so for a prolonged period. HR organizations have been challenged to deliver significant change programs while simultaneously trying to manage the day-to-day complexities of running the HR function. As redundancies increase, and the morale and stability of the workforce’s own financial situations take a significant nose dive, HR challenges are in constant flux. Key 2008 challenges I have identified include: Managing extensive exit programs while trying to keep organizations’ morale high: HR organizations have had to recognize and guard against the toll high levels of redundancy take on those remaining in the company. For example, it is critical to continuously and openly communicate with key employees during times of high redundancies to ensure that key people do not “jump ship” as the morale of those remaining is affected. Therefore, HR departments have been tasked with “keeping their heads while all about them are losing theirs”. In other words, making sure remaining employees are happy and therefore productive, so it’s as close to business as usual as possible. Support for organizations within emerging economies: despite the difficult times in 2008, some businesses are looking to expand into countries where there are significant growth opportunities including Russia, China and Korea. Alongside the difficulties within Western economies, growth in China, for example, is still critical to the strategies of many larger organizations. In particular, companies are looking to take advantage of the incredible market for consumer products within such emerging economies. HR service delivery has, therefore, had to balance the requirements for change programs centered on employee reductions in the US and Western Europe with the need to increase HR delivery in these emerging countries. Questions these companies need to address include: do we need to engage with a preferred recruitment provider in Asia Pacific to manage employee hires in the region? Do we need to expand the HR delivery footprint to include more localized presence in some of these countries as our company footprint expands? Keeping costs and investment in HR low while still delivering effective service: HR can be one of the first functions to take the hit when times are tough. CFOs often look at their HR departments for operational cost savings. Therefore, HR has been under pressure to effectively deliver services with reduced resources and investment. While HR functions have seen significant redundancy levels in 2008, they are required to maintain the high levels of employee satisfaction HR directors demand. This is a major challenge to one and all, especially given low investments in HR. *Fran Morton HR Transformation and Learning Outsourcing ConsultantDespite the gloom and doom of the second half of 2008, we saw a couple of big ideas gaining traction: Transformation is what’s needed to get HR to the next generation. With transformation as the engine, HRIS and outsourcing take their proper places as approaches and tools to achieve the ultimate goal. Full HRO (done in one huge mega-bite) isn’t necessarily the best answer. The rise in single or few-process outsourcing demonstrates clients “get it” that everything at once is not the only way. *Phil Searle Founder and Managing Director, Chazey PartnersWhat a year! 2008 started with the global economy steadily growing and concerns with inflationary pressures, followed by fast rising oil and commodity prices, but with no hint of what was to follow. Then came the dramatic collapse in the financial sector, continuing falls in house prices, the recent sharp decline in the price of oil and now talks of deflation and even a possible return to the Great Depression. Wow! So how has all this affected shared services and BPO? What major challenges have shared services and BPO practitioners faced in 2008 and what will 2009 look like? Here are my views. Globalization: globalization has manifested itself in many ways, including significant advancements in communications and technology, the rapid growth of new markets such as China and India, and the movement of workload, people, data and currency across the globe. Offshoring of work to other countries (either internally through captives or externally through BPO providers) has allowed companies to tap a much lower labor cost pool. Indeed, earlier in the year, the question was whether some of the new lower cost locations were overheating, which saw an expansion into even newer locations such as Vietnam and parts of Africa. BPO continued to expand rapidly in 2008, although mainly through the signing of more selective outsourcing contracts (e. g. , within specific functions such as finance and HR and then for specific activities within those functions), and less in multi-tower cross functional outsourcing deals. Talent Management: there were concerns in 2008 over the cost, availability and quality of resources (especially people) available to shared services and outsourcers. While this is still the case in terms of quality, the recession has definitely lessened the cost and availability concerns. Nevertheless, effective talent management is critical to successful shared services and outsourcing, and more organizations have grown to recognize this in 2008. Shared Services Value Proposition: while many in shared services understand completely the value of implementing and operating effective shared services operations, many outside of the shared services community don’t fully “get” shared services or its value proposition. I quote here from my recent interview with Michael Cox, Chief Economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas:”Shared services is not well understood at all. The aims and methods that shared services use to deliver effective and efficient support services to businesses may be well understood but the term “shared services” is not. Say ’shared services’ and my mind conjures up no instantly clear image of anything. ”The Global Economy: this is, of course, the big one from 2008. The dramatic change in the economic environment has impacted everyone. Recession is with us in the West, and growth forecasts for the booming economies of China and India have been recently cut by the IMF into much lower single digits. Just in the last few weeks we have seen significant layoffs across all industries, including in shared services and outsourcing operations. Another impact of the down economy is that the previously booming expat employment experienced in developing countries has been curtailed. Furthermore, budgets have been cut or suddenly frozen, causing at least a short-term shelving of many “investment” projects which might involve some optimization around technology, shared services or business transformation. *Emer O’KellyDirector, Triagen Ltd (formerly European Finance Director, Avid Technology Europe Ltd)[Companies were] mainly REACTIVE to the dramatic economic downturn. They concentrated on very short-term issues and on somehow getting through 2008, and did not commit cash to projects even if they made good medium- or long-term sense. A number of weaker companies have already failed, and they appear to be getting little sympathy from either the banks or, for that matter, other players like audit firms. Many fear there will be a second wave of failures (or near-failures) of better businesses, which cannot be allowed to go under without a fight. That will challenge the market more than letting the truly weak companies go. *George Penton ERP Solution Management for Shared Services, SAP AmericaWith the downturn of the global economy this year, shared services centers have been forced to react to unforeseen conditions, and have faced much greater than usual challenges in managing their credit-to-cash and procure-to-pay business processes. Ineffective management of the company’s inflow and outflow of cash, including longer collection cycles and worsening DSO can, unfortunately, be perceived as lackluster performance by the SSC. This impacts the perception of good service delivery by the SSC, especially in companies in which the SSC is not yet mature or not yet seen as a value-added business partner. Today’s reality is that effective cash management is key. Companies that effectively manage the flow of cash into and out of their organizations (their financial supply chain) will be able to weather this economic storm much more effectively than companies that do not. *John HaworthConsulting Principal, Global Sourcing, Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLPA key consideration for best practice organizations is to be mindful of the effect of staff reductions on the employment brand of a company. The who, why and how of staff reductions will be observed by the retained staff, and word of the manner of these actions will find its way into the broader employment market. Capricious actions will lead to employment brand damage, while careful, well-executed, and generous separation terms will serve to maintain the employer’s brand as the labor market improves. Honoring prior service, making eligibility for rehire explicit, even thinking about granting service credit for those employees who may be rehired down the road could be techniques that cost little in the here and now. These approaches could go far in making the severed employees not only think well of the employer, but also help the employer keep a pool of experienced ex-employees well disposed to potential future employment. We see the cost argument trumping all at the moment, and large scale buyer-financed, near-term investment in service delivery improvements moving out of the picture. There are, however, providers who seem to be willing to finance or defer implementation/transition charges in order to capture (and retain) clients who fit their models well. Buyers of services need to be aware of their ability to negotiate terms and imaginative solutions with providers, rather than reverting to seemingly comfortable, but discredited, models whose optics look like pure cost take out. Since there can be no sustainable benefit from these models, buyers need to be advised to understand that investment is necessary for service delivery transformation, and that it is a question of making transitions to the new model affordable, not non-existent. This too, is a consideration for now and for 2009 at least. *Brian D. Smith Partner and Managing Director, Financial Services, TPIIn 2008, the outsourcing market faced several challenges including portfolio optimization, attrition and rising costs in India, as well as currency fluctuations. Companies found portfolio optimization to be a challenge as they balanced onshore and offshore resources between internal and external providers, and between geographies. Due to attrition and rising costs in the FS “primary” back-office offshore environment – India – many considered alternative countries. In addition, currency fluctuations, particularly the drop in the value of the dollar relative to the rupee and the euro, impacted the business cases for new offshore initiatives, and in some cases made existing arrangements uneconomical for the buyer, for the seller, or for both. *Phil KingAssociate Partner/Shared Services Solution Leader, Atos ConsultingStarting up shared services is an enormous challenge at the best of times. Faced with the rapidly changing economic and political landscape of 2008 and looking forward to an uncertain 2009 makes it even harder. On the other hand, the drivers for shared services – and doing it right – are made stronger. So what were three key challenges and trends I observed in 2008? The first and foremost, which I wrote about in November, has been getting approval for a business case for start-up in challenging economic times, when every investment will be scrutinized in detail for payback and ROI by any board and/or executive team, and risky projects will be avoided. So for those presenting a business case, it has been, and continues to be, important to look for value-added benefits. Headcount savings and efficiency benefits are necessary, but the best cases have also stressed improved controls, working capital benefits, and support for wider transformation of support functions such as finance, HR and IT. As well as a strong benefits case, approvers will also be looking for a tightly run project with well documented and managed risks. Over the years there have been many shared services lessons learned, and in tough times it will be even more important for start-ups to take heed. The second challenge I have seen is that shared services is moving from the former domain of large multinationals and big public sector organizations, with support staffs running into the thousands, to become a consideration for smaller businesses and government bodies. For example, a mid-cap company that has rapidly expanded into several countries may see shared services as an attractive opportunity to gain control and prevent a proliferation of processes and duplication of activities before it becomes a much larger problem. However, in this case, it may not be as simple to create economies of scale, particularly if several languages need to be catered for. On the other hand, the benefit gained by creating shared services is that at least some critical mass is achieved, reducing the exposure that comes from having relatively small in-country staffs. The key here is creative design. It is important that systems and processes are as effective as possible, and designed in detail, that the organization can be flexible and that language requirements are reduced through automation. A third and interesting trend is that shared services is increasingly moving beyond finance functions. We have seen HR adoption over the past few years, but in 2008 I have, for the first time, seen successful shared services implementations in customer service and order fulfillment. It seems ironic that concepts of customer service would be transferred from finance into front-office functions, but it has been effective. I can see this as a future trend as, more often than not, customer order management has been kept as a local in-country or business unit function due to its heritage of being based on local market relationships. However, as more and more companies globalize or address their markets at least on a regional basis, and supply chains are more centralized, the case for sharing customer service across geographies is enhanced. The challenge for start-ups here is that they are “front-office”, potentially more politically sensitive, and any implementation problems can directly affect the core business. So extra attention must be paid to change management activities and making sure the new shared services unit will deliver good service right from the start. *Ray Matteson Director of Learning Operations, Raytheon Professional ServicesTraining providers are having to demonstrate the same or higher levels of value while operating under an extreme cost cutting environment. Buyers are needing to build the business case and demonstrate the value of an outsourcing relationship while providers are constructing solutions that transform an organization and reduce costs amidst economic climate pressures. The economic times are also forcing companies to truly focus on their core competencies. They now look beyond just the traditional training services and investigate the other services that support training (e. g. , education assistance, customer support, supply chain, consulting, etc. ). *Chris Nuttall Partner in PA Consulting and a Leader of PA’s Management Group for Sourcing and Shared ServicesKey challenges in 2008:Customer focus/service challenges: Many shared services organizations face significant challenges in maintaining an appropriate focus on the customer, especially managing customer expectations and service. Customer surveys often fail to pinpoint key pain points, and customer sophistication is increasing, faster, in some cases, than the shared services organization can manage. Many service providers have grown too fast and struggle to maintain customer service standards. Customers have not always been as vigilant as they should be in managing to agreed service levels. Financial challenges: Cash flow challenges – operating, investing and financing – remain front of mind, especially defining appropriate levels and timing of desired cash flows and managing the right mix of operating and investing cash flows. Budgets have been cut, and the key challenge is not just managing with less cash but balancing cash inflows and outflows effectively. Capability challenges: Managing shared services and outsourced organizations requires specialist skills, knowledge and experience. Many organizations struggle to identify the right talent, and/or under-invest in training and development to create a high performance team of skilled, experienced and motivated people with up-to-date knowledge and the right capabilities. Many providers face resource and skill crunches, and continue to experience capability churn, exacerbated by high wage inflation. Knowledge management challenges. Long-term shared services arrangements and outsourcing contracts can result in a loss of institutional knowledge…buyers may lose it, and providers may not share it. This can erode customers’ and providers’ abilities to effectively manage their relationships. Market challenges: As the number of large service providers decreases, market power is shifting to the largest service providers. In addition, a proliferation of smaller, viable, providers is creating challenges around provider discovery, or how to find the best providers, and governance, or how to manage multiple providers for an end-to-end process. Governance and team-working challenges: In a single-provider environment, it is straightforward to identify the responsibility for a service outage, process deficiency or software bug. But in a multi-provider environment, this becomes very challenging. Many customers and providers have difficulty in teaming and developing appropriate inter-relationships and levels of trust that deliver a joint business outcome. Enterprise-wide and portfolio challenges: Executive management teams can be uninterested in shared services and outsourcing, especially as they may not understand the enterprise benefits, costs and risks or alignment to strategy. Many initiatives continue to be managed as one-off arrangements, rather than as part of a broader portfolio approach, resulting in lost synergies and the take-on of unnecessary operational risk. *Craig Ackerman Vice President, Shared Services, HMSHostChallenges included:Keeping vendors to schedule on automation deliverables. Our approach: use a PMO-driven process; meet frequently, reviewing progress and issues; over-communicate expectations; and commit additional resources as needed to stay on schedule. Competing for scarce internal resources. Our approach: review projects and priorities quarterly; maintain internal project management and technical teams; and use a structured and disciplined approach to project management. Improving working capital in a down market. Our approach: implement and communicate tighter receivables processes and procedures; standardize vendor terms; and study the feasibility of supply chain financing. *Venkat Gopal IT Outsourcing Advisory ConsultantFinancial Challenges: Under the current economic situation, the pressure to manage cost and cash flow is extremely heightened, seizing a major part of business management’s bandwidth. But companies still need to run their businesses and their insatiable appetite to see external service providers do even more on this front is understandable. Providers have had to constantly and periodically present to the customer’s management how they have efficiently managed their 3 Ps – people, processes and pricing – by leveraging the benefits of traditional offshoring services. Customers are now also expecting providers to help them further stretch their budgets by enabling them to leverage more from process reengineering and global shared services centers. The centralization of back-office tasks can lead to significant cost savings from economies of scale, improved utilization and standardization. Process reengineering delivers the greatest cost savings and thus plays a pivotal role in the success or failure of a shared services strategy. It impacts the core of an enterprise’s functions and, as such, customers expect service providers to put their skin in the game by being open to embrace contractual terms embedded with higher risk-to-reward ratios. Knowledge Management Challenges: Most service providers have traditionally underestimated the value derived from improved knowledge management and, hence, have been torpid in making the required investments in this area. However, successful service providers have leveraged this to their complete advantage and have reaped the benefits from harnessing their knowledge management strategy by forming deep and mutually beneficial alliances with universities, centers of learning, industry bodies and thought leaders. Some of the successful service providers have also tapped, on a global basis, experienced and retired domain and process experts for specific contributions. Service providers should build a panel of such individuals for idea generation and knowledge management. Market Challenges: It has been observed over the past few years that engaging a large service provider is not necessarily the only answer to a successful outsourcing relationship. Recently, we have seen contract sizes become smaller and shorter in duration. Simultaneously, the scenario that is emerging is leading toward the proliferation of many specialized shared services and outsourcing firms that are much smaller in size and have deep industry domain experience, process knowledge, configurable solutions/intellectual property and tools that provide a jump-start to address the challenges faced by the customer. The traditional approach to provider discovery may not be ideally suited for identifying, rating and qualifying such specialized service providers. Thus, customers need to equip themselves differently and adopt a completely different approach to provider discovery. More Articles: Want to receive more articles like this? Have a tip, learning or case study you want to share? Join our growing community of shared services and outsourcing professionals. Sign up to our eNewsletters and ensure you receive the latest news, articles and features from our growing global community. . . Find out more at www. ssonetwork. com or email enquire@ssonetwork. com

It might not yet have the same profile as South Asia or Eastern Europe, but Latin America is becoming an increasingly popular destination for organizations looking to establish shared service centers, either serving domestic markets or as part of regional or even global shared services strategies. Furthermore, along with this growth in the captive sector Latin America has become the focus of growing interest on the part of major outsourcing providers whose entry into the market has had knock-on consequences across the board. Throw into this already-volatile mix the current economic instability and it’s easy to see why the region’s activity is making waves across and beyond the shared services and outsourcing space in 2009. The Shared Services & Outsourcing Network convened a panel representing practitioners, providers and advisors to take a look at the current level of maturity of the Latin American market and to examine how – and if – the economic malaise affecting much of the rest of the global economy is impacting upon operations in the region. Attending were:Laura Bao CastroCR FSSC ControllerIntel CorporationEsteban CarrilDirector, Latin America Finance OperationsEMC CorporationMauro MezzanoPartnerVantaz Group ConsultingRicardo NevesPwC Global Sourcing Leader for South AmericaPricewaterhouseCoopersSSON: I think the first question we should look at is: is it right to talk of “Latin American shared services” at all? Latin America is a very big region geographically and in terms of population; it’s got a smaller linguistic diversity than, for example, Europe, but there are still very big differences between, say, Brazil and Costa Rica. To what extent is it actually possible for organizations – captive or BPO – to take a truly regional approach in Latin America? Is it impossible to avoid having significant resources in individual countries?Ricardo Neves: This is a region different from other regions in the world. If you talk about intra-region services, you’re talking about two major languages which are, in some ways, close to each other; you have also a closeness of overall culture; and usually what you see with multinational or regional operations here is that the larger countries like Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, Chile correspond to a significant size of the operations. Usually if you look at most of the global or multinational companies in the region, they have 50% or even 75% of their operations carried out in two or three countries at most – and then 10, 12 other countries where they do have operations but which make up only 25% or less of their business. This gives a challenge when setting up a regional center, because there is a scale for the larger countries which is not present in the smaller ones – and what I’ve seen here is a mix between totally centrally run shared services and a lesser local presence in smaller countries to make sure the right scale is achieved and the right support is done at the regional level. There are companies based in Brazil that I’ve seen who have regional shared services – like the brewer AmBev, now connected with InBev and AnhauserBusch, which has a very large regional shared services based in Sao Paulo serving not just operations in the region, but also the firm’s operations in Canada for the Labatt operations. Unilever has also set up an HR shared services – and has just sold its finance shared services to Capgemini in the region. In sum, from those large operations that I’ve seen, as I said I’ve seen a mix of some centralised services and some small countries with local services combined. Esteban Carril: We’re serving Argentina, Chile, Peru, Mexico, Colombia, Venezuela, and Brazil. My team is divided into three functional areas, in two countries. One team is working in Sao Paulo, Brazil; the other two functional teams are working here in Argentina. We run accounts payable, accounts receivable, credit and collections, billing, cash applications, payroll, commissions and bonuses. It’s actually not divided linguistically: we found we already had some good skills in Brazil to develop the credit and collections department there, so we decided to leave the existing group providing services there in Brazil, to provide services for the rest of the Latin American countries. We wanted to have three functional groups, but we wanted to try to keep the same skilled people working and we didn’t want to have to move them from one country to another. Laura Bao Castro: We’re part of a global strategy. We have currently two pretty large financial shared services centers in Intel. One is located in Malaysia and the other one is located here in Costa Rica; the markets that are supported from Costa Rica are Canada, the US, Costa Rica, and Mexico, Colombia, Venezuela, Chile, Argentina and Brazil. SSON: Laura and Esteban, you both come from big global organizations with significant worldwide presence. Do you think it’s still the biggest companies who are setting up shared services in Latin America or are the smaller, or maybe mid-market, organizations also getting involved? Laura Bao Castro: I think the mid-market is coming up. I was able to go to [SSON’s Shared Services America Latina 2008 event in] Chile last year, and also participated in the SSON conference in Mexico City, and I was very surprised by the number of Latin American multinationals that have already moved into this journey, or are in the process of doing so – especially in Mexico where I think a lot of companies are looking into it, even having shared services within Mexico itself. The concept is right there; they know they can reduce costs and produce more quality with shared services, and even within Mexico itself companies are developing shared service centers. Mauro Mezzano: Actually we’ve been seeing this shift since two or three years ago. At the start of the decade many multinationals began establishing shared services in the region, but when I went to conferences in Miami and Orlando there weren’t many Latin American-owned companies present. Then in 2004, 2005, bigger local companies and groups started with the concept. Now smaller and smaller companies are doing it; some of them don’t really implement what we would call shared services but they do centralize and they do take a few concepts from shared service centers, and perhaps redesign a process. The influence of shared services is spreading out through many more companies than before. Ricardo Neves: I’ve seen an increase in interest: among mid-market companies it’s less regional. What I’ve seen is among large companies, they’ve done a lot of rationalization in each of their countries of operation, and a lot of discussion about regional shared services. What I’ve seen in the mid-market, specifically in Brazil, are still questions on “in-country” shared services if you know what I mean. It’s more making sure that they leverage their local operations, and then as a second step – especially with some of the systems work done – it’s something of a done deal to set up something regional: when you have a regional systems platform, for example. SSON: Let’s shift focus slightly and take a look at the outsourcing market in Latin America. Over the past couple of years we’ve seen the entry into the region of some of the big global players – in particular some of the big Indian providers. What impact has that had on the market – and on firms that are running shared services? Esteban Carril: In my experience in leading a shared service centre I have been trying to find different ways to do things, and finding vendors who can provide services in a more efficient and economical way than us doing it ourselves. When it comes to the outsourcing sector, I find that in Latin America things are still in development. When it comes to outsourcing it’s important to see how well-organized companies are, and how well they provide services in multiple countries – and I see the challenge for many of the big firms is that they are still working as independent companies in each country, and not really regionally organized in order to provide services to multi-country shared service centers. I think that’s one of the key points that I’ve been finding. Another key point is that some companies are regionalized but unfortunately they might not have presence in all markets, so that becomes a problem in terms of finding a single regional outsourcing solution to meet our needs. Laura Bao Castro: About five years ago companies providing outsource service arrived to Costa Rica. Since then, these companies have grown , for example HP has now close to 8,000 employees. While I can’t be specific about their services or regions they serve, these companies look for people speaking Spanish, English, Portuguese, French, Italian – even Chinese. We do not work specifically with an outsource vendor at this moment – but periodically we reassess our current strategy. Ricardo Neves: One of the features that I’ve noticed, one of the movements in the outsourcing space in Latin America, is that there’s been a lot of currency fluctuation between the dollar and the real, and the dollar and other currencies, and I’ve seen some discussions on contract review – especially for service providers – from both sides: if the clients want to take advantage of that, or even discuss relocation of some work; or if the providers are saying that an increasing cost is related to currency fluctuation putting added pressure on their margins. Definitely currency fluctuations have been one of the biggest topics of discussion in the region. SSON: OK, let’s move on and address the big issue of the moment and, perhaps, of many moments to come: the financial crisis and global economic downturn, and their impact upon shared services and the sourcing sector in the region. Ricardo, what do you see as having been the main changes in the space since the beginning of the main phase of the crisis in October? Ricardo Neves: What I’ve seen is basically a larger interest in discussing measures to reduce costs. Some of the plans that were lined up to be rolled out in the future have now become more interesting for discussion now; specifically, if they can help reduce costs. The mood, the willingness to do something now has increased. Organizations today want to do something bolder than they were willing to do even six months ago. We used to hear things from the business like “don’t disrupt my growth”, “don’t rock the boat”; now executives are coming and saying “hey, where can we make this boat more nimble? How can we rock the boat but at the same time make us leaner and more prepared?”I’ve seen this happening in a couple of ways. One is, clients coming to us looking for an overall assessment of cost reduction – which usually includes the theme of shared services. Secondly, we’re also having a lot of discussions on reviewing outsourcing contracts – or even making those contracts broader, in order to ensure they are capturing all the value they could based on the relationship. So overall what I’m seeing is an increased willingness to take bold measures to ensure cost reduction. SSON: Do firms still have money to spend on big implementations, or is it about making changes as cheap as possible?Ricardo Neves: I think a lot of it is, as you say, to make things as cheap as possible, as fast as possible. But I’ve seen some room to say “if I need to spend that to get that back, then let me hear what you have to say”. Again, I think firms are more willing to do things than they were before – but no-one’s saying they’ve got a big pile of money to reduce their costs. What they need to do is support the investment through the cost reduction itself. SSON: Moving over to the practitioners: Laura and Esteban, how have you been responding to the crisis? Has it had a big impact on your business and are you looking at operations in a different way?Laura Bao Castro: Intel Corporation has been, over the past 2. 5 years, on a restructuring and efficiency program that has resulted in run-rate savings of greater than three billion dollars, CapEx avoidance in excess of one billion dollars, and a reduction of twenty thousand employees from our peak in 2006. We as part of the Corporation are taking actions to contribute in this process. We are doing a big effort to reduce discretionary spending and one example is travel. We are also increasing the number of meetings over the phone and are focusing on productivity and efficiencies so we can do more with the same. Esteban Carril: Laura mentions the travel and entertainment reduction, and this is clearly an area where we have tried to pay close attention – but as a matter of fact I think that there is no doubt that the economic crisis will bring new opportunities for shared services here in Latin America. I think this might now be a great time to demonstrate that Latin America is a reliable region, especially for global shared services. As we speak my company is looking for new opportunities in emerging markets. Right now we are looking for a shared service center for sales operations here in Latin America; this might be a great opportunity for consolidation and cost efficiency. Like Laura we have accelerated process improvements and efficiencies, and tightened our controls over expenses; we are also now implementing new tools to give us better visibility of customer usage patterns and people’s performance, in order to drive customers to more efficient services. Those services that may be high-cost and are not being used by our customers are the ones that we would like to either outsource or discontinue. We have also identified other opportunities to expand our scope of services by leveraging our shared services to serve new internal customers, and redirecting our services to areas where they can add more value… [Regarding discretionary spending] As Laura mentioned, we have to do more with the same; in my case I’m trying to engage people from my shared services to lead some of these projects. On other cases we will prioritize those projects where we see there is a clear benefit in costs in the short term. Mauro Mezzano: What I would say is, working in shared services implementations in 2000, 2001, everybody was looking towards cost reductions. Then moving through 2005, 2006, 2007 and last year – up to October, of course! – I had, as a consultant, many customers who were very focused on growing, so they were very interested in preparing for big growth rates. Now, after October last year, once again I’m getting many calls from people looking for cost reductions, and being very proactive in implementing projects with quick results. I think it’s come back to that, and I think as Esteban was saying, in our region some countries become even more interesting for multinationals to do medium-to-long-term cost reductions because the labor costs are under what they can see in other regions. Something which is different from the 2000 period, in 2008, 2009, 2010, I think the offshoring/BPO providers are really appearing here in Latin America, and this could be a very interesting moment to potentiate that outsourcing and offshoring business. SSON: Have you been seeing clients are coming to you with the need to do more with the same amount of money, or reduced budgets?Mauro Mezzano: I’ve been seeing both. Some of the clients that were working here during 2008 in shared services have come to me and said “Sorry, I cannot come anymore with this budget because my company is in a crisis”; but at the same time I’ve been having new calls from customers who weren’t working with us previously, but who really want to work with us because they’ve got a new approach to shared services. The market is still very open and diverse, but I think it’s going to narrow down into cost reductions during March and onwards. SSON: Obviously globally over the last few years one very big question has been how to attract and retain talent. Recently however as the economy has worsened there has been the feeling in other parts of the world that talent acquisition and retention isn’t going to be such an issue over the foreseeable future, because people aren’t going to be willing to move out of secure jobs. Is this mirrored in what’s happening in Latin America right now?Laura Bao Castro: You know, Costa Rica is behaving very differently from other markets, specifically in the service industry. This year is no different; and the projection is 3,500 new jobs, so we actually have a pretty hot market. Talent retention is critical for our success. In terms of our sourcing strategy, we work very closely with the technical schools – particularly the accounting technical schools – and the public university that provides accounting professionals. We provide internship programs for technical school graduates and a student program for university students: we bring those people while they’re still studying to work part-time for us – some of them in an internship mode, some as what we call “student workers” – and by the time they graduate, and if we feel that they have delivered to our expectations – we offer them full-time jobs. That has been a very successful strategy that we implemented about six years ago, and we have a conversion rate of 95%. In addition we provide English classes to those employees to ensure that by the time they get converted they have reached the level of English that we require to do our jobs, because we offer services to the North American market and a lot of our jobs will require a certain level of English capability. So that’s a sourcing strategy that I think has proven to be very successful for us, and it gives a continuous pipeline of new employees coming in. In the area of talent retention, Intel is a company that believes in flexibility and we do provide a lot of flexibility to our employees. I don’t know if you’re familiar with the term “Generation Y” for people born after 1980; 80% of the population that I manage are Generation Y, young people with very different mentalities – they have a different chip in their minds from mine, for example – and they value flexibility very much, so we have programs like what we call “telecommuting” where they’re able to work from home up to two days a week. They have different start and ending times – some of these employee are going to school so they need flexibility to continue their studies – we have found through the surveys and questionnaires that flexibility is one of the main reasons why they choose to stay with us. We provide portable computers to all our employees which they can take home – and this generation are technology-growers, of course, so they love that. These two things have really been proven to help us retain employees – in addition to the career development of course. One of the beauties of shared services is that you manage different functions, you manage different groups, and if someone wants to start a career they will have the opportunity to move into these different groups and become a rounded professional. SSON: Esteban, how are you finding the employment market – and has there been a shift in your acquisition and retention strategies as a result of the economic crisis?Esteban Carril: In our case – and I would say that this applies for every other shared services in Latin America – turnover rate is one of the most challenging areas for shared services. We have been doing several things to retain our talent. We have been cross training – so, for example, when an employee comes to work in one department we offer them some exposure to other areas of operations, to other processes, so they can learn other activities and processes which as Laura pointed out adds more value to their own career. This year we are also offering a new service inside shared services which is that we loan employees to other areas, so for example if a business area needs an extra person because someone goes on maternity leave, or even leaves the company, we provide them with people as a service. If our people are trained in other systems and other processes we can add value by moving those people to other areas where they can spend two or three months. We’re offering that as another service from our shared service centre. Another area is flexible time. The nature of our business is, 70% of our business takes place within the last three weeks of the quarter so we really need to be flexible with our people. We let them do some telecommuting, we offer flexible time, because – as Laura pointed out – you should give them some kind of freedom inside the company. We provide English and Portuguese classes as well. The key here is that we’ve signed some agreements with universities through which we bring new people on board; we usually train them in those areas which are more transactional, so they gain experience – and then we move them around, not only inside shared services but also outside, offering them now career opportunities in the business, in different countries, in our local finance team. So we offer them several routes to success inside our company. SSON: Are you thinking that turnover is still going to be an issue for you in a worsening economy and a consequently tightening job market?Esteban Carril: I think right now, there are several companies that are letting people go, and I think the labor market will be better for us. However, inflation is still a problem – particularly in Argentina – so when it comes to retention we would expect to be reactive in terms of salary adjustments, to ensure competitive salaries. So in general terms I think the market’s going to be quieter; however, we should always keep an eye on the need for salary adjustments – especially with the inflation fluctuations we may see in coming years. SSON: Ricardo, what’s your take on the job market and the pressures on talent management at the moment? Have things changed as a result of October’s events?Ricardo Neves: Some of the clients I support have said the pressure on them has increased to deliver a good service at a lower cost, and the best way to do that is with good people. So I think the search for good people, and the importance of retaining them, and working the talent market, is still a big challenge as we go into crisis mode. Even though when you think about it there might be a little more availability of resources on the market, when you look at the example we’ve heard of Costa Rica – or even Brazil, where companies are going more into the interior of the country and looking at other cities inside Brazil to be able to retain a good flow of people coming out of universities, and have been growing very fast throughout the country – shared services and new organizations coming in are going after talent very fast, wherever it is; so I don’t believe it will be an easier time managing talent for shared services during the crisis we have now. SSON: And have you noticed – or are you forecasting – a drop in attrition rates over the next few months?Ricardo Neves: Not at this point; considering what I’ve both from clients and from providers with whom I’ve been working closely I have not seen any significant change in those rates at this point, in Brazil particularly. SSON: And will the increased operation of big BPO providers have an impact here?Ricardo Neves: I think so. I have not seen a slowdown in any way in the growth of the shared service centers either from providers or companies going after it. So even if there is any increase in supply I don’t think demand will decrease; actually, I think demand will increase from both existing shared services and from new companies coming into the market. I don’t foresee an easier time on turnover rates or talent retention. More Articles: Want to receive more articles like this? Have a tip, learning or case study you want to share? Join our growing community of shared services and outsourcing professionals. Sign up to our eNewsletters and ensure you receive the latest news, articles and features from our growing global community. . . Find out more at www. ssonetwork. com or email enquire@ssonetwork. com

There are quite a few photo sharing sites on the Internet these days. But just because some have millions of users, does that make them ideal for easy photo sharing? It depends on what you want to do. If you want to show your photos to the whole world, then a site that touts open sharing is right for you. However, if you consider your photos to be private between you and your family and friends, then you’ll want to look for a site that is built for easy photo sharing, but allows you to easily restrict who can and cannot see your photos. Easy photo sharing is more than just transferring or scanning your photos into your computer and uploading them to a sharing site. There are lots of sites that allow you to do that. The thing you need to watch out for is what happens to your photos once they’re on the photo sharing website, and does the site really feature easy photo sharing. A brief history of easy photo sharing The very early easy photo sharing sites appeared in the mid to late 1990s, but were mostly created to provide online print ordering. More appeared in the early part of this century, primarily to provide centralized access to photos. At the same time, desktop photo management systems appeared. These were not Internet based, and still aren’t. They provide a way to manage photos on your computer, and sometimes have links to online storage sites. A true easy photo sharing site will allow you to easily share your photos across the Internet with the people of your choice. Exposing all your photos for the entire world to see is not really sharing – it’s really more like a neighborhood open house for your photos and lacks the intimacy of sending a photo to a friend or relative. Getting your photos onto an easy photo sharing site Of course, photo sharing starts with a camera. Whether it’s a camera phone or a high-end digital Single Lens Reflex camera, you need to take the picture before you can share the picture. You may have some older prints around the house that you’d like to digitize and save to an easy photo sharing site. With that in mind, a true easy photo sharing site will feature easy one step scanning and whole folder uploads. With one step scanning, all you do is place your photo on your scanner and push a button. With whole folder uploads, you can upload hundreds of photos all at once, rather than browsing them in one at a time. With these two features, you can get the photos you want online as fast as possible, so you can start sharing them with the people you care about. Free membership or paid subscription? Many easy photo sharing sites require membership. But some will allow you to upload as many as 500 photos free, no membership required. If you have a digital camera, you likely already know that you will reach the upper limits of any free membership very quickly. Some sites also put a limit on the maximum size of the photos you can upload. This is very inconvenient as the upload process will be stopped or paused as photos that are too large are kicked out of the process. Sites that put limits on the size of individual photos cannot be referred to as easy photo sharing sites. Easy photo sharing means more than just sending an email Sites that offer printing services are also convenient. Most do, and many offer roughly the same price and quality, so pay particular attention to how easy it is to order the prints, how easy it is to upload your photos, customer service, shipping options, etc. How well a site handles these services is an indication of whether or not it is an easy photo sharing site. Also, true easy photo sharing sites will allow you to create, print and share photo albums, story books, greeting cards, calendars, and other photo gifts. These items should be easy to create, and feature high quality, both in terms of service and the finished product you receive.

Sharing services has risen up the agendas of the UK’s national and local governments in recent years, propelled by political and financial trends as well as by more concrete factors such as Sir Peter Gershon’s 2004-5 Efficiency Review and Sir David Varney’s report on transformational government. In an attempt to throw some light on recent developments and to examine where shared services may be headed in future, SSON convened a roundtable debate involving a group of practitioners and advisors at local and national level, chaired by SSON’s online editor Jamie Liddell. The results were, indeed, illuminating…
Attending were:
Tony Isaacs Programme Manager Warwickshire Direct Partnership The Warwickshire Direct Partnership is an alliance comprising all six local authorities in the county of Warwickshire: North Warwickshire Borough Council; Nuneaton & Bedworth Borough Council; Rugby Borough Council; Stratford District Council; Warwick District Council; Warwickshire County Council; and three private-sector partners in Steria, MacFarlane Telesystems and Northgate Information Systems. The partnership includes a shared services programme relating to its CRM [citizen-relationship management] system. For more information see www. thewdp. org. uk
Dominic Swift Head of Shared Services Browne Jacobson Browne Jacobson is one of the largest law firms in the Midlands with offices in Nottingham, Birmingham and London. The firm acts for over 100 local authorities, either directly or through their insurers. It recently published its Shared Services Survey ’08, one of the most comprehensive surveys ever carried out into shared services in the UK. For more information see www. brownejacobson. com
Peter Telford Chief Executive Officer Research Councils UK Shared Services Centre Research Councils UK (RCUK) is a strategic partnership between the seven UK Research Councils. RCUK was established in 2002 to enable the Councils to work together more effectively to enhance the overall impact and effectiveness of their research, training and innovation activities, contributing to the delivery of the Government’s objectives for science and innovation. For more information on the RCUK Shared Services Centre see http://www. rcuk. ac. uk/aboutrcuk/efficiency/sharedservices
Ray Tomkinson Local Government Improvement Specialist and Shared Services Author Ray Tomkinson is the author of Shared Services in Local Government: Improving Service Delivery (Gower, 2007). Ray managed the Welland Partnership shared services project and currently operates as a consultant.
 
SSON: Peter, you’re at the head of one of the more prominent national shared services centres [SSCs]. Can you explain a little about the drivers behind the move in your organisation?
Peter Telford: Behind the Research Council’s business case are benefits focusing on what are seen as financial gains which will be passed back to research and the research community, but probably more importantly in the early stages is the feeling that we can secure better effectiveness in business support to that research community by aggregating the seven Research Councils’ services onto one common platform, and transforming them. The business case started with an outline about two years ago. There was a lot of work done on certain parts of the shared service model even before that, but the activity’s really come together in the last two years. The full business case was accepted by the Research Councils in line with CSR07 [Comprehensive Spending Review 2007] in August last year, and the intention at the moment is that we will go live on the platform at the beginning of next year. We already have some services live in the IT and strategic sourcing areas.
SSON: Tony, your project’s been going for rather longer than that. Would you say that the drivers behind the Warwickshire Direct Partnership are similar?
Tony Isaacs: I think ours were slightly different in that when we started off in 2002/3 the driver behind that was, basically, to capitalise on the money that was available from central government at the time. We made a bid as the Warwickshire Online Partnership, and set up that particular group specifically to bid for that money: a total of £2m. We identified a number of different projects that we would attempt to procure and implement with that money, not least of which was the joint procurement by all six authorities in Warwickshire of a CRM [citizen-relationship management] system and associated telephony systems. We got the full £2m and since then we have actually implemented it; we jointly went to procurement and we’ve ended up with the Northgate front office CRM system.
Now I don’t think the goalposts have changed, but the drivers have. I think the drivers have changed in that there is no money available now; it’s exactly the opposite insofar as before there was money splashing about, if you will, from central government, and now it’s the opposite insofar as with CSR07, with all the efficiencies and demands that there are on local authorities to save, there is an overriding need to make things more effective and more efficient, and shared services is seen as being one key method of doing that – with the consequence that we are in a position now where our chief executives, our leaders, are very keen in looking at what can be done. And based upon that – or around all this – is the whole area of the two-tier structure within Warwickshire, and the drive that the government may want to push – and seems to be pushing – with regards to unitaries. But Warwickshire is very clear that it wants to retain its two-tier organisational structure and will do so by sharing services.
Dominic Swift: Tony, I just want to follow something through on that, because it’s a theme that emerged when we did our research on shared services [Browne Jacobson’s Shared Services Survey ‘08] that certainly efficiency savings and improvements in the way services are delivered are key drivers, but what you’ve identified as a lack of money was one of the real inhibitors, because in order to deliver shared services there is a considerable cost: You’ve already mentioned telephony which was obviously put in as part of the grant, and one of the problems that people seemed to face was the immediate increase in costs to deliver a shared services stream before any efficiency savings could actually be delivered.
Tony Isaacs: You’re absolutely right insofar as there’s a need to spend in order to deliver efficiencies, and what we’re seeking to do is to build up good, strong, powerful business cases that maybe looking over a five-year spread, so that while there is a recognition that to begin with you may need to spend money, over the period following that it’s anticipated that there will be savings. And Warwickshire may be different, but we don’t necessarily regard it just as pounds saved: it could be efficiencies. So it’s non-financial benefits as well as financial ones.
SSON: Ray, do you see many differences between the drivers for local and national shared services?
Ray Tomkinson: Yes I think there’s one big difference, which is the issue of government compulsion, as it were. There’s no doubt about it: central government departments recognise that they really don’t have much alternative at the moment to creating some element of shared services – because the Treasury makes sure that they do, because the Treasury controls the purse strings. It’s less clear that in local government every council is going to have to go down the shared services road.
As was being made abundantly clear a minute or two ago, local authorities have different ways of approaching their financial restrictions or their political considerations, one of which is the unitary agenda – or the two-tier agenda in other councils. So some councils are going to have to go down the shared services route because it’s the only way organisationally that they’re going to function. Other councils don’t have that imperative at the moment and I’m working with one group of four councils which are looking at sharing services but not because of financial pressures. They’re looking at it because they want to make service improvements, to improve resilience of services, and also give opportunities to create new services. So it’s a very different agenda between the two.
SSON: Peter, from a national perspective are you seeing an increased pressure from government to implement?
Peter Telford: Yes. Historically I’ve been in shared services in the private sector, local authority and now central government so I suppose I can absolutely empathise with the previous comments. I think the compulsion from central government is largely fiscal although there is a feeling that the transformational agenda that sits behind it is also very prominent. I think the other difference in central government is it is easier to identify and reach a critical mass where you can actually effect a transformation and deliver efficiency and effectiveness. At the local government level, it is more difficult to create critical mass – which then makes the funding routes and the benefits probably more difficult to determine in the early stages.
SSON: OK. There’s been a lot of talk about what advantages other than cost savings can be delivered through shared services. And this brings us on to the issue of benchmarking. When it comes to savings you can obviously benchmark against what you’re saving and how much you’ve saved against previous budgets, for example. But when it comes to service-delivery, how can one establish exactly what you’re benchmarking, and against what and against whom? Is there a common thread here in terms of where you go for benchmarking?
Dominic Swift: I think benchmarking’s so different, for different projects, is the long and the short of it. What we’ve seen through our research is that there’s a very wide range of different projects – we’ve already talked about the drivers, and it really depends on what you want out of your project. One of the frustrations that we heard at the national launches that we did of our review, was that there wasn’t enough benchmarking of the actual outcomes. And a lot of people said to me “how do we judge whether this has been a success?”
One of the problems is that if you produce a much more efficient service, which is more attractive to the general public (if it is a front-facing service, which more and more are) is that it will actually be used more. And as a result you’re getting better value, in terms of hits, but the cost of the service may actually go up. So it is quite a complicated job to benchmark and I think it requires some very clear outputs to be identified at the outset, and to look for comparable projects.
SSON: Tony, you’ve got a wide variety of services you need to benchmark…
Tony Isaacs: Yes, that’s right. I can concentrate really around the CRM system, because all the information we’ve got is via customer services, and improvements we’ve made to that around the CRM system. What we’ve done is take benchmarking as a very serious exercise in its own right, and what we’ve sought to do is to get customer insight by using different databases, information from the CRM, information from MacFarlane – the telephony system – and pool all that information among all the partners. And what we’ve done then is to say “ok, concentrate on the areas that we want to concentrate on” and to make sure that we do improve the services that we are seeking to improve. We have got what we call an Improvement Forum, which is a relatively recent creation and which is proving to be very successful as well. And that’s looking at the way in which the CRM in particular can add value to the whole process of improving customer services.
We are concentrating as well on a variety of different access channels, so we’ve got the CRM system, we’ve got telephone contact obviously, face-to-face via our one-stop-shops – we’ve got eight of them at the moment, with another eight planned for next year. We’ve got kiosks as well. But also I think most significantly, in the next few months or so what we’re looking to do is drive ourselves forward with web self-serve, and look to try to move people more towards that means of accessing services. And I think that will be a double win because the customer will benefit greatly from that in terms of speed of service, but also we will, because we’ll drive down the unit costs, and that quite clearly is a key method of making savings.
SSON: In the private sector a great deal of benchmarking goes on between individual companies and organisations, and as a result you have the idea of world-class et cetera. Is it a pipedream to suggest you might be able to get similar systems set up in the public sector, in which every region and every locality has its own pressures?
Peter Telford: I don’t think it is and I think the benefit of the public sector is, by and large we’re not competing with each other, and therefore people are much more willing to share information and the assumptions that sit under that information to try to help each other along. And I’m quite heartened by that kind of culture. I think the difficulty with the private sector is that it’s usually wrapped in commercial connotations and costings as well, which makes it very difficult to unpick to ensure you are comparing like with like. Albeit that said, the difference is that there is much more evidence when you can find it and it’s much more prescriptive in terms of service levels than I would suggest you would find in the public sector.
Dominic Swift: I’m very interested to see whether there can be some sort of worldwide benching or benchmarking which really does define the success of projects. I’d be very interested in understanding more of what Tony’s doing and how the measurement takes place, capture of information and then the dissemination of that, to actually judge how that service is being delivered and where the successes are – and where perhaps the challenges are. And also what sort of services you’re comparing that with. Because as I see it, shared services range across such a vast array of the different public sector areas – we were talking earlier on about this being local authorities but clearly it goes to health and other public sector bodies as well – and from that point of view the real problem you’ll have it seems to me is comparing apples with apples.
Tony Isaacs: I can give you a fairly high-level description of what we’re doing, and that is that we’re using some software you may be familiar with – Mosaic Data – and we’ve populated a lot of databases according to the information that we’ve gleaned from there, and that’s proving to be very much the benchmarking process that we’re going to go through. And there are certain authorities out of the partnership that are leading on this.
For each of the projects that we have, we have lead authorities who volunteer to lead on particular projects. We’ve got Nuneaton for example to lead on one, as well as the county, and the county has information that it uses from its observatory, and there’s a pooling of information, and there’s an agreement via the Improvement Forum for example whereby they do concentrate on specific areas with the data they’ve accumulated – whether it’s county-wide or just individual authority-wide. But basically they work together as best they can to provide these benchmarking criteria. It’s not a quick process by any means. But over time we build up that data and then we can use it from year to year to do comparisons to see how things are improving.
In addition to that I don’t know if you’re familiar with NI14, the latest government key indicator which has just come out, which is to do with avoidable contact with clients – customers – with local authorities. And we’ll be using the CRM to glean quite a lot of information via the CRM system. But it is a corporate-wide key indicator, so you will have other services, other departments, feeding in this information as well. That information is supposed to be started in October of this year and it will be used year-on-year to gauge how we’re doing, in terms of avoiding avoidable contact, and looking to improve that.
Peter Telford: I think it’s fair to say whilst we have not yet built the longevity of data that Tony describes – and I absolutely agree with him that building a profile and a trajectory is invaluable as a benchmark – we haven’t really got to the point yet where we are able to benchmark our service delivery over a period of time; what we are doing is assessing our performance as we transfer services. We’ve got a baseline against some services from the Research Councils and from my own experience and from talking with others in the public sector we will then aggregate what we believe will be appropriate targets for the Research Councils against their baseline. But I’m with Dominic: initially it is very difficult to compare apples with apples and ensure you’ve got a representative benchmark.
Dominic Swift: Peter, it’s very interesting from my point of view. I quite agree with you about the “apples with apples” thing. I think what’s been said about the public sector is very true: it’s much more transparent, there’s much more desire to learn from each other. One of the things I’m doing tomorrow actually is go down to sit in in Kettering where they’ve been running a shared services project for many years – well, well before Gershon and Varney and the rest. And that’s very interesting because people are open about what’s happening in shared services and happy to learn from each other. The difficulty seems to be that they range over such a wide area, the danger is that unless people come to some common terminology about what outputs are going to be defined for particular services it may be possible to benchmark over time as Tony’s doing, but actually benchmarking across different projects will be very difficult.
Ray Tomkinson: I think that’s very valid. One of the issues is that there is no commonality across authorities as to what constitutes a service. So what you tend to find is that people dive for a process – and even when they dive for a process it doesn’t tell you an awful lot about the service that you’re trying to share. And there’s often a real difficulty in stopping trying to find the trees when you’re trying to fight your way through the forest. So from that point of view I think benchmarking has on occasion got a very bad name because people use it as an excuse for not doing anything; and it’s only in the past couple of years where I think people have been much more prepared to be open about the fact they need to consider sharing as an option and sometimes benchmarking isn’t used as a blockage.
SSON: Let’s move on from benchmarking. We were talking a little about the private sector a minute ago – are we of the opinion that the private sector is an absolute necessity within UK public sector shared services, and to what extent is it a foregone conclusion that this is going to result in a degree of privatisation of services?
Dominic Swift: This is a question we asked in our survey: the sort of view that we had was that of course the private sector is an important potential partner in shared services, but there were just as many opportunities for the public sector to work together without the private sector. So, yes, it’s part of the picture but it certainly isn’t necessarily the whole of it. And I don’t think that privatisation is an inevitability from shared services: where we saw the private sector coming in, and the survey really highlighted this, links back to the funding issues we discussed earlier on.
Where you needed some sort of IT facility and commonality across a number of authorities and participants, quite often the private sector partner was someone who could deliver that in order to relieve some of the initial cost difficulties of setting up a shared service which frankly couldn’t be borne by some of the participating authorities.
SSON: Tony, that’s certainly what you were saying about the initial start-up of Warwickshire, isn’t it?
Tony Isaacs: Yes certainly: and it’s ongoing because we’ve just finished the renewal of the CRM contract and the telephony contract, so from the beginning of next year we will actually be embarking on new five-year contracts replacing the existing ones. And that’s the position of the CRM, the telephony, the ICT systems around it – so yes, it’s inevitable that we have to go down that route. We’ve had good – very good – negotiations with the private sector on this and I’d like to think that all of us have come to a very good, fair new contract.
Ray Tomkinson: I think actually the point that was made about investment is a very good one. There is actually no reason why local authorities can’t do sharing on their own without the private sector, and there are lots of examples around now where groups of councils are trying to do public-public partnerships. But I do agree: where there is a real need for investment – particularly around IT – then that’s where the problems start for local authorities, and that’s why they often do resort to the private sector.
But I do think that it’s worthwhile pointing out that as much as there are needs for investment, particularly in IT, there are lots of services which do not need that investment, and I’m thinking of professional services like planning, or building controls are another good example, or environmental health is another good example, where simply you’re dealing with people. One of the problems though that local authorities do find in that area is the scarcity of professional planners, environmental health officers, building control officers. And often they have to partner with the private sector simply for that reason.
Peter Telford: We need to get back to the point that I think Dominic made earlier which is in analysing what you’re trying to achieve with your SSC you then start to look at how you’re going to do it. And how you’re going to do it may or may not include the private sector. If you do seek investment from the private sector, they will seek a return on that investment; you just have to recognise that. They may indeed want a profit which may erode the efficiency savings you seek to make.
I think another thing that the private sector brings is experience and expertise in the sorts of change and benchmarking data which you may need. That said, I think the blend of public and private sector in trying to get to a shared service centre is the right one and the transfer of risk to the private sector through doing this is always pretty key in terms of what you want to get out against your project.
Tony Isaacs: I was just going to pick up on the point that if you can go for joint procurement as opposed to individual authority procurement, you can really reap the benefits, and the bottom line will be that you do make considerable savings – not so much a profit will result, but it will produce efficiencies in savings. We found that with our negotiations latterly with Northgate and MacFarlane, and also more significantly during the course of the contract that we’ve just had, when we as a partnership stuck together and wanted to get individual things out of Northgate, and/or MacFarlane, by standing firm we could really apply the screws to them, and they were forthcoming; so we could really achieve quite significant savings on different aspects of procurement that we did during the course of the four years we’ve had the system.
In terms of profit, I’m not sure whether profit’s the right word as I just mentioned; what we’re looking for are savings and efficiencies and I choose to use those terms rather than profit. In essence we can justify what we’re doing now: adding value, making sure we are getting the market rate or better, and we can quite happily and justifiably tell our chief officers and members based on the business cases that we’ve produced that we are getting best value, we are making savings and efficiencies on the basis of this joint procurement exercise.
SSON: Moving on: the future form and structure of shared services in the UK is, it appears, going to be determined in large part by competition between authorities, in a lot of areas. How do you see local shared services existing in the UK in, say, two or three governments’ time?
Ray Tomkinson: Two or three governments’ time, that’s interesting. So that’ll be two Conservative and one Labour… I suppose my thinking goes like this: I think that in 15 to 20 years’ time you will see a patchwork quilt across – certainly the local government sector; I’m not quite so sure about the central government sector. And what I mean by that is you will have a group of statutory authorities that are all geographically based – whether that’s a county or a district – there will be differences across the country.
Secondly they will have different types of shared services in different areas. There will be some that will be public-public; some that will be public-private; and some that will be public-public in terms of different sectors: health will have joined in; the police will have joined in. Because the pressures of the CAA regime coming from the Audit Commission mean that all public sector organisations in geographical areas have got to think whether it’s better to work together than to work separately. And as a result of that I think you’ll get a really different appreciation across, and in some areas there will be very heavy private involvement and in other areas probably none.
Dominic Swift: Basically I think it’ll depend a little bit on the nature of the shared service, to be honest. Sorry – I keep coming back to that point really. It struck us during the course of the work we did that there are two different forms of shared service: the ones which perhaps have been more prevalent to date, which have been the sort of back-office, IT function – ICT-reliant functions – and then the front-office function. Now they have very different possibilities in terms of partners. If you look at the front office it is a locally-delivered service and therefore your partners are chosen by geography, and geography alone: they can’t be chosen by much else, other than if you go to some sort of call-centre arrangement. But the other services can actually be amalgamated a lot more and with less sensitivity to geography.
So I think there are going to be some quite different groupings and possibly some legal authorities who particularly drive the delivery of a good service who perhaps sell to a very wide range of local authorities: health, via police, all of these are potential customers for them. And then on the local basis it’s going to be a lot more down to politics and the dynamics between the politicians as to how well their shared services are going to be run, and I think some of the political difficulties we have in Nottinghamshire, where I’m based, may make it quite challenging to get some of those local shared services off the ground.
SSON: Tony, I know this is something you’ve been thinking about, and obviously as quite a successful service provider it must be on the agenda. So let’s put you on the spot: do you think you will be at the forefront of a successful selling of services in the next couple of years?
Tony Isaacs: Yes I think I do in the next couple of years, but if you’re talking longer-term than that I think – and I hasten to add that this is my own personal view – the likelihood is that there will be an increase in unitaries. And there could well be in Warwickshire as well. I can put forward a very rosy picture in some ways – but at the same time you’ve got nagging at the back of your mind all the time the difficulty that there is in actually creating successful shared services – and I think that’s from a political point of view as well as the straightforward business-case point of view.
I think there will be more and more unitary authorities, to be honest. And I wouldn’t be surprised if even Warwickshire eventually ended up with two unitary authorities rather than the six authorities we’ve got now. I think it’s almost inevitable, and I think the government will continue to apply the screws, demand more and more savings year upon year, and the consequences will be that it’ll almost be inevitable that there will be more.
Peter Telford: I think this is too early in our development path to consider and I think building a stable service with reference-ability is key before we could go there. The wider central government agenda is pretty clear in terms of convergence of effort and activity onto some of the core shared services in the bigger departments. That’s already starting to come because of the requirements laid down by the Cabinet Office. And you can see the agenda already moving to: how do you ensure that there’s a commonality of solution and agreement on service levels that are given to customers? How do you allocate customer benefit across a broader-based shared service? How do you prioritise how you would offer services to customers? Those are debates which I think are becoming more prevalent and therefore indicative of activities and departments coming together on shared service platforms.