The Top 5 Ways Your SSO Can Generate Revenue

The more mature shared services become, the more ways they looks to add value to the business. And this doesn’t just mean cost cutting and headcount reduction. But how exactly can shared services take advantage of its own areas of expertise to generate revenue?

At last month’s European Summit for Leaders in Shared Services, Susie West ran an interactive session asking just that. These are the top 5 methods our audience came up with:

1. Streamline your processes. It might sound like an obvious one, but the more complex the organisation, the greater need there is for additional cross collaboration. Streamlining processes across functions will improve operating efficiencies and eliminate any duplicated workloads. Crucially, this will mean that shared services will be able to provide services to the business quicker and more effectively.
2. Move sales and marketing into the SSO. The marketing function at many large companies will be under intense pressure to drive growth and keep up to date with the challenges of the digital revolution. By taking advantage of the international visibility and technological know-how of a shared services model, marketing can be both more strategic and wide reaching in their campaigns. 
3. AP needs to be proactive. While AP is traditionally a process driven function, there is no reason it can’t also positively contribute to the business’ revenue. By being more proactive in the areas of credit collection and credit limits, AP can make the leap from transactional to real value-adding.
4. Do more data analysis. Shared services are data hubs. With the amount of information coming in regarding as company’s supply chain, cash flow and inventory, the data analysis and following critical business information that comes out of that is an incredibly important resource to any business. Both Shell and Siemens global business services, for example, are focussing on leveraging their data to become more competitive.
5. Utilise dynamic discounting. Until the maturity of purchase to pay processes (P2P) and the associated procurement software, discounting for early payment was difficult to achieve. But with the advancement of technology and the streamlining of financial transactions in shared services, dynamic discounting is a fantastic way to realise often millions of dollars’ worth of savings.