Centres of attention

Back in the 1990s, Dave Ulrich’s book Human Resource Champions proposed a new model for HR that led to a dramatic growth in the development of HR shared service centres across the globe. More than a decade on and the landscape is changing again with an explosion in multi-function back-office shared services that incorporate finance, legal, procurement and IT.To make matters even more complicated, we have also seen the rise, in the public sector in particular, of multi-organisational shared services, in which a group of organisations collaborate on an outsourced shared services model. This agenda is being driven hard by national government through increasing efficiency targets and is likely to grow significantly in importance in the coming years as attempts are made to repay the national debt.