America has a new president and his name is Trump. Whether unexpected or expected, what this news means, unequivocally, is that the country is changing direction.
What does it mean for you? Last week we published a detailed report by our sister company, Management Matters Network, on the specific impact of a trump presidency across different segments of the economy. You can read it here.
If we look at our shared services/outsourcing world in particular, the news strikes a somber note for the outsourcing model as we know it – but, in truth, change is a constant and the advent of robotics in recent years has already represented a warning to the old FTE-based model. Trump's America may provide pressure from the other end, by narrowing the outsourcing opportunities or pushing back on the ability to leverage cheaper foreign workers in the US – but at the same time, he's been clear about his desire to build new and exciting jobs in America. Knowledge working, data analytics, robotics, engineering,… all of these jobs would play well into this scenario.
So while the markets were initially unsettled, they've recovered quickly. Just as Brexit was an unknown, and yesterday's election results perhaps unexpected – we are surely in for more surprises. Much of the bad news tends to be already factored into markets early on. And what pressure exists often acts as a positive incentive to innovative change.
Service delivery models will undoubtedly react to whatever shape or form tomorrow's US economy takes, but with the US still the primary driver of overseas shared services, the doomsayers see a model under threat, and therefore corporations similarly; the opportunists may see a time to reinvent what we do and how we do it.
I'm going to adopt a slogan, off the top of the old dome...Let's Make Shared Services Greater Again!
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