SSON Report: Understanding and Implementing Shared Services in Africa

Africa: Waking Up to Performance Pressures

As African markets, industries and individual companies continue to grow larger and more sophisticated, they are being exposed to a raft of new challenges, including rising administration costs, duplication of processes and a need for more specialist operational knowledge.

In order to resolve challenges such as these, more African companies are embracing Shared Services models, albeit the majority have only achieved an early stage of adoption to date. Multiple large-scale MNCs are leading the way with exemplary success.

These case studies, supported by government-backed progressive ICT initiatives, mean that more African organisations will quickly follow suit and adopt their own implementations in the coming years.

This report lists some best practices to guide implementations, and introduces Standard Chartered's case study, which leveraged a Nairobi-based SSO on the way to a more globalised services delivery model.