Topic 1: Global Organisations Managing global organizations has been a business challenge for centuries. Global corporations all face a perennial challenge: how to capture scale across borders while differentiating products and services to suit the needs of local customers—all without letting complexity get in the way of speed and agility.
This week’s selection of articles will lead you through some of the most up-to-date thinking about tackling the challenge faced by global organizations.
1. Mckinsey & Company, in its quarterly article, explores the past and future of global organisations, recognising that there’s no substitute for regularly revisiting how to adapt structures, people, and processes to create the most effective organizational design. The article also elaborates on more process-oriented structures, which are likely to become increasingly useful given the power of technology and connectivity to transcend traditional boundaries both within and across companies. http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/organization/the_past_and_future_of_global_organizat ions
2. A report published by Deloitte sheds light on the potential of Global Business Services in improving the performance of global corporations. The report also breaks down Global Business Services in to five characteristics, namely: multi-function, multi-region, multi-location, multi-sourced, multi-business. They also isolate five behaviours, namely: common approach to governance, common leadership structure, common approach to service management, common approach to continuous improvement, and common talent development model. Deloitte believes that together these characteristics and behaviours are the key to running a successful Multinational corporation. http://www.deloitte.com/assets/DcomUnitedKingdom/Site%20SMF/EN/Market%20insights/uk-mi-gbs-global-business-services.pdf
3. Ernst & Young also dedicates a section in its website which focuses on the evolution of Global Business Services. The article points out that over the last 20 years, experiments with hybrid models using both shared services and outsourcing have achieved impressive results, so does the utilisation of the latest technology, such as enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems. Now, however, businesses are ready for the next stage of this evolution: implementing a multifunctional approach to shared services. This implies a higher degree of association between the different departments within the company. http://www.ey.com/GL/en/Services/Advisory/Driving-performance-with-global-businessservices-How-global-business-services-can-transform-your-business
In conclusion, in this week’s articles we can see that both Ernest & Young, Deloitte and Mckinsey believe that it is important for multinational companies to implement efficient and effective shared service centres and outsourcing in order to take the best advantage of their large size and thus aiming to tap into the benefits of economies of scale. Each of these consultants highlights the need for innovative transformations within the company in order to reach their international goals.