Organizations continue to view Shared Services Centers (SSCs) as a value driver and are increasingly eager to develop new value processes, according to the results of Deloitte's 2013 Global Shared Services Survey, which revealed that almost 100 percent of respondents (95 percent) believe that SSCs will continue to provide critical and high-value processes for their organizations.

The global survey of 277 executives shows that companies are eager to take the next generation of Shared Services beyond the traditional space and are looking to expanded scopes, new geographies, multifunctional centers and analytics as key drivers for added value.

"The days of single function optimization are over, and companies with established Shared Services models are now reevaluating their impact and looking for additional opportunities to add value," said Susan Hogan , principal, Deloitte Consulting LLP and Service Delivery Transformation practice leader. "What we're seeing now is a desire to enable business strategies through Shared Services, aligning activities with broader organizational goals."

The following are top trends revealed by the key findings from Deloitte's 2013 Global Shared Services Survey:

Expanded scope 
The majority of survey participants (82 percent) plan on continuing to expand the scope of their Shared Services operations by increasing both transactional and advisory processes in their centers. Yet even today the survey shows that organizations leveraging Shared Services are moving upwards of half to three quarters of their full time employees to an alternate service delivery model. Even traditional corporate functions, such as Tax, Real Estate/Facilities, and Legal are moving towards a transactional SSC or outsourced model.

Broadening geographies 
Over the past 10 years, we have seen a significant shift in where organizations are locating their SSCs. Traditional, higher-cost source locations, such as the U.S., have understandably seen a decrease in the level of activity for newer centers, while a broadening array of lower-cost locations across the globe have seen an uptick. 

Multifunctional centers 
The data from this year's survey shows that there is a trend for organizations newer to Shared Services to move straight to multifunctional centers. Respondents with newer centers had a higher percentage of functions combined in Shared Services and managed as a single organization. Over 50 percent (56 percent) of respondents had Shared Services for multiple functions that were at least co-located if not managed as a single Shared Services Organization (SSO) allowing them to reap the benefits of co-location. 

Shared Services as a strategic asset 
Shared Services continues to strive to be seen as a valuable collaborator with the business, versus just a lower-cost alternative.  The survey indicates that while cost competitiveness is a main focus in SSCs today, moving into analytics was noted as the top future goal by over half of the respondents (55 percent). Using analytics, the enterprise-wide SSO can not only reduce redundancy and risk, but can also reap the benefits of leveraging data for better strategic insight and business performance.

"Shared Services is not one-and-done," said Hogan. "Organizations will continue to focus on multi-function and end-to-end processes as they pursue enhancements to their service delivery programs."