Our experience in 2007 to date indicates that the location decision is becoming even more significant as a result of some interesting trends in Shared Services requirements and capabilities.

The choice of location, if well made, results in a high performing Shared Services organisation that has a plentiful supply of the right people with the right skills at lower cost, good infrastructure and maybe even the incentives and grants to make it even more attractive financially. The wrong decision creates difficulties in providing basic services and an inability to support the business to the standards required. In the worst case scenario a number of organisations make the same decision in the same year resulting in a job market suffering job-hopping, high levels of staff turnover and rising wage rates, due to overheating of demand.

Our European Shared Services Location Review for 2007 indicates that the location factors i.e. people, economic and environmental all continue to remain important in the location decision. However we have also noticed several new developing trends that are making the location decision a little more interesting, changing the weights assigned to each factor, making the possibilities greater and the pace of change more rapid Shared Services traditionally have been better known for hosting transaction processing services such as financial accounting, accounts payable and accounts receivable.

Download the Shared Services Locations 2007 Update