You want your people to be creating real value – driving innovation, focusing on customers and winning new business. But for many of you, resource constraints mean that simply delivering business-as-usual leaves little or no time for innovation, transformation and value creation.
Much of the pressure on capacity and capabilities stems from the mounting shortage of specialist talent in the Channel Islands. It’s telling that 66% of the Channel Islands CEOs taking part in PwC’s latest Annual CEO Survey see lack of key skills as the biggest threat to realising their growth ambitions.
The operational challenges are often exacerbated by reliance on outdated legacy systems. Mid-size Channel Islands businesses and subsidiaries of large global groups often lack the scale, funds and specialist talent needed to drive tech modernisation.
We need new solutions
Here at PwC, we’ve been spending a lot of time talking to clients about how to bridge these capabilities gaps and step up the pace of change.
Many organisations have looked to Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) for a solution. But old-school BPO can only go so far. More often than not, BPO simply shifts failing processes to another provider, rather than fixing the causes. Off-the-shelf BPO can also be too inflexible to adapt to peaks and troughs in demand or provide the specialist expertise needed to meet fast-evolving business, customer and regulatory expectations.
The need for a new solution is why EMS is attracting growing interest across the Channel Islands.
Outthink, outpace and outperform
EMS is far more than just BPO-plus. By taking support functions out of the back-office and into the forefront of value creation, EMS is spearheading the reinvention of operational delivery – in-house and outsourced.
EMS delivers good people on demand. The scope doesn’t just include payroll, financial returns and other routine functional requirements, but also more complex demands in areas such as risk management, change management and cyber security.
For operational professionals who’ve been working in small back-office teams, joining an EMS provider offers opportunities to take on fresh challenges and be properly recognised for what they do. They can also move up the career ladder without constantly having to chop and change employers. These attractive prospects have made EMS a magnet for operational talent. For you as an EMS client, the results allow you to access great people without the endless gaps and vacancies that have been undermining your operations for so long.
By operating at a scale that few in-house back-office functions can match, EMS providers can also invest in the latest systems. Again, for you as a client, the results can not only boost efficiency and productivity, but also free up your people to focus on innovation, transformation and growth.
The other big advantage of EMS over standard BPO is access to professional services-style strategic and problem-solving expertise. The goal is to identify and resolve issues at source, while laying the foundations for operational modernisation and sharing knowledge to develop your in-house capabilities for the long term.
It's a winning formula. By accelerating the delivery of strategic objectives, this kind of Managed Service Partnership (MSP) model significantly outperforms standard BPO. In a survey of 2,000 companies, the highest performing 20% were more than four times more likely to use MSPs for strategic advantage, while being more innovative than those who were focused solely on bridging talent gaps and cutting costs.
So you can
How can your organisation make the most of the EMS potential? Drawing on our work as both strategic advisers and EMS providers for a range of clients, three key priorities stand out:
1. Focus on what really counts
Clear objectives for EMS are critical. Sharpening operational efficiency is obviously an important part of this. But it’s also important to look at how EMS can improve your capabilities. Typically this includes helping your people to focus more of their time on creating value, while clearing away the inefficiencies, distractions and resource constraints standing in their way.
Working with the private equity owner of a recently acquired mortgage lender, we mapped and evaluated all aspects of what had been a stretched and under-performing finance function. This enabled us to target and execute remediation and improvements. We’ve also been helping to deliver core finance and compliance operations, which has not only helped to raise service levels, but also enabled in-house teams to refocus on customer engagement and business expansion.
2. Go further, go faster
EMS can not only help to bridge gaps in talent and technology, but also navigate, accelerate and sustain lasting change. It’s therefore important to look beyond point solutions in areas such as payroll at how EMS can help to deliver your strategic ambitions.
A global law firm is drawing on EMS support to help modernise its back-office operations. We worked with the firm’s operational teams to standardise and rationalise processes before moving them over to a new centralised service centre. Our EMS teams provided surge capacity to help sustain business-as-usual during the transition. We also helped to upskill personnel and develop service evaluation capabilities within the new centre.
3. Align strategic goals
Aligning strategic goals with your EMS partner can help you to build a trusted and collaborative relationship.
For us here at PwC, the foundations include taking the time to get to know how our client works, understanding its strategic ambitions and building the rapport needed to work together as one team.
To further strengthen alignment, we also share the risks with our clients – and the successes. Our commercial arrangements reward the value and outcomes we deliver. And our flexible and agile contracts mean clients are always in control and able to dial-up or dial-down support as and when needed
Let’s talk
If you would like to know more about how EMS could boost your operational capabilities and accelerate transformation, please get in touch.
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