The transformation imperative has permeated organisations from front to back office, basement to boardroom. Get it right and organisations reap the benefits faster, fuelling growth and competitive advantage. Get it wrong and never-ending compromises between transformation and maintaining the day-to-day can sap momentum and potential from the process.
This is not just about full scale transformation. Carving out a non-core operation or triggering a surge in capacity to boost short-term revenues can also place unsustainable strains on already overstretched management and employees. Business process outsourcing (BPO) can bridge some of the gaps, but typically just for non-core areas of your operations - the ‘table stakes'. BPO isn’t set-up to provide the mission critical talent needed to pursue transformational objectives.
What - or rather who - organisations need to deliver on their ambitions aren’t just people with rare or specialist skills. What makes the difference is having the curiosity and motivation to drive operational excellence, coupled with the right technology and the understanding of the what and how behind your strategy.
“Organisations need to align strategic ambitions with operational capabilities - especially in the context of pursuing transformational objectives. Working with clients - we realised the value that comes from using a managed services model when it comes to accelerating tangible outcomes. The flexibility, agility, and speed at which we can bring in expertise, underpinned with a commitment to operational excellence, standing side-by-side with client teams, helps remove the friction that can limit potential.”
Ian McConnell, Managed Services Leader, PwC
So how does the right approach to managed services bring together these capabilities - the people, technology, and operational delivery excellence - in a way that accelerates your business objectives? A closer look at our model helps illustrate the difference from the BPO model.
Our business consultants have built up years of expertise in your industry and your markets. By tuning into the strategic conversations they can help you to identify the strategic openings and potential within your business. Then our managed services experts bring those opportunities to life by designing your solution in partnership with you. Keeping focus on your business outcomes, they work with you to translate the strategy into implementation plans which are seamlessly delivered by our operational delivery experts. We share the commitment to success for the long term. This is where the value is.
This value differential is backed up by recent research into the factors that sit behind top-performing companies. Our survey of 2,000 companies, found the highest performing 20% were more than four times more likely to use managed service partnership (MSP) models for strategic advantage, while being faster to market and more innovative than those who were focused solely on bridging talent gaps and cutting costs. In other words, the MSP model significantly outperforms standard BPO by accelerating the delivery of your strategic goals and allowing you to move quickly and decisively as opportunities arise.
With the goal defined and the path set, our implementation teams can then hit the ground running.
And that seamless delivery is the second key advantage this approach to managed services offers. Nothing gets lost in the handover, because there is no handover – our business consultants, managed services experts and operational delivery experts are part of one team who quickly feel like an extension of yours. The managed service solution and the capabilities that underpin this are customised around your business, your strategic goals and the business outcomes we want to achieve together.
We draw on more than 4,000 onshore managed service and operational delivery professionals and offshore support teams worldwide. Because we have the project managers, technologists and operational delivery teams to execute, run, and transform your functions and processes while developing and embedding new capabilities within your organisation, we factor that capability in from day one.
“Our team of operational professionals work alongside our advisory colleagues to offer a winning combination of skills and experience to our managed services clients. We constantly invest in keeping our teams' operational skill sets relevant alongside offering market leading career paths. Working in partnership, longer term with our clients, taking time to get to know them makes our teams proud. Being able to actually deliver transformational value while running an activity for a client and at the same time supporting them to build capabilities and options for the long-term, offers a great sense of fulfilment.”
Ian McConnell, Managed Services Leader, PwC
Of course, the pace of transformation, technology developments and innovation means that no managed service solution is static. Priorities and opportunities shift, new developments and opportunities arise and top-performing organisations need the freedom and flexibility to change focus when needed - sometimes very quickly. And that’s the third key aspect for effectively using managed services to accelerate your ambitions; the flexibility and control you have as a client.
“We find our clients really value how they can activate, reshape or even end a contract at any time they choose. They can also dial capacity up and down as they need it. In turn, our commercial arrangements reward the value and outcomes we deliver as part of our client’s team. They feel that shared sense of commitment to success, of skin in the game, and that we’ve got their backs. It helps them make bolder decisions and really lean into their own potential and ambition - all of which fuels that growth and lasting success.”
Ian McConnell, Managed Services Leader, PwC
Our teams can step in during the implementation process or delivery pinch points to free up time, sharing best practice and ways to run the processes and technology more efficiently with the existing team. Or they can run the operation in the long-term, seeking out continuous improvement and updating the ways they work as technology, regulations and customer expectations change. And it’s not just the people we bring. It’s also continually modernised technology, saving you the capital outlay and making sure that capabilities are always optimised.
So with PwC’s Managed Services, you can recognise and realise the potential within your business through from strategy to execution and on to lasting value. So why not visit our EMS Experience where you will be immersed in how we work with clients, use technology and run our operations to deliver real outcomes. Please contact Claire Shields, EMS Experience Director.
