Middle Management Leadership: Critical for Shared Services

As the scope of the BPO and Shared Services landscape expands throughout the international marketplace, companies who wish to run a successful shared services environment (SSE) will need knowledgeable and innovative Middle Managers to drive growth.

According to a recent leadership report by the Shared Services and Outsourcing Network, in the SSE organizational structure, middle management is claiming the spotlight as a key performance enabler.

Today’s middle managers have the opportunity to leave their reputation as mere “implementers” behind, and become more proactive as they play a key role in successful service delivery strategy. Their institutional knowledge, governance skills, and coordinating capacity serve to support outsourced workflow projects.

Additionally, companies that introduce major cost-cutting initiatives into their operations realize that cost-cutting alone does not suffice. Many are adopting strategies to leverage human capital more efficiently by outsourcing peripheral tasks, such as data entry, to free up valuable time for highly-paid employees, and re-focus their attention on company core competencies.

The Philippines in particular is increasingly leveraging its diverse BPO talent, surpassing India as a major hub for global business services.

Harvard Business Publishing offers 5 leadership skills to develop in your middle managers:

1. Knowledge in business strategy development.
2. Understanding how to identify and recruit the right people, such as “number” or data experts.
3.  Resource management. With money and staff scarce, middle managers must learn how to execute strategy by leveraging available resources. 
4. Knowledge of intelligence gathering, i.e. knowledge of tracking data on revenue and costs.
5. Knowledge of organizational structures and ability to set up reporting relationships.

To learn more about how you can free up valuable time and resources for your company and valued employees, please contact John Eisele, DDC’s resident shared services expert, via telephone at (770) 653-5052 or email at JEisele@datacapture.com.