Shared Services Benefits & Film Noir – Some Things ARE Black & White…

Shared Services have proven to be extremely effective at streamlining business processes. They often begin in a single functional area, and are extended to others, most commonly human resources and finance…

Black and white cinema, or ‘Film Noir’, was coined by French film critics (first by Nino Frank in 1946) who noticed the trend of how 'dark', downbeat and black the looks and themes were of many American crime and detective films released in France to theatres following the war, such as ‘The Maltese Falcon’ (1941), ‘Murder, My Sweet’ (1944),  ‘Double Indemnity’ (1944), ‘The Woman in the Window’ (1944), and ‘Laura’ (1944). (From filmsite.org)

Shared Services experience sharing group Peeriosity, provides “Shared Service practitioners with a trustworthy and reliable resource to access and leverage the knowledge and experience of their peers," and describes the service delivery vehicle as, "a business model that enables resources to be leveraged across an entire organization resulting in lower costs with agreed upon customer-service levels."

The group outlines the many benefits to implementing a shared service model:

• Economies of Scale – Lower costs by distributing services across an organization
• Process Standardization – Best practices are realized throughout the enterprise
• Common Technology Platform – Enables coordinated transformation of front, middle, and back-offices
• Centralized Support - Operating units free to focus on their operations and external customers – and rely on Shared Services for support
• Company is free to focus on strategy – Rely on Shared Services for statutory compliance, controls and information
• Decision Support – Data analyzed and delivered as reliable and actionable information
• Flexibility – Shared Services can be sourced through multiple delivery channels and/or geographic locations
• Scalability – The Shared Services delivery model can be scaled for both acquisition/geographic and service scope expansion with relatively low incremental costs

While the benefits of Shared Services, like the films of the noir era, are black and white, service delivery technologies will continue to evolve – providing ever-greater capabilities and functionality. The future of shared services is bright as well – offering organizations ever-improving investment value, business opportunities and enhanced features as this technology continues to advance.

As for film noir, which is static and caught in a place in time, we’ll just have to continue to enjoy this art form in all its historic glory and timeless beauty. As the renowned film critic Roger Ebert wrote in 'A Guide to Film Noir Genre,’ “The most American film genre, because no society could have created a world so filled with doom, fate, fear and betrayal, unless it were essentially naive and optimistic."