A number of companies have already set up captive centres (750 captives currently operate in India) and have been asked by their respective management to do more. In recent months we have seen an increasing number of captive centres increase the scope of shared services by moving up the value chain in their respective functions.
Leading names such as the likes of BP, Pfizer, HSBC, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, Cisco and Tesco have existing captive centres, and are under pressures to provide more value and improved profitability. Captives that have initially migrated transactional processes are moving more into the tactical and strategic end of shared services, to activities such as variance analysis, month end commentary, analytics, and industry specialised processing activities.
Those captives that have mature set ups, or captives challenged with aligning to company goals to bring immediate cash flow, are considering divestment of shared services and commercialisation options (following in the footsteps of the GE-Genpact model). Either way, the economic times that we are facing, will mean interesting times ahead for captive centres!
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