KMCRIC

In the life science world, large biotech and pharmaceutical companies are trying to cut down their business costs by shared services. Being a large-scale organization running multiple clinical trials and research programs, cost and communication are important. Sharing internal or external resources and cost through the company can assist in minimizing expenses and watching the bottom line.

A shared service is the consolidation of business operations that are used by multiple functions within the same organization. Some examples of shared services are:

◦Human Resources

◦IT Departments

◦Data Centers and Platforms

◦Project Management Office

◦Finance

◦Accounting/Payroll

◦Clinical Trials

◦Research and Development

When combining functions required by several responsibilities of the same organization, the large company can standardize processes, generate opportunities for cooperation, and gain efficiencies to ensure activities comply with business model regulations. Shared services leverage the delivery of services across all business units, but also represent shared accountability and reasonability between the organization and customers.

As Shared Service Centers become primarily focused on data and analytics compared to transactions, there will be a need to train employees to handle more value-added jobs through digital labor. Digital Labor includes digitalization, Robotic Process Automation (RPA) and cognitive automation. The use of robots will change the way businesses handle their front-, middle-, and back-office services.