Thought leaders in the shared service centre (SSC) industry led by Citi Philippines recently came together to discuss best practices that will drive the next level of growth for this booming enterprise.

 

Participants from more than 20 institutions representing leading Philippine companies as well as multinational firms attended the forum, eager to learn about trends, new technology, and recruitment practices affecting and currently employed by top SSCs.

 

Citi Philippines global subsidiaries group head Martin Mihov opened the forum with a primer on the bank’s long history and global footprint, which makes Citi the trusted advisor of choice to the SSC community. Citi Asia-Pacific treasury and trade solutions sales head Munir Nanji backed this up with a discussion of market trends that gave way to the rise of the SSC industry—generously sharing Citi’s well-positioned strategies and latest innovations available to support the requirements of the SSCs.

 

Meanwhile, Mark Sutton of Citi Asia-Pacific treasury advisory group and SWIFT commercial manager for corporates Damian Dugauquier spoke about the latest technology in bank connectivity. Senior partner of Deloitte Consulting Fraser Ross in turn shared the findings of a 2013 global survey on SSCs, which cited the Philippines as a global industry player, having a good reputation in the market and the very good quality of people.

 

One of the highlights of the event was the panel discussion where JG Summit Holdings vice-president and SSC Head Pancho del Mundo and acting regional head of Citi shared services (CSS) Gautam Abroal lent their expertise to the participants, drawing from their own experiences of running SSCs.

 

Citi Philippines treasury and trade solutions head John Ong concluded the event and in his closing remarks shared his exposure to SSCs as both customer and supplier. “Don’t lose sight of the big picture,” he advised the participants. “This is very important. We need to understand both the upstream and downstream processes and how they fit in to the overall solution so we can have a broader perspective to be able to do better process re-engineering,” he ended.