The Story Behind the Top 20 Most Admired SSOs & GBS Benchmarking Study

SSON Research & Analytics takes a scientific approach to identify these top 20 in world listings, using methodologies that has collated cross channel data from SSON’s global community of 180,000 members, including digital and face-to-face channels, and apply weighting systems to the various criteria that are considered.  

• Benchmarking Surveys: Results from various regional/topical benchmarking studies that SSON Analytics runs throughout the year. 
• SSON Impact Awards: Nominations and wins by these SSOs and GBS over the past five years 
• SSON Conference Research: SSON’s regional and country event producers, as well as digital event producers (20+), speak to the Shared Services and GBS industry on five continents all year round. Conference production research reports have been analyzed to generate a list of SSOs & GBS that are named most often in event producers’ discussions with the market about perceived best practices, and that SSON members most want to hear from at future events. 
• Speaker Ratings: Ratings of speakers/contributors from these SSOs and GBS at SSON events from post-event evaluation surveys 
• Digital Presentation Downloads: Volume of traffic to view their presentations online afterwards and requests for more information/updates from these SSOs and GBS. 
• Digital Editorial Demand: The popularity of digital content (e.g. webinars, interviews, articles, roundtables) featuring these SSOs and GBS across SSON’s digital channels, measured by page views and webinar registrations. 

20 organizations, 57 Shared Services, and GBS centers provided their data in an extensive benchmarking survey which captured 35 metrics across 8 common areas such as Attrition, Automation, HR & Talent, Payroll, Procure-to-Pay, Order-to-Cash, Record-to-Report, and Travel & Expense. The study also shares insights on their service delivery model, future of work initiatives, automation and resourcing strategies, and key objectives for the year. 

These top 20 consist of organizations that are in varying stages of shared services maturity. Close to half are already global and looking to achieve best-in-class operations while a quarter is adding scope and expanding their footprint.  

So, what's new in the 2021 study?  

There are seven new metrics that are used in the 2021 study. They are as follows:  

• (Attrition) Involuntary annual attrition rate 
• (Attrition) Overall annual attrition rate 
• (Attrition) Voluntary annual attrition rate 
• (O2C) Cost to create sales order per line item (automated) (USD) 
• (O2C) Cost to create sales order per line item (manual) (USD) 
• (O2C) Number of FTEs to manage sales orders 
• (Payroll) Number of payroll FTEs per 1,000 employees