THE PERFORMANCE OF SOUTH AFRICAN SHARED SERVICES

Many South African companies are adopting the shared services methodology because this structure has led to lower operating costs, greater business efficiency, and improved internal service quality in international companies. Part of a doctoral study on shared services in South African companies shows that their business unit managers have not yet experienced positive rewards from their shared services. This article reports on this study, and suggests a larger-scale research project to validate these findings and to investigate the reasons for the poor performance.