What is the Next Stage of Rio Tinto's Shared Services Journey?

Oct. 6, 2011 - PRLog -- More and more global enterprises are looking at procurement as a method of further optimising their SSO strategy. Scott Singer, Chief Procurement Officer at Rio Tinto has some key pieces of advice for those who are about to embark on bringing procurement into their SSO strategy. "One very logical place to look at is the lifecycle of what we call procure-to-pay. If you look in a large company, or really even a medium and small company, that end to end experience for procurement to ultimately accounts payable and remittance to suppliers is a very good place to start. Typically there is a lot of transaction intensity there so I think that that is a very logical place to start with a shared services journey. From there there’s an opportunity to start the building blocks of some of the actual buying function and even where we’re going now with our shared service model in strategic sourcing on behalf of clients as well as supply chain."

Cloud computing is another area that Rio Tinto is exploring as a way of further optimising SSO strategy. Scott Singer is a very strong proponent of cloud computing. "We are bringing cloud computing applications today, so this is not a theoretical exercise at Rio, and I would say that in the procurement and accounts payable space, particularly when you’re dealing with a company the size of Rio Tinto, dealing with thousands of suppliers, that cloud computing will bring solutions and a much easier way of bringing e-commerce to life. We see an increasing trend toward what we call the consumerisation of the buying experience. (...) We think that cloud computing can really help bring some innovation to the corporate procurement as well as other parts of shared services. It is scalable, it does cross industries and we think there’s a big future for these applications going forward."

Scott Singer has been working in shared services related roles, predominantly focussed on procurement and supply chain, for the last ten years. He joined Rio Tinto in January 2008 and prior to that he was working for a large United States multi-national manufacturing company.

The full interview is available to download for free as a podcast from the Shared Services & Outsourcing Exchange APAC Media Centre: http://www.sharedservices-exchangeapac.com/Event.aspx?id=...

Scott will join 60 global and regional strategy makers at this Exchange, taking place 20-22 February 2012 in Singapore, along with a handful of the leading solution providers in this space to network and share best practice on how to optimise their SSO to cut costs, streamline operations and deliver excellent customer service.

Scott will deliver the keynote address at the Shared Services & Outsourcing Exchange APAC, focusing on "Making Buzzwords A Reality: Board Level Backing That Makes 'Transformation' And 'Innovation' More Than Just Theory For SSOs".

To find out more about Scott Singer's session at the Shared Services & Outsourcing Exchange APAC, please visit the event's website: http://www.sharedservices-exchangeapac.com/Event.aspx?id=...