Global working in the knowledge-based economy:

Addressing the emerging ‘experience gap’ in the UK

The Earn-to-Learn Scheme An initiative pioneered by Loughborough University and

UKTI

Stephanie Lambert and Ian Herbert Centre for Global Sourcing and Services

CGSS: What do we do?

2

Offshoring Near-

shoring Outsourcing

Captive

Shared

Services

Crowd &

Cloud

Services

“The Centre is dedicated to carrying out both academic and ‘focus on practice’ high impact internationally

renowned research on how organisations source and manage business and IT services in a global

context”…….Centre for Global Sourcing and Services Website

Back-sourcing?

Inhouse

Shared

Services

Bringing the jobs home

Stay

sourcing?

The attainment of world-class business support services through the

application of New Working Practices and Advanced Service Systems

in a sustainable manner on-shore.

How? Where?

Changing what is done

Motivation for the scheme

Some figures… Back- and middle-office functions have been estimated to contribute £29.4bn to the

UK economy (UKTI FSO, 2014)

…with the highly skilled professional and business services (PBS) sector (including

accountancy) employing 3.8 million people (UKTI, 2013).

The present ‘honeymoon’ phase of lower offshore costs, cushioned by retiring

skilled, relatively highly paid, UK workers has hidden risks for future generations of

home graduates.

“I’m Head of Finance and Accounting Asia-

Pacific for [large multinational company].

Next fiscal year we have plans to migrate

another 1,500 jobs from the ‘sunset

economies.”

The UK – a ‘sunset economy’?

Building and keeping skills onshore

Organisational influence

upon course content to

build relevant skills

Access to a large talent

pool of educated, multi-

skilled and multicultural

backgrounds

Low attrition and staff

costs

Vital skills development

and practical experience

for students

Polarization of work • Commoditization of professional work

• Findings from PhD; bottleneck in roles

• Requirement for higher level skills beyond

technical competence

BPR squeezes

the middle

Flat hierarchy

Elite workers, business facing

The segregation of finance

CIMA (2007) Improving Decision Making in Organisations: The opportunity to transform finance,

Skills in the SSC/BPOs

The Earn-to-Learn Scheme

Benefits/ Opportunities?

Problems/ Drawbacks?

Barriers – we think it is great

but…!

How can we move forward?

– Solutions

Is the ‘honeymoon’ over for Business Partners

and Business Schools?

• Segregation of work i.e. ‘where the numbers come from’

• New professionals or graduates may not have the opportunity to build professional behaviours acquired in ‘nuts & bolts’ training

• Some graduate professionals may not make the transition from production activities (e.g. spreadsheets) to ‘people workers’.

• Mid-tier activities moved offshore, e.g. Management Information.

• Where are the training nurseries?

The Earn to Learn offering

Any questions?