For companies that are not headquartered in South America, making decisions on how to best support operations in the region is complicated not only by language barriers but also by a range of local and national statutory requirements for how business transactions are completed and documented.  This is particularly true for Brazil, the 7^th largest global economy, the second-largest economy in the western hemisphere, and the largest economy in Latin America.  And, while it shares many attributes with its neighbors in South America, with Portuguese as the primary language, Spanish-speaking isn’t one of them. 

A recent inquiry by a Peeriosity member using iPolling¹ in the Shared Services Leadership research area asked the question “If you have operations in Brazil, what is the status for Shared Services providing support?”, with a follow-up question, “If Shared Services supports operations in Brazil, what is your organizational structure for providing support?”.    With over 20 companies with operations in Brazil participating in the poll, results for the first question indicate that 50% have implemented Shared Services support for Brazil operations, and results for the second question suggest that companies implemented Shared Services using a wide range of approaches.  Good to know; however, a closer look at the details suggests that there is more to the story.

The following chart takes a closer look at the results from the first question.  While 50% have implemented and 15% are currently evaluating, another 15% either failed in their first attempt or evaluated the options and decided not to move forward.   Here are the details:

For companies who decided to have Shared Services support operations in Brazil, over half support Brazil from within the country, with 33% using a regional center that is located in Brazil and 20% setting up a national center that supports Brazil only.  An additional 40% provide support from a regional center that is located outside of Brazil and 7% support Brazil from a global center that is located outside of the country.

Comments from iPoll participants provide additional insight:

·         We have a global Service center in the US. We have implemented some financial operations from Brazil with mixed success and we are continuing to work on the transition.

·         We largely support Brazil out of our North America and Latin America center in Costa Rica, but we also have some personnel who are based in Brazil.

·         We have a Shared Service Center in Brazil supporting Brazil only.  Due to the regulatory environment and complexities, it is difficult to support Brazil remotely.

·         Primary support is from a regional center located in Brazil.  Some support is provided out of a satellite center in Mexico.

Collaborating with peers who have “been there and done that” on resourcing and statutory requirements for Brazil has proven extremely valuable from a cost, effectiveness, and time savings perspective for our members.

If your company has operations in Brazil, does your Shared Services organization provide support?  How well is your approach working, and would you benefit from being able to collaborate directly with other companies with relevant experience?

Who are your peers and how are you collaborating with them?

¹ “iPolling” is available exclusively to Peeriosity member company employees, with consultants or vendors prohibited from participating or accessing content. Members have full visibility of all respondents and their comments. Using Peeriosity’s integrated email system, Peer Mail^TM, members can easily communicate at any time with others who participated in the iPoll.