Background

A key component of a Peeriosity membership is the ability to benchmark quantitative performance in eight key process areas, and the ability to see differences in structure and design for 28 different business processes that are often candidates for Shared Services. This research abstract looks at the composite results of the structure and design survey as it relates to Customer Payment Processing.

Customer Payment Processing Organizational Structure

In regards to the organizational structure of the Customer Payment Processing function, Shared Services is clearly the structure of choice for the majority of companies, with 69% utilizing that design.  This is not surprising considering that Customer Payment Processing typically has a high volume of transactions and is well-suited to the application of technology and process improvement.

Customer Payment Processing Geographic Design

With the wide variety of currencies and regulatory issues related to customer payments across the world, it is not surprising that just 7% of the companies participating in the benchmarking have gone with a global design.  The multi-regional design (31%) was slightly more prevalent than the single-country design (26%), with the remaining design options all being in the 10% to 14% range. 

As countries across the globe continue to become more “free trade friendly” by relaxing often over-stringent regulatory and legal requirements for international companies, the prevalence of global centers will likely increase significantly.

Customer Payment Processing Process Standardization

The results for process standardization related to Customer Payment Processing are interesting in that there is no clear type of standardization that stands out in popularity from the other geographic alternatives.  Clearly, single-country processing (26%) will likely always be popular due to the fact that some companies are limited in their operations primarily to one country.  However, the remaining options are currently being utilized on a fairly even basis, with the multi-regional approach being the most popular at 19%.

Customer Payment Processing Labor Sourcing

The captive onshore design for labor sourcing the Customer Payment Processing function remains dominant, with 52% of the companies utilizing this approach.  Another 33% of the companies utilize a hybrid design, with 12% having a captive offshore structure.  Just 2% have outsourced this function offshore and no companies reported that they outsourced onshore.

How does your company manage the Customer Payment Processing area?  Is it time to consider a different approach?

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

“Peercasts^TM” are private, professionally facilitated webcasts that feature leading member company experiences on specific topics as a catalyst for broader discussion.  Access is available exclusively to Peeriosity member company employees, with consultants or vendors prohibited from attending or accessing discussion content.  Members can see who is registered to attend in advance, with discussion recordings, supporting polls, and presentation materials online and available whenever convenient for the member.  Using Peeriosity’s integrated email system, Peer Mail^TM, attendees can easily communicate at any time with other attending peers by selecting them from the list of registered attendees.

“iPolling^TM” 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 iPolling.