Bench Resource Sharing

Large firms have attempted to minimize costs and improve service quality by merging business support functions by adapting to resource-sharing methods over the last several decades. Major product patent expirations, particularly in the Life Sciences industry, are cutting cash flow and sales, leaving companies with an urgent need to minimize costs while maintaining growth. Increased generic competition has left many temp resources agencies with redundant processes and technologies, limiting efficiency and stifling growth and innovation. Though the resource sharing concept is already a success in other fields and Airbnb is one such example that has proved resource sharing is the need of time and future of working.

Senior executives are putting increased pressure on teams to discover new methods to distinguish themselves as more efficient and productive business members, both internally among operating firms and externally with their consumers. Simultaneously, they must seek new chances for expansion, innovation, and, of course, higher profitability.

This is a difficult task, but one that can be accomplished. Adopting a shared model for certain functions and business support services is one possibility. Consolidate specific functional and client-facing services and support activities into a joint entity that works for the broader corporation across all lines of business.

For example, a freelance platform in India is working on a freelance project and is in urgent need of some just-in-time hiring. Traditionally, they would go on and post a job opening on a freelance job portal. The hiring process would take a good amount of time, since a person applying for the job would upload their profile, probably serve a notice period, and over that may even lose a part of their earnings to the portal’s commission. This is where the sharing of resources comes to save the day. An agency having a requirement for employees may benefit from another companies’ surplus workers. Smart companies always save a place for bench resources, which in times like this are the lifesavers.

Another area where making the use of unutilized resources can have a significant influence on IT staffing. In Software Industry, a resource-sharing model can result in significant cost savings and increased productivity. Especially in the pandemic, avoiding on-premises resources and sharing human resources with other companies in your network can lower net headcount, increase economies of scale, and reduce duplication of effort, and of course, reduce the cost.

Furthermore, a more significant focus on process improvement after the initial creation might result in substantial year-over-year productivity gains. The capacity to go beyond standard cost reduction and scalability is one of the benefits of a resource-sharing work approach.

Here are a few benefits of resource sharing:

Reduces cost

A Cost-Benefit Analysis can be used to determine whether forming a resource-sharing network is a good investment. Organizations can better comprehend the expenses versus the real expected benefits with this analysis in hand. Let’s look at an example to understand this concept a little better. A project outsourcing website has 3 bench employees at the moment, who are not being utilized, therefore you can count them as idle resources of the organization. This means that the compensation of the 3 employees results in a loss for the company as they are not being utilized but still have to be paid. Another company is looking to hire java developers immediately. This is an ideal citation for both the companies, the project outsourcing website can share their bench resources with the other company, saving a significant amount of money and time.

Simplifies the work

With streamlined procedures and service level agreements, the ability to include additional processes and find opportunities for efficiency may be simplified, enhancing the success rate of offering high-quality service. Two companies sharing resources can balance out both requirements and a surplus of resources. This will not only reduce job cuts and layoffs but also reduces bench resource loss and increase profitability. Bench resource sharing will also help companies to reduce revenue leakage because of delays in hiring. As a result, this may help companies to save time and money.

Continuous services

Sharing of resources can help a company's programs, services, and processes become more ubiquitous. Conflicting infrastructure is the worst thing that can happen to an organization as it grows. As businesses become more complex, they become internally oriented, which is the polar opposite of what is required in a competitive, customer-driven business environment. For managers, employees, and the support groups responsible for enabling these activities, tasks like absorbing a new employee, transferring an individual from one group to the next, and even administering a performance evaluation may become nightmares.

Just-in-time hiring is the key to such situations. Traditionally one has to serve a notice period before leaving an organization. Bench resource sharing Saas platform like OnBenchMark.com helping companies to achieve zero benches without any commission. Accenture’s initiative like people+work connect is also one such initiative but its limited to a bigger organization

Accurately measured value

When some services, systems, and processes are spread, determining the service's exact value and associated cost is exceptionally challenging. The same cost that the company can save there can be further utilized for their benefit. Sharing of resources encourages a shared understanding, definition, service level agreements, and metrics. This improves the overall profitability of the organization and this may help companies to reduce dependence on full-time employees. Sharing of human resources is gaining momentum and this is leading to declining in full-time employment.

Expertise:

In general, shared resources can provide easier access to domain experts. Few companies or businesses can afford the high salaried employees. Furthermore, in a distributed approach, each specialization is likely to have varying skill levels, program timing, and priorities. Companies may face significant operational friction as a result of this. One company may place a premium on employee development and rotational assignments, while another does not. As a result, personnel will desert from one company (where they may be most required) to another in search of a better career path.

Things to keep in mind while implementing resource sharing:

One size fits all solution is not always the best option.

Efficiency and consistency are the foundations of a resource-sharing model. In reality, shared resources executives strive to make service and program offerings "one way." It's a logical approach to scale economies. Most firms, however, require more than just one-way support activities as they expand multi-nationally or globally. When a shared resources organization cannot accommodate variations on a theme to meet the demands of local businesses, they turn to other companies for human resources. If they can't acquire what they want from within organizations, they'll devise workarounds. Internal processes that are complex and complicated can stifle creativity, corporate spirit, and productivity on various levels that are difficult to quantify, but the impact on profitability can be significant.

Focus on maximum savings:

Sharing of resources provides several competitive benefits. If the primary goal is to save money (reasonably common in businesses), the planned effort will almost certainly backfire. Because the recruiting function is consolidated, one corporation may develop a preferred vendor program.

This prevents specialized business divisions from hiring specialty recruiting firms that are too pricey to fit the preferred agency. As a result, the time it takes to fill positions increases, candidate slates are of worse quality, and project progress is delayed—this enrages hiring managers. They are under pressure to develop a product but can find suitable expertise.

With this preferred organization arrangement, the centralized recruiting department saves money and runs at a lower cost. Is this beneficial to the company as a whole? We believe that this approach, which prioritizes cost savings, results in a business disability that jeopardizes the company's competitive position.

What's even scarier is that many businesses are oblivious to this fact. When money is tight, it's easy to justify a short-term, bottom-line-only emphasis, but this short-sighted attitude can lead to harmful limitations that undermine productivity.

Conclusion

Resource sharing can provide a cost-effective, efficient, and consistent service and resource delivery platform. Facilitating regional and global scaling is an intelligent technique in general. Recognize that this is a paradigm change. The stakes are far too high to roll the dice and participate in this activity haphazardly. Making informed decisions on the value of support functions and service levels necessitates in-depth thinking.

It is possible to underinvest as well as overinvest in service. The key is to think deeply enough about the subject to grasp the value-add of each resource and the level of expenditure required.

That way, you won't end up with a resource-sharing company that is either too expensive and provides unneeded and unutilized resources or too lean and causes organizational problems.