ABSTRACT
This conclusion presents some closing thoughts covered in the preceding chapters of this book. The book explores that many organizations were more concerned with processes and structures, and less with content and skills in their search for strategic added value, having written one on human resources (HR) shared services. HR in large complex organizations has achieved a lot in cost reduction and focus through consolidation, standardization and automation. The segmentation of activities that has separated administration, expertise, governance and business partnership is a logical approach. Bringing information and administration together via service and call/contact centres allows for economies of scale with benefits that can flow from the use of standardized processes. So HR is now faced with the conflicting pressures of a cost-reduction agenda from senior management encouraging HR's withdrawal from day-to-day people management activities and a consumerist model that suggests that HR should meeting the customers' stated needs.
