What needs to be in place to support continuous improvement after an initial capability centre transfer?
Continuous improvement depends on having the right governance, ownership, and feedback mechanisms in place:
Progressive SLAs and productivity targets so expectations continue to mature over time rather than staying at day-one levels.
Regular assessment and scorecards to measure performance consistently and identify where improvement is needed.
A strong feedback loop to capture lessons learned and feed them back into process changes.
Clear onshore ownership/accountability to lead the relationship, manage issues, and ensure responsibilities are understood.
Effective change management and leadership to support teams through transition, build trust, and maintain engagement across locations.
What improvements would you expect to see in a future state for capability centres?
The future state discussed is broader than just cost efficiency - it points to a more mature, flexible, and integrated model:
Greater use of technology and AI to improve scale and efficiency.
Better productivity and service performance, driven by clearer targets and measurement.
Stronger onshore/offshore relationship networks, with closer collaboration and trust.
More defined development paths for teams, helping build capability and retain talent.
Flexible capability teams that can provide more ad hoc or specialist support, rather than only fixed-process delivery.
Improved brand and product knowledge within the GCC team.
Better process quality, including reviewing whether work should simply be transferred (“lift and shift”) or redesigned first (“improve and shift”).
Cleaner, more standardised data and better documented processes.
3. How can we prepare now for the future state?
Set up progressive SLA and productivity frameworks now, with regular review cycles and scorecards.
Establish clear governance and ownership, especially named onshore leads for relationship management and accountability.
Build a formal lessons-learned and feedback process after transfer.
Invest early in change management, communication, and leadership support to strengthen trust across teams.
Start identifying where technology, automation, and AI could improve scale and efficiency.
Create training and development plans for capability centre teams, including brand and product knowledge.
Review processes before transfer where possible, to decide whether to lift-and-shift or improve-and-shift.
Begin data cleansing, standardisation, process documentation, and simplification now so the future model is built on stronger foundations.
Design teams for flexibility, so they can evolve from transactional delivery to broader operational support.