Welcome to Old Mutual Group of Companies Shared Services Portal

For along time now Old Mutual companies in Zimbabwe have had a deliberate policy of working closely together and sharing resources even though these companies are separate legal identities. The Link Project was launched in September this year, with the mandate to design a shared service model for the Old Mutual companies in Zimbabwe, namely CABS, MBCA, Old Mutual and RM Insurance. If support services can be shared right across the Group companies the value added to the various stakeholders would become significant.

The idea behind the Link Project is that the resources available from these four companies will be pooled in specific areas such as IT or human resources to attain and maximize cost effectiveness and efficiency. These synergies can be seen in the production of MBCA Bank cards at CABS, which means they will be ready within 48 hours of applying for them, as opposed to the weeks it took to get the cards through another supplier. Canteen and bus services have been shared between Old Mutual and RMI which has effectively halved costs and group printing is done at CABS which has saved the group millions of dollars. These processes however, have been and must be driven by the following group values:

· Excellence in execution
· Group synergy
· Customer centricity
· Consistency of service delivery
· Fairness and impartiality in all our dealings
· Embodiment of entrepreneurship and innovation in the group

The Link Project is a process not an event and will take some months to complete; it will require participation of employees and customers in surveys and internal assessments of all Heads of Departments. The focus falls on the process rather than the people and so jobs may be re-deployed within the group and some jobs may be lost, but at the same time new opportunities and positions with wider horizons will arise, with far greater potential for growth across the spectrum of companies involved in the group.

These exercises are being driven by CC Consulting, who are currently working on the second stage of the project, which is called Process Mapping and involves analyzing all the processes in all four companies and determining where the synergies exist, which processes represent best practice and what needs to change.