InterContinental establishes new captive service unit in India

While some companies like UBS made news by selling off their captive service units, InterContinental, the large hotel chain, has established a new captive shared service center in Gurgaon, India.  The details are described in an article from the Financial Express. 

Here's an excerpt:

In what will be the first for the country’s hospitality as well as the IT industry, the InterContinental Hotels group, one of the largest chains of hotels globally, has set up a captive centre in Gurgaon. The global service centre will take care of the finance and accounting work for the 4,400-strong hotels chain along with doing business analytics and market research. Though other international hotel chains like Hyatt have outsourcing contracts with IT firms such as Genpact, none of them have their own captive unit in the country.

This center is an example of the move to global centers for certain functions, such as general accounting and accounts payable processing.  It also incorporates analytics, an activity that is increasingly common in regional and global centers.

Reflecting what I've discussed elsewhere in my blog, InterContinental has created a portfolio model for service delivery, choosing to outsource some functions rather than maintain them in-house.

[T]he hotel chain has a diversified strategy in this area, where it has also outsourced some part of the work to BPO firm WNS and also a part of it to HCL Tech.

“We are also about to announce another outsourcing deal with a different IT firm. However, the captive centre offers great value while being a cost saving proposition along with building the hotel’s brand in the country,” he said.