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Innovation to put the customer
in the center of the business
Today, Shared Service leaders are repeatedly asked to reduce costs, improve processes, and drive revenue growth. To achieve this and manage operational challenges more efficiently, organizations need to utilize new technologies, redesign processes, automate them where appropriate, expand data analytics to drive better decisions, and develop available talents. Innovative Shared Service Centers utilize these levers to create agility and bring the customer at the center of the decision-making process. A successful Shared Service Program requires a streamlined and balanced framework for the best possible operation model:
- Establish and support a customer-centric and continuous improvement culture
- Support activities in a cost-favorable and skill-appropriate location
- Champion standardized processes and enable appropriate technologies
- Create an organizational structure based on process alignment and role
- Establish a formalized governance framework to manage stakeholders and process
- Formalize service level agreements including bi-lateral KPIs and targets to manage quality and performance
- Establish regular touchpoints with stakeholders to monitor and improve performance
- Consolidate repetitive or transactional tasks to gain economies of scale, improve productivity, and boost value.
- Focus on best practice sharing and task specialization for higher productivity
As Shared Services continuously evolved as a multi-functional service strategy over the years in response to economic trends and social changes, organizations are:
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Expanding their business-critical process,
- Consolidating their functions geographically, and
- Integrating them into a flexible and agile framework to increment efficiency, improve the effectiveness of services, and deliver value.
Our broad expertise in Shared Services allows companies to identify the right Shared Service or Center of Excellence Model for them and utilize a thought-through approach to transition or evolve current organizational structures to the new Shared Service Model.
Shared Services Setup & Consolidation
">A clearly defined functional strategy is an essential criterion for establishing a Shared Service Center. Achieving the expected benefits of the Shared Service Strategy are relying on the organizational willingness and attention on the critical levers for value creation like:
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Standardization
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Reduction of duplications
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Process Oversight and Management
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Leverage of best practices
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Workload balancing and scalability
Irrespective of a “make” or “buy” decision, consolidating business operations found in more than one part of the organization will create strategic benefits and free up organizational capabilities and talents.
Although a Shared Service Organization is not a complicated concept, making it run smoothly and without disruption can be quite a complicated process. It involves consolidating and standardizing multiple functional areas, systems, processes, geographic locations, and resources. This demands an organizational environment that encourages cooperation among several business units.
Establishing Shared Services Organizations always is a long-term commitment, and it continuously requires sustained effort across the organization. An effective Shared Services Organization benefits from the continuous focus and capturing value through:
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Maximizing right-shoring approaches
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Optimizing operational efficiency and effectiveness
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Thinking innovative ways for capacity utilization to eliminate wasteful efforts
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Facilitating the introduction of new technologies
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Establishing the center of excellence where possible for functional governance
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Addressing change management issues through effective communication and management
A Center of Excellence or CoE adds value and builds credibility by helping Shared Service Organizations drive a mandate that is core to the organization’s strategy and long-term vision. The Center of Excellence has a dedicated team responsible for a functional competence that requires in-depth knowledge and expertise, integrates advanced tools, boosts efficiency, and promotes best sharing practices. As the key to success, every Center of Excellence should have clear and relevant standards to ensure direction and focus. In our experience, we have seen that a successful Center of Excellence will:
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provide clear guidance and governance on functional topics
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continuously assess, transform and optimize its business process
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measure its performance
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establish capabilities in promoting best practices and work standards
Although the path of a successful Center of Excellence differs from one organization to another, establishing the right standards and governance is a critical building block to get started in the right direction.
Best Practices Implementation in Shared Services
While a Shared Services Center Implementation can create excellent value for an organization, the journey to get there can be quite long and challenging and embrace a significant cultural change.
As of today, Shared Services evolved from pure transactional centers to knowledge-based, data analytics-enabled operations, which need to support the business more strategically to drive intelligent decision-making.
In a global marketplace, this can quickly turn into a competitive advantage for the company. In our projects, assessing, evaluating, and implementing innovative Shared Service and Center of Excellence strategies, we utilize best practices in transition together with proper execution plans as the critical drivers for a successful Shared Service implementation. Evolving Shared Services Models will require to:
- Have a precise overview of all other organizational change initiatives
- Consistently assess and evolve the business function’s scope and scale
- Encourage C-Suite Executives to sponsor the change collectively
- Build new ways to embrace change across the organization
- Create and share common performance objectives between Business Units and Shared Services
- Invest in training and recognize the importance of Shared Service employees
- Assign people in charge of communicating the changes
Expertise in
Shared Services
Shared Services
Shared Services offer a cost-effective, efficient, and consistent platform for service delivery. It is an excellent strategy to utilize regional and global scaling. Leadership and those charged with implementing such a model need to invest time upfront to ensure that the intended result is achieved.
The risks are too high to throw the dice and engage in this activity informally. In-depth thinking is required to make informed decisions about support function value and service levels.
Expanding the functional scope of Shared Service Centers trusts on continuous improvement for services in some critical areas:
- Process: Enable agility in process optimization and drive operational efficiency
- Management visibility: Use existing channels to increase management visibility and presence
- Data Analytics: Increase predictive data analytics capabilities to boost scope and service value
- Technology and Automation: Enable new technologies that contribute to agility and establish collaboration and integration within networks
- Talent: Invest in people and core capabilities to improve productivity and customer focus
Our Case Studies
We help companies to successfully implement and evolve effective
Shared Service Organizations through thinking globally,
growing wisely, and base services rationally.
Shared Service Organizations through thinking globally,
growing wisely, and base services rationally.
