Tip No. 8: Track success and adaptNever stop improving; any business project that isn’t carefully managed slowly starts to fail.
Introduce performance metrics which align SSC objectives with management actions including service level analysis, a balanced scorecard and a continuous improvement programme for all processes.
Tip No. 7: Culture, people and communicationChange management issues are often cited as the most problematic when moving to a shared services model. A successful transition to the SSC model is substantially improved when a structured transition/migration plan is put in place before the project begins.
Tip No. 6: Look for InnovationConsider the latest technologies, consumer driven technologies like BYOD and social media along with clo8ud technologies are facilitating awe inspiring changes in the way we communicate and work. Mike Bracken the UK Government’s Digital Director at a recent Intellect conference said that public sector leaders often get het up with the size and complexity of technology within their operations. He went on to say that technology was best kept simple and cited the example of Facebook managing 865M customers with only 3000 staff.
Tip No. 5: Don’t just focus on cost reductionExperience shows that organisations focusing their SSC implementation solely on cost reduction end up with poor quality services, which are more expensive to operate than a higher service quality alternative. The cost of rework is much higher in an environment where there is little focus on performance measurement, service level agreements (SLAs) and service costing. Staff motivation can become an issue, since people do not enjoy working in an environment where there is little focus on determining and meeting customer needs. The cost of hiring and training additional staff in an SSC with high staff turnover again ensures that in the end it becomes a very expensive option.
Carefully estimated RoI is worthless if you do not have customers willing to share. A study by the National Audit Office (NAO) in the UK of five central government centres found that they had cost over £1.4 billion, a budget overspend of £0.5bn. Only one had managed to break even.
