Are You Geared Up for the Shared Services Revolution?

History always amazes me. There are so many instances when events repeat themselves in almost exactly the same way. For example, it’s amazing to see how the current Shared Services industry is going through the same challenges that industries went through during the Industrial Revolution (1760 - 1820). During the Industrial Revolution, we saw a marked transition from hand production methods to machines and the increasing use of steam power and machine tools. Organizations that quickly adopted the newer way of working experienced sustainable and significant growth during this period. Organizations that stuck to the older methods eventually fell by the wayside. So, back to the future … many organizations, in their endeavor to come out tops in their respective fields, are employing various strategies to outperform their competition. One of these is the increased adoption of Shared Services in Finance, HR, IS and other support functions. So how does a ‘Shared Services’ engine put your organization ahead of the others in this mean world of competition and rapid change? It is almost like war, when every day is different – not just in terms of innovation but also to sustain growth. Having worked in diverse organizations such as the Military, Manufacturing, IT Services and Agri-Business, I have noticed that there are two common themes in this "revolution": The right adoption of technology A culture of Continuous Improvement Adoption of Technology: This is probably the easiest to start with when you plan to implement your Shared Services. Today, we actually have a wide range of futuristic tools available for Shared Services. Some of the ones that I have explored and liked include Zoho, Dovetail, Freshdesk, etc – which provide an excellent platform to operate your Shared Services. These tools do not require technical experts to operate them, and are pretty simple and handy to use. If your organization wants to explore some of the newer tools, look out for these important modules to support a Shared Services Suite:- Ensure that the tool has the complete set of Service Request, Incident Reporting, Problem Solving and Change Management suites that are workflow driven. The tool should have the ability to connect to the employee database, so that employees do not have to enter their credentials and data every time they reach out to the Service Desk. The tool should have live reporting and dashboards so that teams are able to make proactive decisions rather than wait for reports to come in. However: a warning! I have yet to see a complete platform that enables Shared Services to operate the basic Shared Services Framework of Knowledge Management, Operations Management andGovernance Management on a single platform. Continuous Improvement Culture: Entrenching CI qualities in a Shared Services is probably the most important activity while a center is being set up. From the wide exposure I have had to Shared Services, the simple fact that distinguishes the good from the bad is how well the Shared Services Organization is able to establish these traits internally. For those who have seen the movie "The Social Network", remember the scene when Mark Zuckerberg is asked about when the development of Facebook will be complete? He replies that Facebook is like fashion, and will continuously reinvent itself to cater to the needs of the market. Similarly, setting a culture of continuous innovation in your Shared Services is the key to maximizing your ROI on the investment made in the technology. Some of the questions a Shared Services Practitioner needs to ask themselves are: Will your associates and employees raise an incident/report a problem when no one is watching them? Or would they just shove it away saying it is not in their scope? Does your system encourage employees to come up with innovative ideas to bring about improvement in your Shared Services when they think of one? Do your associates get enough time or space to implement the change? Do you have a culture of responsibility where no case/ticket gets closed until confirmation is received that the job has been completed correctly? Do you have a culture of logging knowledge when they know that this knowledge will help future transactions? The reason for asking such questions is that I have seen Shared Services associates closing tickets at the first instance of them not being in their scope instead of transferring them to the right queue. Imagine business stakeholders raising tickets across various services trying to find an answer to their queries and wasting time on such bureaucratic hassles instead of concentrating on the company’s core business. Remember! Shared Services exists to enable business and not the other way around. When you implement these traits in a Shared Services Center, you will suddenly realize that everything is possible. One of the Global Shared Services teams that I led supported an IT services company, and the culture of continuous improvement was such that, every day, there would be someone in the team implementing a new innovation that transformed the process – greatly increasing accuracy and reducing TAT. What helped implement such change was the use of an ITIL based services suite that managed the process right from answering employee queries, to managing RCAs, to recurrent issues, and implementing change. With the additional time gained, the team would then start on the next project. The team had moved away from a transactional culture to a transformational culture. And, suddenly, everything seemed possible. So, with the Shared Services revolution taking place in almost every sector, it is as if organizations are fighting a war of efficiency and effectiveness to outperform their competitor. Although the strategies of the company are very important, it is the psyche or the culture of the organization that gets you to the goal. From my experience in the Armed Forces, the reason the military is called in when everything else fails is because of the culture of getting things done in the toughest of situations. Although it would be a tough call to ask everyone to go to military academies to get a good head start, the right way to get all employees aligned and working towards the goal of the organization is by setting the right culture and utilizing the right technology. So, go ahead and gear yourself up with the right technology and culture to ensure you come out on top in the ongoing revolution of Shared Services. [inlinead]

Are You Geared Up for the Shared Services Revolution?

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