4 Steps to Success After a Shared Services Start Up

In a previous article we talked about the 5 Steps to Getting a Shared Services Implementation Right. If you now have a Shared Services Center, the question is, "what next?" In this article, and for the next three articles, we will focus on the 4 Steps to Success After a Shared Services Start Up. These steps are: Managing the Day-To-Day Continually Improving the Operation Governance Value Add In this first of four articles we will discuss delivering on your Service Level Agreement. Effectively managing the day-to-day goes without saying, but it is very easy to forget to change from a start-up approach to a day-to-day operating approach. To me, moving to ongoing operations means five things: Stabilizing the operation, delivering on your Services Level Agreement (SLA), Creating a Center of Excellence, Customer Problem Resolution, and Communications. Stabilizing the Operation Within 6 to 12 months, the turmoil of ramping up the processes, the hiring, training, and infrastructure should be smoothed out. If they are not, it’s time to analyze the issues by determining their root cause and fixing the problem. An aggressive program of rooting out the cause of problems and fixing them is essential. When a problem comes up, determine what happened, determine why it happened, and determine what to do to prevent it from happening again. The causes of problems generally fall into three categories: physical, human, and/or organizational. Delivering your Services Level Agreement (SLA) You may say that you do not have a formalized services agreement with your customers, however, those customers do have an expectation of a certain level of performance. The best way to make sure you can deliver on the expectations is to find out what these expectations are from your internal and external customers. Service level items should be those items most important to your customers that can be defined, measured and reported. For example, if your customer wants a document turned around within 24 hours, you start by asking the following questions: 1) what constitutes 24 hours (from the time received or sent? 24 business hours or clock hours? turned around meaning sent to or received by your customer?), 2) can you measure the time element, as defined, without causing you tremendous problems? (I hate manual logs), and 3) can you easily report the outcome? Service levels generally fall into five categories: a response time, process time error free rate staff knowledge level to do the work assigned, and a staffing numbers level to further ensure you have the people to do the job Understand the service level expected: do it, measure it and report your success to your customer. Center of Excellence In my experience, when it comes to defining a "Center of Excellence" (sometimes knows as "CoE") the discussion can get very lively. However, most of the time it sifts down to a CoE being a center where a team focuses on best practices, innovation, acting as a knowledge source and repository, and being consistent. This definition demands that you: Hire the best people Initially train them well and have a program of ongoing training (1-2 weeks seems to be the range for ongoing training per year) Promote innovation and creativity by soliciting employee feedback, conducting brainstorming sessions, instituting incentives for ideas Establish a knowledge repository (be careful not to go overboard re. the cost of developing; keep it simple) Deliver a very high service level. I have seen employees who are nervous about change, and moving into a Shared Services Center is really about being "the best of the best". Customer Problem Resolution Anytime there is a customer service problem you want to handle it quickly and judiciously. Many companies use a three-step escalation process for issues. Ideally you want issues to be resolved at the first level of customer contact. However, that is not always possible, as the first level employee does not have the knowledge or authority to resolve every issue. So, set up a process that allows the first level to resolve the majority of issues, and keep track of those issues and resolutions so you have visibility into what has happened. I then suggest that issues not resolved at the first level go to a management level that will resolve the issue – period. Two steps and not three will settle things and allow everyone to move on. Communications Communications solves many problems that lack of communication creates. Most of the time, if not all, when I go into a company to analyze their issues for improvement I find a communications issue. I just make it a habit to coach my clients on developing a communications plan for their customers, employees and suppliers. Now you don’t have to communicate everything to everyone but you do have to communicate. Define the various audiences (customers, employees, stakeholders, suppliers, advisors, etc.), decide how often you will communicate (daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, etc.), decide on the level of information you will consistently share (tactile and/or strategic), and in what form you will communicate (phone, email, newsletter, blog, meeting, etc.). That is your plan – again, keep it simple. In summary, commit to going in every day and being the best. Stabilize the operation or determine the issues, deliver on the service level your customers expect, develop a true center of excellence, not just in name, resolve customer problems immediately, and communicate, communicate, communicate. [inlinead]

4 Steps to Success After a Shared Services Start Up

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