3 Steps to Finance Transformation – Cost, Systems and Resources [Interview]

[Editor's note: We erroneously referred to Monash having halved the cost of finance in early promotions of this article. It was in fact reduced by 25%. This was an editorial oversight on our part, not Monash's, and we apologize for any confusion that may have resulted] Award Winner 2014 – Improvement & Innovation [Australasia] Monash University, Finance Shared Services "Over the next five years, further work will be done on improving the way customers can interact with the services. We will also be strengthening and improving the value-add services provided." Nicole Tournier, Director, Finance Strategy, Monash University Monash University was honoured by the Shared Services community, earlier this year, when it won the coveted SSON Excellence Award for "Improvement and Innovation". This marked the culmination of a journey that started in 2009, and is today in its third year of Shared Services operations. The results [read the winning application] speak for themselves, but what is not so easily apparent is the hardship that went into getting there. The change program that was implemented was so far-reaching and touched so many of the University's staff and processes, that much more time than anticipated was spent ensuring that customers were heard, and that services were being delivered, rather than implementing planned changes at the beginning, explained Nicole Tournier, Director of Finance Strategy at Monash University. "We had planned to introduce significant processes and systems changes within the first year, but the impact of the transformation was so significant that in fact we shifted all our efforts to ensuring customers were being serviced the right way, instead," she said. Taking away local administration and control over things like purchasing caused a lot of upheaval, which had been expected. However, the extent of these concerns combined with some early hick-ups in delivery meant that the project team had to change tack. Instead of implementing planned system and process changes in the first year, it prioritised service delivery and listening to customers. It's that kind of flexibility and responsiveness to customer needs which won the shared services team its customers’ engagement in the long run. "Although this set the project back unexpectedly, once we were able to engage with our customers and the results started coming through, the whole project sort of snowballed," said Nicole. "In fact, we derived great satisfaction from seeing customers who had resisted us enormously finally come around and engage with the new way of doing business," she added. One of the departments even drew a series of cartoons depicting their relationship – from acrimonious to collaborative. What started the journey off was not a particular pain point, but rather a strategic decision by Finance leadership to take a hard look at how Finance services were being delivered across the University. The resulting review process was lengthy and thorough, and led by a group of consultants who brought their intellectual property and, crucially, an ability to demonstrate how best practices could be applied, to the project. "In the higher education sector, you generally have not worked for many organisations," explained Nicole. "That means you are not always thinking about change and improvement. That in itself presented a significant obstacle to us." Three conclusions emerged from the review period: first, that there was significant opportunity to reduce the cost of Finance; second, that process and systems improvements would drive much of the improvement; and third, that the university had to completely rethink how it was organized and resourced. The three-year road map that was developed focused heavily on process and systems changes to drive more efficient Finance services through the organisation. The winning formula proved to be a combination of pushing ahead with quick wins, and developing an improved infrastructure for Finance. "Starting with a defined organisational structure was crucial because it provided the right basis for us to go live," said Nicole. To provide the business units with the very best support during the transition, Monash chose a rather unusual shared services model based on hub staff embedded with the customers being serviced. This was crucial during the more difficult periods in the first year, but many of these hub staff have since shifted into the central shared services team, based on Monash’s largest campus, where 70% of today’s SSO staff are now based. One of the biggest challenges the project team encountered was separating out the Finance element of a job, in a situation where many roles were bundled into one FTE: marketing, admin, Recruitment, Finance, etc. "Some of these employees did 5 to 10% Finance work, others spent 80% of their time on Finance," explained Nicole. "We had to make the difficult distinction between these roles and pull out the Finance element to place in the new centre. This caused complications for remaining staff, whose roles were now no longer employed at full capacity, and took some time to resolve, according to Nicole. After three years, Monash University’s Finance department is rightly proud of what it has achieved: the cost of Finance has been reduced by 25%; there are significant improvements to business intelligence, risk management, and compliance; and an enhanced service is being delivered to the organisation. As an example, Nicole mentions budgeting, which used to take six months during which time staff were 100% immersed in extracting details from excel files, digging up papers, and putting together forecasts. Today, new technology connecting to the enterprise management system means that models and forecasts are available at the push of a button and the cycle time for budgeting has reduced significantly. The big advantage is that staff now have the time to engage in discussions around how they can better support the business, what financial models are appropriate, and how Finance can support the business in its objectives. "Today we think about higher education as a business rather than just a function," explains Nicole. Some valuable lessons were learned along the way. The one lesson Nicole wishes she'd learned beforehand was that soft skills training for shared services staff should be a priority. "Customer relationship management, stakeholder engagement, problem solving… these are all significant skills that were underestimated", Nicole says. "Instead, we prioritized technical competency." Today, these kinds of skills are taught across Finance. "It's easy to forget, but at the end of the day understanding a client's problem and helping them work it out, is by far the most valuable skill, and may achieve more than the latest technology solution" says Nicole. More: Read the full application here, to learn more about Monash University’s Finance transformation.

3 Steps to Finance Transformation – Cost, Systems and Resources [Interview]

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