Transitioning to shared services
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TRANSITIONING TO SHARED SERVICES
Designing a Change Strategy that enables success from Day One. Prepared by
Don Holley
Managing Director
Mindset Group
Released 6 December, 2012 Mindset Group Sydney | Phone +61 (0)2 8905 0745 Melbourne | Phone +61 (0)3 9621 2283
2 Transitioning to Shared Services: Designing a Change Strategy that enables success from Day One
SHARED SERVICES: WIIFM?
Shared services refers to the provision of a service by one part of an organisation
or group where that service had previously been found in more than one part of
the organisation or group.
Typically organisations may choose to adopt a shared service approach across
one or more functions that are duplicated within different entities / divisions of
the company such as Human Resources, Information Technology, Finance, Legal
and Purchasing. With the sharing of such services across multiple entities within
an organisation / group, the expectation is that the business benefits by reducing
operational costs, process efficiency, timely access to information, governance,
consistency and quality of service.
In today’s market both global and local markets are highly competitive and with
the rise of inorganic growth (through acquisition) across the globe, organisations
are constantly on the search for solutions to improve their operational efficiency.
This is where Shared Services can be seen to drive cost benefits and operational
excellence in a consistent measure across an entire organisation via the
standardisation of processes, systems, etc., and leveraging the size of the entire
organisation for economies of scale.
The risk with moving to a shared service is the thinking that designing and
implementing the solution is simple, and that companies can just ‘morph’ into the
new state of being – of sharing. Anyone looking at a children’s playground can
easily see that sharing is not always so simple, and adults are no better. Moving
to a shared service is fundamentally ‘transforming’ your internal back-of-house
functions and therefore requires a change strategy that allows your organisation
to design for success from Day One.
This paper is adapted from the Mindset change methodology and will provide
useful insights in driving change as opposed to simply managing a project. Our
view is that it should be equally helpful to those starting the journey as it is to
those who have commenced the journey but are experiencing gaps in their
execution.
“The risk with moving to a shared service is the thinking that designing and implementing the solution is simple, and that companies can just ‘morph’ into the new state of being – of ‘sharing’. Anyone looking at a children’s playground can easily see that sharing is not always so simple.”
3 Transitioning to Shared Services: Designing a Change Strategy that enables success from Day One
A ‘BALANCED’ APPROACH TO IMPLEMENTING
SHARED SERVICES
The balanced scorecard concept is a strategic planning and management
framework that is widely applicable to organisations regardless of size or type of
business. The methodology, extensively used in business and industry,
government, and non-profit organisations worldwide;
» facilitates the development and ongoing review of an organisation’s
vision and strategy,
» provides a method of aligning the organisation’s business activities
with that strategy,
» improves the organisation’s internal and external communications,
and
» allows the organisation to monitor its performance against its
strategic goals.
A central component of the methodology is a management
‘scorecard’ that focuses on all of the important aspects of an organisation’s
performance as well as its short term financial performance. It is considered
balanced because it not
only measures outputs of the organisation, such as customer satisfaction and
financial performance, but considers key organisational inputs such as learning &
knowledge management and critical processes that deliver the end value to the
customer.
At Mindset we have applied the same methodology to how change
management underpins the successful execution of shared services. Research by
SSON indicates two of the key mistakes made by firms when implementing
shared services is a lack of measurement and monitoring. Mindset has created a
framework to monitor and measure the successful transition to shared services by
applying best practice change management principals. Key to this are:
1. Understanding how the organisation learns, shares knowledge, gathers
information and manages performance.
2. Tailoring the change management approach accordingly.
3. Defining what constitutes key value for the most critical and often overlooked
stakeholder- the customer.
4. Developing measures that keep all parties focused on achieving the desired
benefits of the shared service.
Figure 1 outlines a strategy map that can be used to provide a more holistic view
of your move to shared services. Whilst we do not promote a one size fits all
approach with our clients and customise scorecards accordingly, many of the
components of the model are universal and, if considered, will likely result in a
smoother transition to shared services or better performance from your existing
SSO.
4 Transitioning to Shared Services: Designing a Change Strategy that enables success from Day One
FIGURE 1: SAMPLE SHARED SERVICE STRATEGY
Now let’s use this framework to discuss what things you may want to consider in
making a successful transition to shared services. It is not designed to be an
exhaustive list or explanation but rather to stimulate your thinking and provide an
overall mindset for your approach.
5 Transitioning to Shared Services: Designing a Change Strategy that enables success from Day One
1. THE FOUNDATION: LEARNING PERSPECTIVE
Designing the best change management approach for your organisation to
move to shared services requires a robust understanding of how your
organisation actually works. This is not to say this is how you want it to continue to
work, but underestimating the shift required can often lead to painful and costly
delays.
Even if this is an entirely new organisation and you have an opportunity to build
the sort of teams and culture that you want, a proverbial blank canvas; all too
often challenges such as loss of control, lack of trust, poor form in the change
management area outside of the actual organisation you are creating, make it
difficult for you to succeed.
Let’s now consider some of these in turn.
1.1. FUTURE STATE, VISION & CONTEXT
You may have heard the saying, “a plan without a vision is drudgery but a plan
and a vision can change the world.” Getting your organisation excited about
cost reduction and increased productivity can be hard work and to build a
compelling business case you need to be able to answer the following questions:
» How does a shared service model fit in with your broader
organisational vision?
» What’s happening in your Industry that makes this an essential part of
the future of your organisation?
» What’s your vision for what a transition to shared services will achieve
for your organisation and how does it align to the organisational picture of
the future.
» From a learning perspective, what do we know about the context in
which the organisation will operate in three to five years time?
» What is the rate of change in the industry?
This knowledge is critical to designing the most effective change approach. In
addition, as shared services evolve in an organisation, the services provided
often grow and the services area finds themselves in reactive mode. Knowing
where you are going may avoid some confusion along the journey.
A clearly articulated vision that is understood and promoted by your executive
management team will help you to engage the commitment of your employees
across the organisation. People can make or break your business, and the fear of
the unknown or misunderstood can be lethal. Visioning workshops can be a
great way to bring clarity to this and get buy in at all levels.
1.2. INTERNAL CHANGE CAPABILITY
For many organisations in today’s world, change has been the new norm for
some time. Yet, why it is that change management or leadership is often lacking
“People can make or break your business, and the fear of the unknown or misunderstood can be lethal.”
6 Transitioning to Shared Services: Designing a Change Strategy that enables success from Day One
the capability and understanding of what it takes to drive change successfully?
What mistakes have been made in the past and what has been learnt?
Whilst you may need to engage third party consultants to help design and
execute your Shared Service strategy, for sustainability of business results it is
important that you also develop internal change capability within your leaders.
This will allow them to mentor and coach their employees (old and new) on how
to move from old behaviours and skillsets and develop capability that is closer
aligned with the future business strategy and value proposition. It can also
include an understanding of your change methodology and its application. That
is of course, if you have one!
Change Management and Project Management are not the same disciplines.
You need to decide on a balance of specialists versus general practitioners, and
understand the different competency sets required to make your projects a
success, building your internal capability to deal with and lead change.
1.3. PROCESS IMPROVEMENT
Are you the sort of organisation that has relied on embedded or inconsistent
processes that are not working? Shared services may be a great opportunity to
look at the way these things have been done and drive the change that you
need.
Alternatively, you may be well down the path of business process initiatives such
as LEAN or Six Sigma and process improvement is part of everyday life. Most who
have persisted and reaped the benefits of adopting such disciplines will tell you it
doesn’t happen overnight. It takes time to learn these practices and build
competency.
In reality, there is rarely enough time to map every process ”AS IS” and create a
“TO BE” before the journey is started. Even then, having all the answers or access
to the knowledge, can be challenging.
It helps all involved to have clarity around what processes are working for the
business and which ones aren’t.
» Document where you are starting from and understand the gaps.
» In sourcing process improvement solutions, ensure they have clear measures
and milestones attached with transparency to potential issues and risks in real
time.
Factoring this into your change approach is a must have, not nice to have.
1.4. CULTURE
Culture can be a complex issue, particularly when you are talking about large
multi-nationals. Having a consistent culture across countries is challenging and
working in an SSO that is servicing a multitude of cultural ‘norms’ can be difficult.
Even getting an internal function to treat its internal colleagues as customers can
be a major hurdle. How many times have you heard internal support functions
“Change Management and Project Management are not the same disciplines. You need to decide on a balance of specialists versus general practitioners, and understand the different competency sets required to make your project a success.”
7 Transitioning to Shared Services: Designing a Change Strategy that enables success from Day One
use the term, “the business,” when referring to their own work colleagues?
Shouldn’t it be, “our business”? Changing this mindset and language should not
be underestimated as a foundational element of successful shared services.
Culture can either be the key enabler of strategy or the silent force that kills it.
Culture is the outcome of many of the aspects mentioned in this paper, but also
includes many others. A robust assessment of cultural factors using a diagnostic
tool can help you understand some of the issues that may need to be factored
into your change management strategy.
If this information is available in your organisation and current then access it. If it is
not, then it is recommended that you at least perform a qualitative and
preferably a quantitative analysis to help shape your change approach. It can
definitely impact such things as communications, transition phasing and
inclusivity.
1.5. KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT
Sharing of knowledge across the appropriate areas and levels within the business
is paramount for an effective SSO. Many organisations collect a lot of data that
is useful but struggle to collate the information in such a way that they are able
to leverage the information effectively.
One of the key propositions of shared services is consistency. Think about how
you will share knowledge within the function and to customers in order to deliver
exceptional service. Any gaps here can be extremely frustrating and should be
a key consideration in designing your change strategy. Knowledge is power and
whilst we expect that sharing it would be relatively straight forward, this is often
not the case.
1.6. PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT
Two of the most common reasons why change efforts fail and employees
become disengaged are a lack of role clarity and effective feedback. When
conducting post implementation reviews, it is all too common that a lack of
adequate performance management process (that may or may not
be inherited) pervades. This is critical to how an organisation learns,
creates accountability and drives improvement.
Annual appraisals are a thing of the past. Things are moving too fast for
most firms. Building this capability can make a big difference and
requires focus and commitment from all levels of the organisation. If the
broader organisation is lagging behind in this area, there is no reason
why you can’t lead the way.
Web based systems for capturing and managing performance are very cost
effective these days. Regardless, even if you are stuck with paper, the most
important thing is that you have a process for feedback with universal
commitment and growing capability.
For SSO’s, performance can be measured through Service Level Agreements
(SLA’s), which can then be developed into meaningful performance indicators
“Culture can either be the key enabler of strategy or the silent force that kills it.”
8 Transitioning to Shared Services: Designing a Change Strategy that enables success from Day One
for people, processes and technology at all levels. What gets measured gets
done!
1.7. INNOVATION
Like culture, innovation is an outcome of many factors that contribute
to it within the organisation, and some may say it is a part of the culture.
Leadership is obviously a key contributing factor. How is innovation
produced, promoted, recognized and rewarded in your organisation?
Will people think of new ideas, new ways of working in the new world
when they spend the majority of their time covering their own
backsides, or in fear of failure (or both)?
How the organisation innovates will likely be a good indicator of its
readiness for change, the speed at which it will support the change,
and the likely resistance that may occur, if any. Innovation is speed.
How fast can you go?
1.8. TECHNOLOGY
The tools at our disposal are an important foundational element. Without
adequate consideration of this aspect, you may underestimate the shift required
of your people in order to operate in the new world.
» What is the level of technological sophistication?
» What is the proportion of people who rely on technology to do their job?
» Will the change require a steep learning trajectory or incremental change?
» Does the technology automate a lot of manual processes that provide job
security/ relevance to individuals and or functions?
» What knowledge is gained in the application of this technology?
An example of this may be transforming a manual data entry process in
Accounts Payable to managing a workflow. This can require a new skillset and
far more training than is budgeted for in the project.
One issue that leaders face when embarking on transforming any part of the
business is having the time to do it right with the insatiable need for immediate
results.
It is important to be able to understand the impacts of rushing through a
transformation like moving to Shared Services with a plan or without. Structures
like the Harbour Bridge haven’t been successful and sustainable without a robust
design and plan, nor will your Shared Services transformation. And like the
Harbour Bridge your Shared Services transformation is best built on a solid
foundation.
9 Transitioning to Shared Services: Designing a Change Strategy that enables success from Day One
2. MANAGING THE CHANGE
The design phase of your journey to Shared Services is extremely important. It
allows you to take this great step with your eyes wide open, ensuring you are not
stepping into an expensive ‘black hole’. People don’t want change
management, they want improvement. It’s like, do you buy a drill or a hole?
2.1. CHANGE LEADERSHIP
SELLING THE UNITED VISION
Creating and articulating a united vision for the organisation provides people
with direction and a sense of purpose. It allows people to unite and bond over a
common purpose. The vision should give people a good understanding of the
‘AS IS’ situation, and the ‘TO BE’ picture – ‘what are we working towards’? It also
needs to be driven by an Executive Leader. People need to be able to see,
‘who’s taking charge?’ and, ‘where to?’ both operationally and strategically.
To effectively sell the vision and engage the people there are some key factors
that need to be taken into consideration:
» The vision needs to be clearly understood by senior
executives and management so they in turn can ensure that
their teams also understand what the vision is.
» It needs to be clear why the vision exists and the WIIFM for
employees for them to truly buy into it.
» Communication is key! It needs to be clear, regular and
consistent – to both customers and employees; keeping them
informed and involved along the way.
» The vision should be aligned with the overall business
strategy, so people don’t feel that what the business is
proposing is counterproductive to the overall strategy and
other key initiatives.
Running ‘vision’ workshops with key stakeholders and senior executives
encourages strategic thinking and input, engaging your key business drivers. A
good way to ensure that the vision has taken into consideration any challenges
or issues being experienced at ‘ground level’ is to run a survey and/or interviews
with key people across the business.
The insight gleaned from conducting these activities prior to formulating the
Vision helps people to see and feel they are heard and their input is valued.
10 Transitioning to Shared Services: Designing a Change Strategy that enables success from Day One
CHANGE SPONSORSHIP
In Prosci’s Best Practices in Change Management Benchmarking report1, the
number one activity organisations cited they would do differently in driving a
change initiative is gaining better engagement of senior leaders as change
sponsors. This was consistent with their 2007 findings and found the drivers for this
included:
» Ensuring buy-in and alignment around the project;
» Obtain sponsorship at the right level in the organisation; and
» Enable senior leaders to participate actively as effective sponsors.
To do this effectively, it is important to ensure change sponsors are visibly aligned
with the vision and come from areas of the business that make sense and are
respected choices (executive management, middle management, etc.).
Your Change Sponsors are there to promote the initiative, identify and manage
resistance, and drive commitment. Acknowledging that the Change Sponsors
may be going through a lot of change themselves and trying to cope with that
whilst coaching others through their transition, identifies the need for coaching
and education for the Change Sponsors so they can be effective in playing their
part in the transition from ‘AS IS’ to ‘TO BE’.
2.2. CHANGE STRATEGY
CHANGE METHODOLOGY
As with project management, utilising a change management methodology
brings some structure to the project allowing visibility of what needs to be done,
when, how and by whom. Also critically important to ask is, how are we
measuring our success?
There are a number of Methodologies available, so choose one that fits well with
your organisation / culture, is flexible enough to allow you to adapt as required
along the way, logical, easy to implement, understand and communicate.
A change management methodology working well will allow you to take a more
proactive approach rather than being on the back foot throughout the change
journey.
CHANGE READINESS
For an organisation to embrace change, people need to believe in it and be
ready to accept it. However, there are many factors that can impact the
readiness of the organisation. Without identifying what those factors may be, or
indeed how ‘ready’ the organisation is to change, is like walking blindfolded into
the Gladiator’s arena. This is a critical step in the design phase of the change
1 Prosci’s 2009 Best Practices in Change Management benchmarking report. Page 14.
“The number one activity organisations cited they would do differently in driving a change initiative is gaining better engagement of senior leaders as change sponsors.”
11 Transitioning to Shared Services: Designing a Change Strategy that enables success from Day One
project, and should be revisited throughout the project to assess for any changes
to the commitment for change.
Some of the ways to assess readiness include written or online assessments and
surveys; interviews with key stakeholders, executive / senior leaders, managers
and staff; and Focus-groups and workshops. This information gathering exercise
is designed to identify potential roadblocks and assess the company’s agility
when it comes to change.
In some companies constant change can be exciting, where in others, people
have ‘change fatigue’ – particularly if previous change initiatives have been
ineffective or unsuccessful. This exercise identifies whether the business need for
change is understood by all levels of the organisation, the change leaders have
the capability and credibility to drive the change and looks at potential
roadblocks to success (i.e. lack of resources, funding, etc.).
STAKEHOLDER IMPACT ANALYSIS
The stakeholder impact analysis gives insight into how each employee across all
levels of the business may or may not be impacted by the change. This may
include role, rewards, environment, etc. It will generally highlight the varying
degrees of impact across the organisation and help to identify what business
units are likely to be placed under greater levels of stress throughout the
project as they transition.
A clear understanding of impacts will help your organisation to effectively
resource projects and create a compelling WIIFM message to engage
employees throughout the different phases of the project. People are more
obliging with disruptions to their day to day working day if they know what to
expect.
The stakeholder impact analysis may also help business leaders to identify
structural issues that need to be addressed such as over-resourcing in one
area and under resourcing in another. In looking at impact analysis and
change readiness, a foundation for relevant development programs (both
individual and team) should be forming.
STAKEHOLDER ENGAGEMENT PLAN
Once you have established the impact on your stakeholders and gathered
enough information to understand what the potential WIIFM may be for different
employees, it is important to have an engagement plan in place.
This plan considers how they are communicated to and when, what will drive
commitment from internal and external stakeholders, and how to best manage
their expectations. Again, to achieve the best results, the stakeholder
engagement plan should be put in place in the design phase and revisited
throughout the life cycle of the project.
12 Transitioning to Shared Services: Designing a Change Strategy that enables success from Day One
RISK ASSESSMENT
Assessing and understanding risk is important in any project from both a Project
Management and Change Management perspective. According to Prosci
research,2 the greatest management obstacles are:
1. Ineffective change sponsorship from senior leaders.
2. Resistance to the change from employees.
3. Insufficient change management resources and funding.
4. Middle management resistance.
5. Poor project management.
6. Ineffective communications.
7. A culture resistant to change.
A good practice is to run a risk register, which is regularly updated throughout the
project. You can’t possibly think of everything, however it’s amazing how many
times on reflection, you see things coming but were so caught up in what you
were doing, you just didn’t get to it. Better to call it out than ignore the possibility
of it eventuating.
2.3. CHANGE MANAGEMENT
COMMUNICATION PLAN
Communication for projects driving change is a priority. Consideration must be
given to align the messaging for stakeholders - internal (employees, leaders, etc.)
and external (Board, Customers, Partners, etc.).
Communications are best sent by leaders that are passionate, committed and
credible. Key messages regarding organisational change are best coming from
the Executive Leader, and messages relating to day to day changes to people’s
roles coming from immediate supervisors and managers. For consistency of
results throughout your project make sure that you communicate regularly with
employees (even when it seems there’s nothing of note to communicate), and
what gets communicated gets done.
Plan for what needs to be communicated and when – what the change will
mean to the employee, why it’s being done, what is changing and what stays
the same; how it will impact the organisation and potentially their customers; and
how they can prepare for the change.
Build success stories and quick wins into your communication plan (big and small)
to keep momentum and excitement alive regarding achieving the goal.
Celebrating success shows people they’re on the right track and being
appreciated.
There are many mediums at your disposal for communicating. Video is
increasingly becoming a way of messaging that is more powerful when face to
2 Prosci’s 2009 Best Practices in Change Management benchmarking report
“Build success stories and quick wins into your communication plan to keep momentum and excitement alive. Celebrating success shows people they’re on the right track and being appreciated.”
13 Transitioning to Shared Services: Designing a Change Strategy that enables success from Day One
face is not always possible. It’s critical to choose the right medium for the right
audience and right message.
STAKEHOLDER MANAGEMENT
Stakeholder management can be complex, particularly if you have vastly
different types of stakeholders groups. One of the risks in managing change is
the tendency to manage the stakeholders that are closest to you, but they are
all equally important.
Know who your stakeholders are, know what they need, what they
will respond best to and who is best to manage them. Aligning the
appropriate Leaders and Sponsors to manage stakeholders will
provide a better chance of engaging your stakeholder groups.
Credibility and communication are key to success – both in getting
the stakeholders communicating with you, and you communicating
with your stakeholders. Communicating through a one way stream
impedes the ability to effectively manage expectations and can
create a platform for resentment if input is not sought.
Stakeholders that are well informed and managed are more inclined to commit
to the entire journey and offer support throughout.
TRANSITIONING – COACHING AND SUPPORTING
Too often change management is considered merely the user training
component of project management. As reinforced in the Change Management
Map, you will see that it is much more, as are the individual and team
development needs of the people that are going through the change.
To effectively build capability that is aligned with what is required to successfully
get to and maintain the future state, the business needs to understand where the
gaps are and how to bridge them. Some of the capability gaps will be fulfilled
with specific ‘user’ training but the majority of capability building is achieved
through coaching and mentoring of business leaders, and key stakeholders.
Investing time, energy and funds into the development of leaders within the
business, helps them to effectively develop those reporting into them and
provides people with support in moving to the unknown and dealing with issues
in real time.
The key thing to remember is that your leaders are also going through their own
personal change journey and may be reacting and resisting to change just as
much as their subordinates are, whilst trying to ‘keep face’. Providing them with
a safe coaching environment where they can work through their frustrations and
concerns helps them to offer the same support to their teams.
TEAM DEVELOPMENT
No-one can implement a shared service alone. It requires teams that work
together, collectively and cohesively to drive outstanding results. Therefore team
development needs to feature in your Change Management design, and be
refined as you go along. If it isn’t in the planning phase then chances are the
team development may be delayed or forgotten entirely, negatively impacting
14 Transitioning to Shared Services: Designing a Change Strategy that enables success from Day One
employee engagement and productivity. Some considerations for team
development in managing change are:
» Ensure your team development programs are relevant to your teams, their
jobs and the gaps they need developing;
» Include development regarding culture and values. If the organisation
already has values set, ensure the employees understand them and can
relate their meaning to their day to day jobs;
» Foster awareness of their individual and team traits and how that affects each
other and team performance; and
» How the team dynamics and behaviours impact others around them
(internal/external customers, other functional teams, etc.).
Done well, team development can achieve high performing and deeply
committed employees.
15 Transitioning to Shared Services: Designing a Change Strategy that enables success from Day One
3. THE CUSTOMER VALUE
What successful organisation doesn’t have a comprehensive understanding of
what value they are providing for their customers in return for their business?
Whilst there is no doubt some do this better than others, it’s easy to argue that
understanding the customer value proposition has benefits for all concerned.
Unfortunately, our experience is that this is often overlooked and the consequent
risk is that the SSO is too internally focused. The balanced scorecard approach
provides this much needed external focus.
Understanding the basis of value is equally important for the SSO (value provider)
as it is for the internal or external customer (the value consumer). If you don’t
value yourself chances are others won’t either. It’s also important to link the
delivery of customer value to the organisational operating values. For example,
let’s say you value commitment in your organisation. This can be demonstrated
and explained in your team as well as describing key behaviours that deliver this
value to your customer. Running a values program can be highly effective to
embed and reward internal behaviours that permeate the customer experience.
Now consider the internal customer (value consumer). Understanding, tailoring
and reinforcing the value provided is good for the relationship. If people value
and appreciate something, they generally tend to have a more positive mindset
towards it. It is important of course that you can substantiate the value and then
communicate it and market it. Faster service, lower costs, convenience, thought
leadership, etc. Depending on your Shared Services Model, you may have a
combination of both internal and external customers to satisfy but the principal
remains the same.
Expectations in business generally seem to be increasing with the same pace as
technology. These include faster service, ease of access, service uptime and
mobility, just to name a few. Sometimes customers can tell you what they want
but often this is not the case. Providing proactive thought leadership by creating
roles such as, “IT Business Partner” or, “HR Business Partner” will allow you to move
beyond a purely transactional service, and create value that the customer
didn’t even know was possible. These types of roles can be game changers but
recognise that they may require different skillsets and mindsets to what you have
currently.
“It’s important to link the delivery of customer value to the organisational operating values. If you value commitment in your organisation, this can be demonstrated and explained in your team as well as describing key behaviours that deliver this value to your customer.”
16 Transitioning to Shared Services: Designing a Change Strategy that enables success from Day One
4. METRICS
It’s much easier to substantiate the value if you can measure it. Particularly if the
model includes a charge back mechanism, having the level of objectivity that
measuring brings can save you a lot of heartache downstream. It creates a
different type of culture for the internal service provider and demonstrates that
there is preparedness for accountability.
Measurement can create fear, which can lead to resistance. If the, “let’s just do
it,” and worry about measures later approach is taken then chances are it will be
more difficult than you think. We see this as a critical design element and should
be factored into your change approach.
Some things of course are easier to measure than others but that shouldn’t deter
you. Direct financial benefits such as cost reduction and increased revenue for
example, are likely to be easier to access from the business financials. Business
Intelligence tools also provide ease of access to financial information and are
becoming more the norm.
There is a new genre of software that Gartner Group has termed, “collaborative
decision making tools,” which I think can be applied well to a shared services
environment. These tools provide the organisation with a forward looking
strategic change monitoring capability with visibility to any potential deviation or
risk before it happens.
We believe that more progressive organisations will be early adopters here as it
fills a void in the market. It can be used to monitor, cost and predict more
complex processes such as cost to service, productivity gains and costs
associated with these, supply chain etc. These tools create a whole new level of
transparency and could be highly valuable for those shared service managers
looking to be in the driver’s seat rather than just a passenger.
As Stephen Covey says, if you, “begin with the end in mind,” embedding the
focus on measurement in your culture from the start can be a lot easier than
introducing it once the train has departed the station.
“Measurement can create fear, which can lead to resistance. If the ‘let’s just do it and worry about measures later’ approach is taken then chances are it will be more difficult than you think.”
17 Transitioning to Shared Services: Designing a Change Strategy that enables success from Day One
CONCLUSION
What we have proposed is a high level overview of taking a balanced and
commercial approach to your shared service journey, combined with best
practice change management which will enable the journey. It’s important that
when you are designing your shared services to consider beyond the product/
service itself. The benefits of this approach are;
» relatedness to customer needs,
» less risk of resistance,
» realising benefits faster,
» beginning the cultural change journey earlier, and
» increased capacity to expand service offering.
Mindset’s 360 degree view of change is a way in which we can not only review
your journey to date but also help you learn from our experience and others in
getting off on the right track. It applies the balanced scorecard approach,
tailored to your organisation needs.
MINDSET CHECK
As a first step, we recommend using our diagnostic tool, The Mindset Check, to
gauge where you are at today, and where you need to be.
For new clients, we offer the initial survey and basic results report for free. More
detailed reports, customisation of survey, and follow up work is charged
according to our regular consulting fees. Get in touch, give us a few details and
we’ll set it up for you!
GET IN CONTACT WITH MINDSET GROUP
Sydney
Level 6, 53 Walker St
North Sydney, NSW 2060
Ph. +61-(0)2-8905-0745
Email us: [email protected]
Visit our Website: www.mindsetgroup.com.au
Read our Blog: www.changingmindset.com.au
Melbourne
Level 9, 470 Collins St
Melbourne, VIC 3000
Ph. +61-(0)3-9621-2283