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Executive Summary

Chapter 1, Finance Shared Services – The Basic Building Blocks, provides a potted history of the Finance Shared Services Organization (SSO) story so far. It explains why the SSO concept became popular (especially the cost benefits to be achieved by standardizing and the leveraging of technology) and the compelling evidence to show the cost benefits that have been achieved. This chapter  also explains which finance services/processes are typically placed within an organization and which typically remain within the business, and the criteria that companies have used to decide which processes are placed inside an SSO and which are not. It also summarizes some of the key building blocks of SSO creation: such as senior management sponsorship, strong project management skills, etc.

Chapter 2, Defining The Customers’ Needs, delineates the process through which the SSO leaders can identify the service requirements of the SSO’s internal customers. It describes how to secure buy-in from Business Unit leaders by formulating and communicating a clear vision of the benefits that Finance Shared Services can deliver to the business. This chapter also discusses pricing issues – deciding, in partnership with the business, whether or not to charge customers for services. Indeed the organization may decide that business leaders can purchase services from the SSO or alternatively purchase from outside the organization.

Chapter 3, Creating a Customer-Centric Culture. For the Finance SSO to become truly customer-centric it is critical that it has the right culture. This section explains the importance of:

• Organizing the SSO within dedicated customer-facing service/process teams
• The use of internal customer relationship managers, customer satisfaction surveys, measurement and management
• Providing ongoing customer service training
• Inculcating a customer-centric mindset from day one of the SSO’s existence
• Aligning performance management with service culture goals: compensation, appraisal, rewards and, importantly, recruitment
• Considering career management structures within the organization and beyond into the parent company itself.

Chapter 4, Selecting the Right Location. A critical issue in creating, or evolving, an SSO is site location.  Historically SSOs have typically been first set up close to corporate headquarters.  With SSOs (or more often satellite SSCs) now being set up in other locations (such as central and Eastern Europe) this section details the key considerations in site selection.

• Cost issues
• Qualitative issues such as education levels, telecommunications infrastructure
• Ensuring that the centre maintains customer-focused capabilities and mindset
• Risk assessment.

Chapter 5, Beyond Shared Services: The Next Frontier, considers how leading organizations are utilizing technology and other enablers to take shared services to new levels of effectiveness and efficiency. This section looks at the key criteria used to make the right decision and how to tackle the management and cultural challenges that emerge. This step also looks at the growing usage of ‘virtual’ shared services, in which processes are standardized and fully leveraged but not centralized, rather being located in many geographical locations. Virtual centres may also be used alongside the channels listed above.We will also consider where leading organizations are with regards to ‘lights-out’ transactional processing. A prognosis of what a typical SSO of the future will look like is provided.

Chapter 6, Performance Measurement focuses:

• Setting up, and working to Service Level Agreements with customers
• Putting in place finance performance metrics
• Putting in place non-financial performance metrics around areas such as customer satisfaction (users and funders), quality cycle-times
• Internal measures of employee satisfaction/engagement
• The use of shared services Balanced Scorecards and other such frameworks.

Chapter 7, Conclusion and Action Template. This final step draws together the report's key learning points and concludes with a checklist of 20 questions that can be used to plan the creation of a service-focused finance SSO.