Bob Cecil, Executive Director, Business & Financial Processes Advisory

At last month’s Shared Services Week conference in Orlando, Florida, I had the good fortune to chair the invitation-only Blue Sky Innovation Room sessions, each of which addressed current challenges unique to mature shared services organizations. The discussions among the expert panelists and participants from some of the world’s best known brands and other up-and-comers clearly demonstrated the shared services industry is at a critical juncture in many respects.

The first topic we addressed was how to best position shared services in today’s economic climate, as organizations try to slog their way through the murk of the thus far jobless recovery and consumer spending deficit.

Most felt that positioning shared services as the nexus for cost realignment – or a key driver of a lower, transformational cost structure their companies may have achieved through ultimately unsustainable means during the recession – within their organizations was appropriate, but too limiting.

Instead, most want to position shared services as an exporter of value – i.e., adding value, beyond cost-effective transaction services, to areas in which they don’t directly process the work. The exporter of value areas discussed included:

• Becoming an information utility for the company
• Providing broader expertise in areas such as information mining and process management through capacity and capability
• Providing risk management expertise
• Being the focal point for end-to-end process integration for the processes for which they perform a just portion of the services
• Providing scalability as new businesses or geographies are added/subtracted from the company portfolio

At the same time, the participants realized that while they want to be an exporter of value, they are often limited in their perspective beyond the direct services within the shared services organization. For example:

• Few had units or a focus on identifying new shared services offerings, unless the services were directly linked to the services they already deliver
• Few had true standalone services such as business process management or analytics to offer more broadly to their companies
• Many felt their shared services organizations are operating in a somewhat subservient customer/provider business model, rather than being on an equal par with other business units. This means they have less influence on defining and exporting value as they must wait for the business units – their customers – to ask them
• Many felt the leadership within their shared services organizations don’t possess sufficient general business management perspectives to enable the group to be an exporter of value, as they are solely staffed with individuals with functional backgrounds

From EquaTerra’s perspective, we clearly see an opening for shared services to reposition themselves within their companies. Unfortunately many have been mired in transactional work while concurrently slogging through trying to sell new services to clients in a guerilla warfare-like manner. We believe the answer for these shared services organizations is to build brand equity across five key dimensions – people, leadership, quality, value, relevance and innovation.

For more details on how we believe shared services can improve its brand and value proposition, please read From Tired to Inspired: 10 Steps for Improving your Shared Services Brand.

Be sure and read my next post on non-traditional services that can be provided in a shared services environment – another hot Blue Sky Innovation Room session.

Filed under: How to..., Shared Services by EquaTerra