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*KPMG LLP (US), KPMG Holdings Limited (UK) and KPMG International have acquired the business and subsidiaries of advisory firm EquaTerra Inc.

 

Wednesday, September 1, 2010

Shared Services: Buyers Speak Out on Implementation Lessons Learned

Mark Trepanier, Managing Director, HR Practice Group

Change management was the hot topic last week at an EquaTerra roundtable that I had the privilege of hosting. I gleaned insights from largely experienced outsourcing buyers across a spectrum of functions (e.g. Finance, HR, IT and Procurement) and industries.   Our conversation evolved from change management into key success factors for implementing shared services that includes significant outsourcing of transaction processing.

Here are six key themes that I captured from our discussion:

  1. Be deliberate in defining scope. Don’t force fit in what isn’t practical.
  2. Collaborate with the provider—and expect the same back. “Throwing over the wall” is not going to work, particularly early in the relationship.
  3. Leadership needs to be behind the initiative, and stay behind it.
  4. Cross-functional integration is key. A finance change can’t be implemented without IT, IT will need HR’s help, and an HR transaction with have financial impacts.  Be proactive in knitting your organization together before beginning the journey.
  5. Your culture and your provider’s culture will be different. Acknowledge and leverage that.
  6. On communications, remember the multiple audiences.  Business leadership, middle management, impacted employees, non-impacted employees, will all have different perspectives and concerns.  Recognize and respond to those differences.

And as an aside, the venue, the Freedom Center in Cincinnati, OH is a very interesting museum that should be on your itinerary if you are traveling there.

For the latest from EquaTerra in HR, visit www.equaterra.com/hr.

For more on transition and implementation, EquaTerra offers these Library items:
Benchmarking Best Practices for Start-up Services Delivery Organizations: An SSON Interview with Rick Bertheaud
How to Minimize Risk During Transition
Limiting Risk in Global Sourcing Efforts
A Bad Transition is Like Going on Honeymoon and Fighting All the Time



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

One Response to “Shared Services: Buyers Speak Out on Implementation Lessons Learned”

  1. Tweets that mention EquaTerra – Advice Worth Keeping. » Shared Services: Buyers Speak Out on Implementation Lessons Learned -- Topsy.com, on September 1st, 2010 at 11:34 am Said:

    [...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by EquaTerra and Kim Messerschmitt, Kim Messerschmitt. Kim Messerschmitt said: RT @EquaTerra: Shared Services: Buyers Speak Out on Implementation Lessons Learned http://bit.ly/cb2hgA [...]

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