Sarbanes-Oxley turns three and continues

　　The completion of a Shared Service Center 's evaluation, design and build journey is rightfully considered a significant achievement. However, it is not unusual that once the set-up phase is finalized, a loss of momentum occurs. The Shared Service Center is operational, the project team is disbanded and the company has moved on to focus on its next challenges. The journey is perceived to have come to an end. However, for the members of the newly created center, the journey is only just beginning. After all, they now have to deliver all the benefits, as defined in the business case, which justified the set-up of the center in the first place!

　　To fulfil the potential that Shared Service Centers undoubtedly offer, members of the newly created center must focus their energies and expertise on achieving an optimal service: the management of the scope, volume, cost and quality of the services provided to the organization must be successfully balanced. Shared Service Center management teams must be able to ‘run' their operations while delivering the benefits of continuous improvement:

　　- As custodians of process, they must tackle compliance issues in the organization;

　　- As service providers, they need to achieve the balance between standardization and flexibility to cater to their customers' requirements;

　　- As sales people, they must establish effective relationships with their customer base.

　　Since a Shared Service Center is not a ‘processing factory', a service management framework is a key component in the establishment of the center's service orientation. Key elements of this framework include:

　　- The continuous improvement process that identifies, prioritizes, delivers and tracks initiatives that will improve the service provided to customers.

　　- The compliance management process that addresses process discipline in the organization and contributes to establishing a fit-for-purpose control environment.

　　- The change control process to manage and maintain the integrity of the service level agreement by introducing a structured mechanism to apply required changes.

　　- The communication process to establish effective rapport with the center's customer base through targeted two-way communication.

　　Defining the Next-Generation Shared Services Operation

　　Shared Service Center management teams must be visionaries, defining how they will generate value in the future, whether through the addition of new processes, business units, geographies and technologies, or by adopting new service delivery models or vehicles.

　　Once the Shared Service Center is established, its leadership team and employees will become fully absorbed by the day-to-day running of the operation and the delivery of immediate benefits. However, it is the leadership team's responsibility to look beyond the short term to define how their organization will deliver value in the future, and how their Shared Service Center will remain competitive.

　　A critical anchor point for the development of the Shared Service Center of the future is the company's strategy. Shared services is a means to an end; therefore, this end needs to be clearly defined and what's more, fit neatly with the company's ambitions and objectives as defined in the strategy. Consequently, as the strategy is developed and refined, the center's leadership need to initiate a fundamental review that will question and define how it will contribute to achieving its objectives in the future.

　　The Accenture Point of View, “Shared Services Beyond Start-Up”, summarizes the challenges overcome, the key considerations covered and the knowledge gained by Shared Service Centers that have moved beyond the design and build phases. The Point of View draws on Accenture's own experience of helping Shared Service Centers to deliver the service excellence for which they were originally designed. Included are steps to follow during a fundamental shared services review that will identify new service trends and scope expansion opportunities.