Maximizing the Benefits of System Shared Services

This study has 10 practices to implement and sustain shared services across your system.

 

 

In response to the Great Recession, leaders of state systems of higher education searched for ways to cut operating costs without compromising quality. Many adopted shared services initiatives modeled after the private sector. Yet despite considerable investments in time and money, shared services often failed to yield projected efficiencies, savings, and quality improvements.

As financial pressures continue, system leaders have looked to shared services again. EAB’s research will help these executives overcome common obstacles that made the initial shared services initiatives less successful than expected.

This study examines the functions university systems have most successfully converted to a shared services model. The research also examines shared services experiments in new areas like enrollment and advancement. Download the study to learn how to overcome barriers to staff resistance, standardize business processes and technology, and capture the full benefits of shared services.

Shared services offers promise, but barriers limit benefits

In an era of ongoing funding uncertainty, university systems leaders must find efficiencies and reduce administrative expenditures. While shared services can be an effective means of cutting costs and improving service quality, private sector models often translate poorly and overestimate savings.

Systems have struggled in the past to implement and sustain a successful shared services operation due to faculty and staff resistance and unstandardized business processes. Benefits from successful initiatives often disappear as systems fail to document financial savings and cost avoidance accurately.

The current state of system-wide shared services models—and where systems are moving next

Five functional areas–HR, IT, procurement, payroll, and finance–offer the best opportunities for university systems to implement system-wide shared services. Procurement promises the greatest financial savings and is less likely to inspire controversy among system stakeholders than…