Shared services units are designed to reduce inefficiencies and improve the service quality of transactional business activities. As is the case with organizational models, one size does not fit all when it comes to selecting a portfolio of activities to deliver via shared services.
Some institutions have adopted an aggressive approach, consolidating all transactional administrative processes not requiring frequent face-to-face interaction or customization into a shared services center. Such a hard-and-fast rule may not work on every campus, given the complexities of migrating so many tasks at once.
Instead, leaders should focus first on high-volume, high-frustration processes. Demonstrating the value of shared services for these processes, whether in terms of cost savings, efficiency, or customer satisfaction, can pave the way for further expansion of consolidated service delivery.
This resource is part of the Design a Shared Services Model That Reflects Campus Priorities Roadmap. Access the Roadmap for stepwise guidance with additional tools and research.
Begin with high-volume processes with the greatest potential for cost and time savingsYou don’t need to reinvent the wheel when designing a shared services portfolio. Rather, begin with an assessment of the “usual suspects”—the tried-and-true activities most commonly delivered via shared services across human resources, information technology, procurement, payroll, finance, and research administration.
These activities usually share a set of common characteristics, in that they:
Have a high transaction volume across many unitsCan easily be standardized and/or automatedCan be completed…