Finance shared services – Delivering the promise

Insights from 2008 research into leading European organisations ADVISORY. Our survey shows that top-performing SHARED SERVICE CENTRES (SSCs) are distinguished by their senior executive support, providing excellent interaction with the business, driving continuous improvement to service quality and achieving high levels of standardisation. However, despite the increasing popularity of SSCs over the past decade, our survey also reveals that almost one in five respondents rate the performance of their SSC as “poor” and nearly a third of respondents feel that they have not delivered the promised business benefits. It seems that many organisations have underestimated the scale of change and management effort involved in setting up and maintaining an SSC, with disparate processes brought together in one central location. Those participants with under-performing centres admit to getting insufficient support from senior management and such neglect can stall momentum. The top-performers, on the other hand, have received the necessary executive sponsorship allowing them to deliver the business case without losing quality.