Americans vs Europeans - who's leading in the shared services race?

There are key milestones in all businesses. Some are significant and mean you have come a long way, like when a young e-invoicing network sees their millionth e-invoicing flow through the network. Others are significant and stand like a gateway to an even greater opportunity.

The recent key milestone for sharedserviceslink.com was our inaugural North American event - the Summit for Leaders in Finance Shared Services. It was a bit of a proof of concept for us. Would the Americans like our model? Would they 'get' the format that so seems to resonate with a European audience?

The simple answer was: absolutely. It was early October. Dallas Texas welcomed the sharedserviceslink.com team with a shower of rain, the first rain Dallas had seen in nine months. The scene was being set: over eighty SVPs, VPs and Senior Directors in Finance Shared Services came together on the Monday morning, and we were off: sharedserviceslink.com was launched in the USA.

I wanted to capture some of the differences between the European and American audience.

Change management:

Much of the conference discussion focused on how to manage change. As Deborah Kops, Managing Director, Sourcing Change remarked, the event was more about managing change than anything else. If shared services was going to be successful, then the change management programme needed to be planned and resourced early on. Sometimes companies run a communications programme and believe this is the same as a change management programme. It's not. Kops stated that a comms programme is a key part of a change management programme and should be perceived as such, but is not a change management programme in its entirety.

In Europe and the US, the Achilles' heal of shared services projects is often the thin, willowy presence of a change management plan. The success of shared services is often based on how the people in the organisation deal with the transformation. Shared services leaders that overlook the importance of change management in their project plan or believe a comms' strategy will tick this box, are setting themselves up for a bumpy ride.

Continuous Improvement:

Continuous improvement is a culture and a mindset that needs to pervade the organisation. This means it will affect how you hire people. New joiners require the right attitude to innovate and improve and self-challenge over and above the right skill set which can be taught.

Continuous improvement relies on the constant provision of KPIs and metrics so the data tells the story of 'where the shared services organisation is at'. How many SSOs have a person dedicated to performance analysis? Performance metrics drive the improvements in service delivery and help communicate gains to business units to assist further buy-in.

Andrew Simpson, Head of Americas' Business Services Centre at BP, confirmed that their transformation effort delivered c30% cost savings, and their continuous improvement initiatives delivered 10% - 15% year on year savings. "Everyone needs the CI mindest. Everyone needs to know that they are expected to challenge current processes" he said.

These savings from CI are plump. In Europe we hear of 5% cost savings coming from CI programmes.  Why are these figures so different? What is this North American shared services operation doing with their CI programme that separates them from a European-based SSO? Perhaps the very fact that they treat CI as a culture, not a programme says a lot.

Linked to organisational vision:

Finance shared services should not be managed in isolation. It is a huge business decision and shift, and must tie in to senior management goals, shareholder value and future direction. If shared services can be positioned as a central cog in taking the company to the next level, then less resistance will exist to this organisational change and the company can sing with a single voice. So often shared services leaders are undermined because senior management fails to understand the importance of this change. If shared services sits at the heart of the mechanics that will drive the company forward, no one can afford to undermine the intent of the change.

The US and Europe are aligned on this. Senior level 'buy -in' comes up routinely. The shared services leader has to become a sales person and understand the requirements of the CEO, so the right model can be built. This battle is universal - how can an accountant become a sales person? sharedserviceslink.com could run a whole two day conference on this alone.

So are the markets very different? Interestingly, not really. Issues are very similar and discussion points tend to centre around common themes. As chair of the conference I took great comfort from this notion. It meant that learnings from each market can be shared, and hopefully business improvements accelerated.

By the close of the event we were being hugged by our delegates. "This is the best conference I have attended in my career" was a comment aired more than once. "This model is so refreshing - it's like a user group event with no sales pitches." We sent home over eighty delighted and pumped-up people that are ready and equipped to drive through the change they need to.

And will sharedserviceslink.com be back? We'll share the date with you imminently, but mark out May in your diaries for our return and if you missed the Dallas conference, please don't make the same mistake twice.

Susie West, CEO, Shared Services Link