Barclays: Finance and Reporting Shared Service Center

To improve the efficiency and effectiveness of its finance and accounting operation, Barclays established a Finance and Reporting Shared Service Center (FRSC) to provide financial reporting, regulatory compliance reporting, and management accounting support services. Accenture then helped to ensure that desired service level improvements and cost savings were achieved by designing and implementing an operating plan to improve the center’s effectiveness.

To improve the efficiency and effectiveness of its finance and accounting operation—and thereby help the bank become a high-performance business—Barclays established a Finance and Reporting Shared Service Center (FRSC). The FRSC was specifically created to provide financial reporting, regulatory compliance reporting and management accounting support services to Barclay’s strategic business units and to its Group Center.

But Barclays needed a partner to help it make the most of the new center and of a vast finance change program it established. Barclays turned to Accenture to help ensure that the effort was not only successful, but would also serve as an industry-leading example of a high-performance operation. Accenture was chosen because of its industry expertise, its deep experience in helping companies achieve operational effectiveness and efficiency through shared service centers and its knowledge of service frameworks and new technologies.

Under a year-long arrangement, Accenture’s initial role involved providing an interim director of the FRSC. Subsequently, Accenture provided resource for the positions of service manager and planning and change manager. The interim director of FRSC formed the key management team, which ran, stabilized and grew the FRSC. Accenture designed and implemented an operating plan to improve the center’s efficiency and effectiveness. Improvement in the control framework was of paramount importance. Accenture also worked with FRSC to create and implement a robust Service Framework Model, re-engineer multiple processes, and help the bank with the task of transferring activities from the business into the FRSC.

With Accenture’s help, Barclays quickly achieved the service level improvements (totaling 16 percent) and cost savings it had desired. Specifically, in just six months, the number of unreconciled accounts decreased from 820 to 50. Within just four months, the number of Open Severity I incidents dropped from 137 to 38, and the number of Raised Severity I incidents raised dropped from 117 to zero. Accenture also helped Barclays reduce its FTE headcount by 12 percent, and the average cost per FTE by £1,200 (US$2,200). In terms of improving service levels, Barclays was able to shave three days from its reporting closing processes. Financial and operational risks have been addressed, reduced and are now actively managed. The financial year-end reporting timetables were met and all audit recommendations implemented. Finally, Accenture played a key role in shaping the success of a change program that increased the scope of the Shared Service Center. In all these ways, Accenture helped Barclays FRSC achieve its high-performance objectives.