Our research points to five topics on the agenda for continued success and sustainability.
Process excellence: Many shared services organizations continue to struggle with the fundamentals of process excellence; those that excel have put process excellence into the context of overall business optimization. As part of these efforts, they are making dramatic improvements in efficiency and earning new respect in their organizations.
Service excellence: Shared services organizations seeking to achieve high performance recognize that, despite continued advances in functionality, they must ready their service management framework (the “system around the system”) to meet the demands of a more strategic role.
Continuous improvement and value marketing: Shared services organizations that have achieved high performance continue to look for ways to improve—both in services they currently provide and in new services they would like to offer. Moreover, they recognize that marketing the value they bring to their key stakeholders is critical to building the trust that leads to new business opportunities for their organizations.
Integrated business services: As shared services continue to mature, we find that those looking for new levels of business value are becoming independent, end-to-end services businesses with C-level leadership and strategic importance on par with other operating units.
New technologies affecting a mature model: Cloud computing and social media are top technologies on the minds of shared services executives, but they are proceeding with caution. Their enthusiasm is tempered by uncertainty about potential business disruption after they have worked so hard to stabilize their operations.