On 23rd July we held an online event with our digital members that asked the question - What might your Shared Services function look like if not constrained by history, current operating principals and current governance structures. We explored the art of the possible across 5 dimensions of Governance, Customer, Capability, Service and Operating Model, looking at what could be achievable in a ‘white space’ environment.
The interactive session was led by our network sponsors, EY, who took us through how you might set up a shared services structure in a way to best enable access to modern digital thinking. They covered the need to incorporate access to innovation, the relationship a modern SSC needs to have with IT and an operating model that build CI and Disruptive Technologies into the thinking alongside operational delivery.
At the heart of the discussion was the recognition that our daily lives have been trandsformed by digital practices and we now need to take that transformation into our workplace, offering our workplace customers the same quality of service we expect as consumers.
The session went on to discuss one of the hot topics of our time in the SSC world - how to build a workforce that supports the new operating models we want to develop. We discussed the need to ensure we bring the right skills into the workplace, and to build the most effective ecosystem of partners to offer capabilities that we might not hold ourselves.
Finally we asked ourselves what activities might an SSC look to take on to demonstrate the added value that would allow us to build our position in the business, ensuring that we move on from a solely transactional focus to something that is more data driven and value-enhancing.
Overall the session offered a really interesting discussion around where many shared services find themselves now and where they might to look to be in the future. The supporting papers are available on the site.
To view the live session CLICK HERE
The EY presentation is available to view and download HERE
We would like to use the next session on the 8th October to explore some of the challenges and opportunities you see around the digital space in your organisations. We would really appreciate it if you could come back to us with a topic that you might like to discuss in the session, whether that is a challenge you are facing and would like the views of others in the network (or indeed our network sponsors EY), or whether it is something you have been doing well and feel that others in the network could also learn from.
