Creating a “Culture of Excellence” in Your SSO

When shared services professionals get together, it seems an awful lot of time is spent discussing business strategies and models in order to maximize efficiency. So when at our ’10 Keys to Process Excellence’ conference Dan Foley, Shared Services Director at Mouchel, addressed the audience by asking “How service-oriented is your mind-set?”, it immediately caught my attention.

In the world of shared services, performance is often intertwined with metrics and KPIs, but, as Dan continued, in order to really understand and change the level of performance, we must first start by changing our mind-set. 

In order to drive change and secure the alignment of process deliverables and needs, Dan outlined five steps towards achieving a real “culture of excellence” in services organizations.

1. Firstly, define the business needs not wants. As Foley explained, “everyone wants gold standard… but do they need it or want it?” In order to break down the difference between need and want it is hugely important to listen to your customers; “the best free advice is complaints.” By exercizing customer satisfaction surveys and utilizing focus groups and service reviews, for example, you can gain invaluable insight into your clients real needs, and then aim to meet them.

2. Determine your servicing position. ‘Partnership’ can often be unbalanced, therefore ask yourself whether your SSO is a partner or a slave to your customers. Define the needs and wants of your clients, so you can recognize what needs to be done to genuinely support the wider business.

3. Once you have matched service proposition to the business needs, start to corroborate your SSO’s vision and strategic framework. Do you know how you intend to meet the service need? And can you ensure that you can meet this need without undermining cost, controls, service value or referencibility?  It is impossible to maintain operational servicing without alignment to strategy.

4. Review your process. According to Foley, this is where the “mind-set changes.” Ensure that your SSO provides the right training and development programmes to suit employees’ needs. Hire people who are constructive, action orientated and confident because your function is not just about completing the process, it’s about “owning, improving and living” it. By using the right tools to “come up with a way to make things happen” your SSO can successfully get its processes in line.

 5. Foley’s final step is all about maintenance. Continuous process improvement is the “key driver” towards obtaining a “culture of excellence” in your SSO, enabling it to meet new service requirements and truly “delight the customer”.

By focusing more on the internal organization, Dan clearly provides a different approach to optimizing the performance of service providers. Each step aims to refine the provider’s functions resulting in an overall “culture of excellence” which is secured by continuous process improvement. It is about striving for distinction in every layer of your SSC’s organization so that excellence becomes part of the culture.

If you were inspired by Dan’s presentation, or think your SSO has achieved its own “culture of excellence” by other means, get in touch at enquire@sharedserviceslink.com I would love to hear your story.