Business Transformation

Finance Shared Services

In November 2013 a major Central Government Finance support service was brought together with the Finance functions of two other key Government agencies to create a new shared services organisation.

In February 2014, Service Level Agreements (SLAs) were applied for the first time in the shared services site and these new measurements revealed some significant operational failings. These included:

• A key client bank account allowed to go overdrawn with consequential costs passed onto the operation
• Invoices sent to wrong supplier with damage to reputation and corrective action needed
• Invoices issued one working day late with loss of cash and loss of confidence
• Monthly Finance Report (TMA) sent late causing delays in client operations
• Accruals ran a debit as a credit requiring re-work
• Two ‘P45’ documents provided to wrong recipients breaching confidentiality

As a result of the ongoing operational instability, Reinvigoration were tasked to conduct an analysis and highlight improvement opportunities to quickly stabilise operations.

The agreed outcomes from the analysis were:

• Identification of priority areas of improvement required to achieve operational stability
• Clear understanding of the operations management capability gap that needs bridging in order to stabilise the operation
• Where possible Identify FTE savings in line with the process optimisation approach being used in other parts of the business

The team deployed a number of analysis tools to identify root causes of all specific issues and also considered:

• Risk & failure modes in processes
• The spans of management control
• Levels of competence in management
• Variations in workload mistakes
• Good practice deployment
• Activity levels and allocation of time
• Finally, the cultural attitude to mistakes was assessed as well as organisational capability for problem solving and continuous improvement.

Analysis entailed interviews, data collection, observation, process review and measurement. Findings were shared throughout the process to encourage ownership and to corroborate facts.

The rapid analysis phase identified 39 critical actions that needed to be implemented to improve the operation. Once these findings were accepted by local management, a rapid implementation period followed to address the problems observed. Some of the key results were:

• A roadmap to empower the management team and promote confident and secured service continuity
• Improvements not simply to tackle specific issues but also addressing the symptoms of organisational risk and cultural malaise
• A timetable for stability prioritised and owned by the management team
• Improved process control which greatly reduced operational risk
• A significant number of capacity savings realised to support future growth

Get in touch to discuss how we can help you transform your service operations.