In driving towards greater levels of cost efficiency and improved service provision, many organisations have turned to establishing shared service centres. But are shared service centres always a guaranteed solution to achieving a satisfactory price/service balance and what conditions are likely to ensure successful shared service implementations?

Learning Objectives:

• Explore the key characteristics and benefits of shared services
• Determine the appropriate preconditions for a shared service
• Evaluate the cause and effect of unintended consequences
• Measure the value created to better understand the real needs of the end user of the services
• Analyse the most effective ways to charge for services to ensure fairness and transparency
• Compare the cost of shared services against the cost of outsourcing