The Benefits of Utilizing Global Process Owners in Shared Services

For companies operating in multiple geographies, effectively coordinating between Shared Service Centers can be a challenging exercise.  With the traditional approach, where center organizations operate as independent pyramids that at a higher level all report to the same person, leveraging ideas and technologies between geographies is still often a failed effort, with more than enough challenges at each location to keep everyone busy.  Adding cross-regional complexity to a mix that often includes end-to-end processes, where the overall scope crosses functional boundaries, is all but impossible without defining a common owner.   

A recent Peercast^TM in the Shared Services Leadership research area ^[1] featured a large global company discussing the benefits they have derived from implementing Global Process Owners in their Global Financial Shared Services organization.   For the featured company, Global Process Owners were key to delivering greater productivity results, with three types of value identified:

Transform the Current Operating Model

• Expand the scope of Shared Services to be truly “global”
• Invest in global and sector end-to-end process towers, and build an inventory of defined processes, tested tools, and quick wins that are end-to-end, and beyond individual work processes
• Establish global controls, governance, and framework for performance measurement ^[2]

Standardize, Harmonize, and Optimize

• Define a common operating model, standards, processes, and tools
• Implement end-to-end process towers in delivery centers
• Build strategic capabilities across retained and BPO organizations

Innovate and Enable Growth

• Deliver world-class performance
• Operate as a strategic business partner
• Optimize and consolidate end-to-end capabilities ^[3]

Reviewing the results of two iPolling^TM questions related to this Peercast, the first question examined the status of using Global Process Owners in Shared Services.  The results indicate that 80% of member companies have either implemented or are in the process of implementing, Global Process Owners, with an additional 10% of companies evaluating the idea. Interestingly, an impressive 32% indicated that they have implemented this design for all or most processes.  Here are the details:

 

The second iPolling^TM question also asked about the overall impact Global Process Owners have had on process standardization, control, quality, productivity, and cost.  The results here are compelling, with 76% reporting at least a moderately positive impact. In addition, 18% report a mixed result – with some positive and some negative impact, while 6% indicated that it was too early to tell.

Below are several of the additional comments added by Peeriosity members:

• While we’ve had Shared Services for many years, each region made decisions independently, with little leverage between Shared Services Centers.  We are in the early stages of implementing a Global Process Owner model.
  

• Early results are positive, aided significantly by the fact our CEO is pushing hard for finance standards across the company. If that means other functions and IT need to change as well, our CEO will back additional changes.

•  We implemented Global Process Owners for our main processes (R2R, A2R, P2P, O2C ^[4]) in 2007 and followed up by adding GPOs for Payroll and Master Data several years ago. The GPOs report to an Associate Director who leads our Lean Six Sigma process improvement efforts.
  

• We’ve realized great value from the efforts of the GPOs in coordinating process standardization and improvement, coordinating with corporate functions to establish or enhance global and regional policies, as well as championing their respective areas during divestiture and acquisition activity.

• We have 3 Global Process Owners for P2P, O2C, and R2R; however, the roles do not cleanly cover the entire end-to-end process at this time. The roles have been in existence for about a year.
  

Does your company use Global Process Owners within Shared Services?  If yes, what challenges or resistance did you face during the implementation and what actions did you take to overcome them?  Has the impact been positive?

Who are your peers and how are you collaborating with them?

“Peercasts^TM” are private, professionally facilitated webcasts that feature leading member company experiences on specific topics as a catalyst for broader discussion.  Access is available exclusively to Peeriosity member company employees, with consultants or vendors prohibited from attending or accessing discussion content.  Members can see who is registered to attend in advance, with discussion recordings, supporting polls, and presentation materials online and available whenever convenient for the member.  Using Peeriosity’s integrated email system, Peer Mail^TM, attendees can easily communicate at any time with other attending peers by selecting them from the list of registered attendees. 

 “iPolling^TM” is available exclusively to Peeriosity member company employees, with consultants or vendors prohibited from participating or accessing content. Members have full visibility of all respondents and their comments. Using Peeriosity’s integrated email system, Peer Mail^TM, members can easily communicate at any time with others who participated in iPolling.