Introduction

Shared Services and Global Business Service organizations achieve success by being experts in defining standard global processes where exceptions and deviations are understood and resolved quickly so that deliverables for low cost, efficient processes, with high customer satisfaction are consistently achieved.  Having a robust framework for measurement is critical.  The most advanced companies will have a range of measurements to meet the needs of difference audiences, with many of the measurements supported by a robust set of process maps and standard operating procedures.

Company Experiences

A Peercast discussion in Peeriosity’s Global Shared Services research area featured a global company with over $5B in annual revenue discussing their approach to creating a metrics hierarchy and implementing a process for Joint Accountability with internal stakeholders.

The company’s performance metrics hierarchy stratifies layers of measurement into three categories to meet different objectives and audiences.  1) Detailed operational metrics for Global Business Services processes provide insight for GBS leaders, managers, and individual contributors to the heath of GBS processes.  Types of operational metrics include turnaround times, quality checks, capacity utilization, and backlogs, with measurement taking place daily, weekly, or monthly as required.  2) Joint Accountability Agreements provide insight for Business Unit and Functional Leadership to the shared accountability for performance by Shared Services and business partners, using defined shared success measures, delivered on a monthly or quarterly basis ad needed.  3) Balanced Scorecard metrics for senior leaders are delivered quarterly across categories including Financial (budget), Operations (efficiency, quality), Customer (satisfaction) and Organization (engagement).

Much of the Peercast discussion focused on the importance of Joint Accountability Agreements which define the partnership  between internal customers and GBS, with details about requirements for shared ownership of problem analysis and solutions.   A supporting infrastructure of documentation to these agreements include detailed process maps that define process steps, handoffs, and controls; standard operating procedures that define work steps; and finally, the operational metric dashboards that detail performance by process area.

For more details about their experience, Peeriosity-100 members are encouraged to review the full presentation and listen to the Peercast recording in the Global Business Services research area. 

Polling Results Review

To support the Peercast, a poll was created to understand the approach Peeriosity-100 members take to performance reporting for key stakeholders and internal customers.

The first poll question asked about the type of performance reporting that is utilized.  The results indicate that 29% of member companies use a balanced scorecard approach that provides a mixture of financial and non-financial measures, and 50% use a formal dashboard that provides a mix of measures but isn’t as robust as a balanced scorecard.  Here are the details:

The second poll question asked about how often the performance reporting package as reviewed or modified for the type of information presented as key metrics and the format used for delivery and layout.  While there isn’t likely a silver bullet for how often, reviewing what is measured and why on a regular basis is critical to ensuring that the measurement process is working and meeting the needs of internal and external customers, and the various stakeholders.

Here are some of the comments from Peeriosity-100 members:

• We focus on efficiency (unit cost) and effectiveness metrics (timeliness/accuracy). Separate reports are generated monthly on performance relative to approved budget/forecast.

• We use power BI for the reporting of billing metrics and trend reporting by process.

Closing Summary

Unless your work processes are rigorously defined and measured, you will never be able to achieve desired outcomes for cost, quality, and customer satisfaction as you implement the latest releases for your ERP or deploy new technologies for automation and self-service.  Instead of spending valuable resources to create workarounds and technology fixes for broken processes, the best approach is to clearly define process flows and work-steps with appropriate measurements in place to ensure deviations are identified and resolved.

What is the status at your company to create and deliver an appropriate metrics hierarchy?  What measures are used, who is the audience, and how often do you what is measured and how results are reported?

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

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“Peercasts” 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, attendees can easily communicate at any time with other attending peers by selecting them from the list of registered attendees.

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

Peeriosity members are invited to log into www.peeriosity.com to join the discussion and connect with Peers.   Membership is for practitioners only, with no consultants or vendors permitted.  To learn more about Peeriosity, click here.