Navigating Your Shared Service Centre Transition Process

Many organisations focus on outcomes when thinking about the move to a shared service centre (SSC). And it's easy to see why, because the efficiency benefits can be significant.

For example, research has shown that over 80% of SSCs deliver cost savings of over 20%, with larger businesses generating even higher savings. Those savings come in addition to the more strategic, value-adding benefits that SSCs can ultimately deliver, such as increased process automation and improved regulatory compliance performance. 

However, before shared service centre benefits can be realised, companies have to actually go through the process of moving the relevant services and business processes from HQ to the SSC location — which requires careful planning, coordination, and change management. 

In this post, we’re going to take you through every stage of that transition process — from conceiving, planning, and executing the move to an SSC to choosing a technology platform, like FloQast, capable of supporting your efforts over the long term.  

Let’s get started. 

Step 1: Vision and planning

The move to an SSC must begin with a clear vision that defines what the move will achieve for your business, including the specific benefits that you expect to generate. That vision will be critical for making the case for an SSC to company leadership and obtaining buy-in for the project. 

You’ll need to think about:

• Aligning the SSC outsourcing plan with existing business goals. 
• Identifying the services that will be outsourced — for example, accounting, reporting, procurement, and so on. 
• Collecting and presenting data and metrics that support the business case for SSC outsourcing.
• Selecting a location that aligns with the factors above and supports outsourcing goals, such as cost savings or regulatory efficiency. 
• Choosing between the adoption of a full SSC model or a hybrid approach, where some functions remain in HQ.
• Building a dedicated SSC project team with clear roles and responsibilities. 

Step 2: Design and process mapping

With the go-ahead from leadership, it’s time to start the heavy lifting of outsourcing. 

You’ll need to design your SSC infrastructure meticulously, setting out technology and personnel requirements, and securing premises in your target location. During this step, the SSC team must: 

• Conduct a detailed review of the people, processes, and technologies that comprise the services to be outsourced.
• Map those processes onto the proposed SSC infrastructure.
• Identify weaknesses in existing infrastructure that can be eliminated in the transition to the SSC. 
• Begin thorough documentation of the relevant processes to avoid disruption and loss of expertise once the transition has taken place.
• Establish KPIs to assess the progress and success of the SSC move from end to end.

Step 3: Technology support

The efficiency benefits of an SSC are contingent on the technology that powers its consolidated services. To that end, you’ll need to identify an effective software platform on which to build your SSC infrastructure and workflows, and ensure they deliver their mooted efficiency benefits. 

The following factors should guide your SSC software selection process: 

• Opportunities to automate your SSC infrastructure and reduce manual effort. 
• Seamless integration with your SSC ERP software. 
• Innovations and features to drive further efficiencies in your SSC, such as dashboards, communication and collaboration tools, security measures, and centralised document storage. 
• A robust control framework that enables the HQ team to remotely monitor and enforce regulatory compliance in real time.

Finance Shared Service Centre Technology 

Let’s expand on the technology question in the context of the finance function. 

Where accounting services are being outsourced and consolidated, companies should prioritise factors like month-end close efficiency, connected compliance controls, reconciliations automation, and audit management when selecting SSC software.

Increasing visibility and accountability across finance workflows should also be an SSC technology priority, especially for SSCs located in remote overseas locations. 

Step 4: Change management

Even with robust infrastructure and technology in place, you’ll still need to steer teams through the SSC transition process, addressing pain points and resistance to change. 

That friction often manifests as employee concern about losing skills or team autonomy in the move from HQ to a consolidated service environment. With that in mind, it’s critical that SSC management teams should develop a change management strategy and focus on the following priorities: 

• Communicating SSC transition plans to employees as early as possible — especially to those teams whose roles may be changing. 
• Involving frontline employees in the SSC design process in order to add relevance and value to the developing SSC infrastructure, and to reduce internal resistance to the transition.
• Clearly defining roles and responsibilities in the SSC to optimise operational efficiency from the outset.
• Establishing onboarding programmes and SSC-specific training for local SSC employees, and for those transitioning from HQ. 
• Assembling necessary training materials and processes. 
• Ensuring the relevant documentation is in place.

Phased Migration

Many organisations choose a phased migration to their SSC. This approach involves selecting a single, low-impact, pilot process to transition to the SSC environment prior to any others in order to gauge impact, reveal problems, and stress-test infrastructure. 

Step 5: Post launch

Once your SSC is established, integrated with the wider company network, and providing consolidated services, you'll need to monitor its performance to ensure it is providing its anticipated value. 

In practice, post-launch priorities should involve: 

• Setting up regular reviews and feedback sessions between HQ and the SSC. 
• Assessing SSC performance against the KPIs established by the SSC project team. 
• Leveraging analytics tools to capture performance data and using that insight to inform future decision-making and refine SSC processes. 
• Seeking opportunities to automate SSC processes further. 

Optimise with FloQast

The transition to an SSC isn’t a formality, and the ultimate success of your outsourcing project may depend on the foundations you build during your transition.

You can make that job easier by leaning into the possibilities of automation and implementing a technology solution that not only promises to get the most out of the live SSC, but also integrates its services and tech with existing global infrastructure.

FloQast gives you that option, with a suite of powerful accounting software to automate and centralise core finance workflows, including month-end close, reconciliations, and audits. We’ve helped organisations around the world manage their SSC migrations — before scaling and optimising their outsourced services to deliver new levels of business efficiency. 

You can make the first move on your SSC journey today by exploring the FloQast platform or booking a demo of our SSC tools. 

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