About Hewitt Consulting Webinar - People and Change Management

Outsourcing and Global Sourcing has become a way of life for most organizations and industries. The major debate while taking an outsourcing decision is whether a process is core or non-core, whether company information can be shared or should be kept confidential and whether a third party can provide the required quality of services and generate enough value for the firm in the long run. The Shared Services operating model has introduced that middle path between outsourcing and executing processes in-house. The context and goals for an organization to move to a shared services model could be many. They range from strategic issues like developing a 'One Firm culture and standardizing processes or services across multiple acquired entities to very tactical objectives like building efficiency through scale and centralization of non-core services. However while the objectives and goals for shared services depends on the context within the organization, it is noticed that the journey to a shared service model is still very much a large transformational program within the firm and the issues are very similar. One of the key issues in any such large transformation and more so in the case of a shared services implementation are around Governance and People. While technology, best practices and service levels have standard benchmarks and solutions, it is issues related to people and change management that are very contextual and contribute largely to the success of such a program, provided they are handled efficiently. As mentioned above, the shared services implementation is a journey. It wouldnt be wrong to generalize this journey in 5 distinct phases namely; Strategy, Feasibility Analysis and Business Case Formulation, Shared Services Design, Implementation and Sustenance. In this paper, we highlight the key people and governance related challenges in each of the above mentioned phases that any implementation team should focus on while undertaking such a journey. These challenges are based on Hewitts wealth of knowledge and experience in Shared Services Implementation and other large transformation initiatives across geographies and sectors. As a summary, we then present in this paper our thoughts and point of view on how these challenges and imperatives can be handled successfully and provide Hewitts time tested framework on Change and Communication Management that has helped our clients focus on the right issues and successfully implement multiple shared services and large transformation programs.