Current Project
Revitalising Shared Services
Most enterprise or business IT units have been organised as shared services (IT SS) for many years. Back in the early 1990s, the SS structure seemed ideally suited to controlling and managing the traditional back office, ERP-oriented IT function. SS structure transformed IT into an ‘arms length’ supplier to the business, delivering agreed levels of service (SLAs) at an agreed total budget. Through centralisation and standardisation of business processes and applications, significant cost savings and IT rationalisation were often achieved. At the same time, the move to SS was often resisted by IT staff, and by business unit leaders who experienced a loss of control and responsiveness.
However, businesses have changed beyond recognition since most SS units were first created. Technology has become much more important, transforming the customer offering, and creating the Internet channel. Organisations have also become more complex due to globalisation and to the increasing specificity of markets and customer needs. Finally, users have become more knowledgeable about IT, and as a result they are less docile, less willing to follow IT’s lead. Thus, Enterprise IT finds itself facing a business that is more complex, more dependent on IT in all its forms, yet also more demanding. Is traditional shared services still the right structure for IT in this new environment? While the current economic crisis makes shared services structure attractive due to its cost efficiencies, it also makes it more difficult for IT to add higher forms of value.
Key questions
Faced with this situation, the project will seek to answer the following questions:
- How must the traditional IT SS structure be modified or augmented to meet the challenges of the new era, where IT permeates the company and the cloud threatens to transform how technology is used in business?
- How do the best companies organise IT to achieve both efficiency and value added, including IT SS and perhaps other structural elements?
Published Research
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In Detail
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Final Report
- Report Due: Jul 2010
- Format: Single Topic Report