Now that a good number of shared services are moving from being Functionally-led to Process-led to Service- or Customer-led, we should be asking ourselves: “what does this mean for our KPIs?”
Service-led or Customer-led is great. It’s the direction that makes sense and that we should be moving towards. It means we are managing our GBS organization to fit the needs of our customers (payers and users). It should mean the GBS is integrated and privy to the strategic direction of the Executive Team.
Functionally-led is…err….bad. It’s a model that will keep you in the dark ages, disconnected from other functions across which your processes actually flow; disconnected from the business, and operating broken, non-end-to-end processes which will struggle to be straight-through and struggle to be standardized.
That said, in a Functionally-led, or Process-led GBS, KPIs are fairly known and predictable. They generally measure units of time, cost or accuracy.
Once you move to a Customer-led or Service-led GBS, you will likely reassess your KPIs. The Hackett Group talk about the “3 Es” – Effectiveness, Efficiency and Experience. Being a more Service- or Customer-led GBS means it’s time to start measuring Experience.
Four questions to ask yourself:
- Given you are now a Customer- or Service-led GBS, what are the goals that drive you?
- Secondly, what are the KPIs, hopefully leading, that can help you measure your progress towards these goals?
- Thirdly, whose experience are you measuring? The Bill Payer (your customer)? The User? How about your Supplier? Or your external Customer in Order-to-Cash?
Finally, how will you capture feedback? For the different groups you plan on understanding, will you use immediate starring technology after a phone call? Online surveys? Quarterly reviews?
I love a good quadrant, and one is appropriate here. The Y axis might be the Ranking of Importance of the Internal Customer/User/Supplier/External Customer, and the X might designate the mode of understanding the various groups' levels of satisfaction (an immediate, quick 5 star model for users and suppliers perhaps and a deeper quarterly review with Bill Payers).
If you are Customer- or Service-led, the key is to understand the answers to all the above, and then purchase simple technology that can help secure a high capture rate of feedback. Stick with the program so you can spot trends, spot issues, and focus on problem solving. Feel free to share the name of the technologies that you use to measure your Customers’ or Users’ levels of satisfaction on a conversation I started on socialspace.
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