Shared services is the consolidation of business operations that are used by multiple parts of the same organization.
Shared services are cost-efficient because they centralize back-office operations that are used by multiple divisions of the same company and eliminate redundancy. Some companies use a chargeback system to bill divisions that use the service on a per-use, per-quarter or per-year basis. Other companies absorb the cost of shared services as part of the continuing cost of running the business. Today, most companies employ a shared services model for finance, human resources management (HRM) and information technology (IT).
Benefits OF SHARED SERVICES
- Economic - Higher productivity by consumer-like service portal and automated request fulfillment processes give employees more time for core business functions. Significantly reduce service delivery costs by driving standardization, consistency, and consolidation.
- Strategic - Achieve process and system standardization and meet increased demand with fewer full time employees.
- Quality - Improved information by using a common platform provides you with complete visibility into service usage, costs, errors, and bottlenecks. Develop service delivery best practices and establish centers of excellence.
- Speed - Automate and orchestrate interactions across departments to rapidly fulfill service requests.
POWER OF THE PLATFORM
Why is ServiceNow an ideal foundation for a shared services implementation? It is a single platform that can do so much and is designed with service management and consolidation in mind.
One Platform
Customer Service, IT, HR, and other departments can all use the same platform, sharing functionality and reusing customizations between departments. No integrations needed, you can easily connect different ServiceNow applications together within the platform.
One Knowledge Base
All your knowledge in one central location filtered for visibility with user criteria. No need to look in multiple sharepoint sites, sifting through word documents trying to find an answer. Have one central location for all your company and customer facing information.
One Service Portal
Your employees, partners, and customers gain easy access to all the consumer‑like business services you can now deliver through one portal. Provide your stakeholders with an easy way to submit, track, and be proactively alerted to the status of their requests for service.
One Code Base
Only primarily JavaScript code base to support. Most of that is declarative as well. You don't have be a coding wizard with a photographic memory to be good at ServiceNow. It is relatively easy compared to other systems.
Rapidly deliver cost‑effective and intuitive services to help your organization become a strategic business partner
Workflow and Ownership
Create services that streamline and automate interactions between departments. Task Assignments show who owns tasks and are not lost in emails and conversations.
Reporting and SLAs
Create a performance driven culture through measurement and feedback between departments. Manage service delivery through clear service level agreements and responsibilities.
Shared Services need a Platform
If you are going to merge processes, responsibilities, or departments you need a platform to manage it all. Using different applications deters people from that kind of initiative. I am biased of course, but I do truly believe ServiceNow is the best platform to start on that journey.