Shared Services at NC State:
What we’ve learned so far…
Jim Klingler
Acting Executive Director
University Business Operations Division
North Carolina State University
Session Etiquette
• Please turn off all cell phones.
• Please keep side conversations to a minimum.
• If you must leave during the presentation, please do so
as quietly as possible.
• Thank you for your cooperation!
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Overview
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What is Shared Services?
Why Shared Services?
Who has Shared Services Operations?
Where should I start?
What does a Shared Services Organization look like?
How should we staff Shared Services?
Service is key!
NC State’s hybrid approach
Expected benefits
Concluding thoughts
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What is Shared Services?
• Can include Finance, Procurement, HR, IT,
Research Administration, and Facilities.
• Neither decentralized services or centralized
services
• Seeks to balance the benefits of decentralized
and centralized service delivery
• High volume, repeatable, with clear rules and
procedures – “transactional”
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What is Shared Services?
Decentralized
Shared Services
Centralized
Independent
Redundant
Complex
Inefficient
Responsive
CustomerFocused
DataDriven
Process
Expertise
Scale
Economies
Standardization
Unresponsive
Inflexible
Detached
Automation
Source: Education Advisory Board, Making the Case for Shared Services, 2009
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Why Shared Services?
Budget reductions combined with preserving
University core mission
Source: NC State Finance and Resource Management Division
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Why Shared Services?
Regulatory environment increasing
42% - Average time PI’s spend on
administrative tasks for federally funded
research projects
97% - Percentage of Faculty reporting that some
of the time they spend managing federal grants could
be conducted effectively by administrative personnel
Source: Faculty Standing Committee of the Federal Demonstration Partnership Survey (2009) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2887040/
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Why Shared Services?
Campus Strategic Planning Efforts
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Why Shared Services?
Complexity at the
department level
creates risk,
uncertain
performance, and
inefficiencies
Source: Education Advisory Board, Making the Case for Shared Services, 2009
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Who has Shared Services Operations?
Source: Education Advisory Board, Making the Case for Shared Services, 2009
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Where should I start?
• Do you have a sponsor team?
– At NC State, our Chancellor, Provost, and VC for Finance and Business signed
on as early sponsors
• Do you already have Shared Services at your campus?
– NC State’s Office of Information Technology shared services
– NC State’s Integrated Research Support Group
– Business consolidation at your colleges (University of Washington; UNC-CH)
• Put your exploratory group together
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Consider the leadership of your central business units
Research the model and campuses that have implemented – site visits
Engage campus stakeholders in preliminary conversations
Determine potential scope – Business Functions & Customers
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Where should I start?
• Consider forming a Steering Team
– Cross-section of campus stakeholders – affected central business offices and who will be
initially served
– Hire the Shared Services Director
– Develop the Business Case for Campus
– Design the Shared Services Delivery Model
• NC State – Business Operations Realignment Steering Team
– Our steering team
– Composed of a Dean, department head, PI, college business reps, and central office reps
– Recommended a campus-wide model of customers, both academic units and nonacademic units
– Multiple shared service centers with clusters of customer groups
– Finance and HR functions + pushing “approval” from the central offices to the shared
services centers
Before we go further, let’s discuss the classic shared services model
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What does a Shared Services Organization look like?
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How should we staff Shared Services?
• Shared Services is a consolidation effort budget resources will come from current
operations
• Questions to ask yourself:
– Do you staff exclusively with current campus
personnel?
– Do you internally recruit center positions?
– Do you reallocate current personnel (Lift & Shift)?
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Service is key!
• Anyone can achieve savings!
– Previous centralization efforts are excellent at scaling and
cutting costs
– Centralization increases compliance
• Prioritizing customer service with Shared Services
– Formal Customer Service program for all employees
– Contact center or service protocols – no dropped cases
– Enabling technology – ERP, Case Management, Knowledge
Base
– Simplify! Simplify! Simplify!
Customers remember how they feel…
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NC State’s Hybrid Approach
Timeline
April 2012 - Steering Team recommended multiple regional
centers with Finance and HR services
December 2012 – University Business Operations Division
switched to multiple center organized by Core Business
Function
May 2013 – Onboarding Center Pilot opens
June 2013 – Onboarding well received, but deadlines were
aggressive and overall model wasn’t sufficiently articulated
July 2013 – Revisited design, implementation, and Change
Management
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NC State’s Hybrid Approach
• Shift away comprehensive and compulsory
• Shifts willing partners and demonstrations
– NC State would deliver certain campus-wide services
through a single shared services organization –
University Business Operations Division (UBOD)
Ex: Onboarding
– UBOD would pilot new campus-wide services through
pilot customers
Ex: Travel Services
– UBOD would pilot comprehensive shared services at
the college or division-level as a proof of concept and
scale
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Onboarding at NC State
Create a new hire experience that welcomes, acclimates, engages, and retains new
hires in the Wolfpack community by:
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Making a positive first impression!
Equipping new hires with the tools, information and resources needed to be
productive on their first day, first week and first months of employment.
Orienting new hires to campus.
Assisting Departments and Colleges with onboarding best practices and manager
support/resources.
Providing tools and resources for campus-wide integration.
Establishing personal relationships through networking and social connections.
Increasing new hire morale and productivity.
Helping make NC State a “Best Place to Work”.
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What is done during the Onboarding appointment?
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Campus One Card
Parking pass
I-9 (Part 1 on/before first day)
Tax withholding (W-4, NC-4)
W-2 consent
Direct deposit
Emergency contacts
Emergency alerts
Tax assessment reminders
Assist with any incomplete
checklist items
• Secondary employment
• Conflict of interest
NEO100 registration
NEO200 benefits registration
Howl About It!
Complimentary coffee and
water for new employees
Travel Accounting at NC State
• Self-service interface for Travel Authorizations
and Reimbursements – December 2012
– Partnership between the Controller’s Office,
University Business Operations, and Enterprise
Applications Services
– Paperless Workflow w/ Uploading receipts
– Itemized expenses w/ comments at line item
detail
– Traveler Pagelet to see all open travel transactions
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Travel Accounting at NC State
• Piloting Travel Shared Services with a single college –
Summer of 2014
– Perform reimbursement transactions
– Provide expertise to travellers on systems, policies, and
procedures
– Transfer resources from the college
– After demonstration, open up to more campus customers
• Online Booking Tool – Early 2015
– Partnership with the Controller’s Office, Purchasing, University
Business Operations, and Enterprise Applications Services
– Central web-portal for making flight, hotel, and rental car
purchases on a campus purchase card
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College of Agriculture Partnership
College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS) - Largest college
at NC State
Fall 2011 - Consolidated into a college business center in 2011
Summer 2013 - College leadership sought to restructure the
business office
– Classic Shared Services Model, at the college-level
August 2013 - Partnered with University Business Operations
October 2013 - Hired ScottMadden Management Consultants
January 2014 - ScottMadden delivered recommendations
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College of Agriculture Partnership
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College of Agriculture Partnership
Partnership Goals:
• Improved business services for the faculty of CALS
• Improved business performance and reduction of compliance risk
for CALS
• Improved quality of life for business center staff
• Proof of concept for NC State that shared services can work in an
academic setting
• A large college providing a significant foundation for scaling shared
services to more customer units
• Increased potential for converting other campus units to the shared
service model
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Expected Benefits
• Do not fall prey to large promises of savings
– Some consultants will promote administrative cost savings
of up to 50%
– Some universities are looking at savings of 10% to 30%, but
over time (~ 5 years)
– NC State expects savings, but has not projected $$$
• Remember the budget reductions taken since 2007
– We have communicated to campus that the administrative
savings have already been captured
– Shared services may be the necessary answer to protect
our campus from increased compliance risk and increased
administrative burden on faculty
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Concluding Thoughts – A Top 10
1. Hire your Shared Services Director early
2. Know your model before selling your campus
on shared services – make a business case
3. Stick with your model
4. Shared services is not just about savings, but
compliance and great customer service
5. Look around your campus, you may already
have a shared service and not know it
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Concluding Thoughts – A Top 10
6. Know your business processes and simplify
them!
7. Decide on your staffing model early –
Internally recruit or reallocate
8. Communicate, communicate, communicate!
9. You have to spend money to save money –
investment in the implementation is key
10. At best, plan on 3-5 years
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Concluding Thoughts
Bonus Thought
Change is really hard, so get your sleep
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Thank You!
Jim Klingler
NC State University
University Business Operations
919-513-7132
Jim_klingler@ncsu.edu