• Welcome to Shared Services Summit 2008
• Leadership in Shared Services – What are the Key Skills?
• Transform Your Shared Services through A/P Automation
• Shared Services Summit Leaders

Dear %%FIRST%%,

Shared Services Summit is gearing up to be a huge success! We've received an overwhleming response of new companies attending as well as some of our old time favourites returning. Networking and career development opportunities will be second to none.

In this issue we discuss what it takes to be a Shared Services Leader and profile two of our speakers that are definete leaders in the industry.

Take your career to the next level by networking with the most influential experts in the Shared Services industry!

Naomi Secor
Conference Director
Shared Services Summit

P.S. Register today to receive a complimentary workshop or site tour!

Often management measure the numbers – how efficient were you, how effective were you and what value did you add to the organization at large?

But to get to the point where you are posting meaningful results against useful metrics, you must use all of your “softer skills” to get the ball rolling and create the successful results.

So this begs the question: what are the essential skills of the successful Shared Services leader?

And as with all complicated questions there is no “one” answer, no silver bullet, no elixir to drink.

However there are a number of qualities that all successful Shared Services leaders display throughout their careers and we can distill some core qualities that we see in most successful Shared Service leaders.

These are:

• Be a true Shared Services believer – you really have to believe that Shared Services works and that it provides your organization with more efficiency and value than would exist without the Shared Service center. This belief is based on the hard core metrics and an ongoing plan – not just faith. You have to be the charismatic, enigmatic pragmatist.

• Court all of the stakeholders with tailored customized approaches to gain their ongoing support and commitment. Call it political savvy or political correctness you need to know the WIFM of every one of your stakeholders and play to it. You build credibility by knowing their needs and responding to them. Sometimes you need to re-motivate the management – remind them why they committed to Shared Services and you may need to re-align their expectations on a regular basis – do this proactively do not wait to lose track before re-aligning the key stakeholders.

• Get the right people in place and keep them there – you need cheerleaders and great people who do great work as members of your Shared Services family. You need to motivate and reward these people so they stay committed because if you lose your key people, your customers (business units) lose trust. You need to create viable and exciting career paths for your team members that show them a rewarding future.

• See yourself as a change agent – you never see the end of the implementation of Shared Services, it is a continuous path of improvement and you are the impetus behind this ongoing striving for further efficiencies and value. To do this well you need to enjoy the journey and not always focus on the end –as the end is always a moving target.

• Deal effectively with the non-believers. There are always those that will never support the Shared Services concept as much as you would like. Actively work to either eliminate the impact or if at all possible win over the “nay sayers”, but most importantly do not ignore impact that they have on your ability to add value to the business.

How do you know when you have been a success? This of course will vary but if the business units are calling you to take on more functions and all of your stakeholders are actively engaged in your strategy, then I think it is fair to say progress is being made along the path to success.

Shared Services Summit will bring some of the best leaders together coming from our speaker faculty and attendees. Don't miss this opportunity to network with the best in the industry!

View all leaders on Shared Services Summit here

Call: 1-800-882-8684
Email: usmarketing@iqpc.com

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Special Offers

A Financial Shared Services center is tasked with lowering operating costs while increasing efficiencies and overall productivity. When considering automating critical functions such as Invoice or Order processing, it’s the perfect time to look at those processes and how to make them more efficient.

HMPS transformed its P2P operations by first creating a Shared Service Center and then implementing Brainware for AP Automation, and as a result, dropped their cost to process an invoice by over 50%. View the HMPS testimonial video at www.brainware.com/SSS08.

Michael Jones, VP Americas Controller, Yahoo

Michael Jones joined Yahoo in August of 2004 as a Senior Director over the Accounting Services team.  He steered Yahoo through a successful SOX implementation in their initial year and was instrumental in establishing a consolidated Shared Services Center in Dublin throughout 2004 and 2005.  In 2006 Michael led a team to re-engineer the Yahoo close cycle and reduced it from 20+ days to 5.  Yahoo is currently in the process of implementing AssureNET and ReconNET to further solidify their control environment and enhance productivity. 

Kris Rosiak, Global Director of IT Infrastructure Finance, UBS

Kris Rosiak focused on leading the implementation and change management of the UBS Group IT Cost Transparency philosophy, processes, and tools.  UBS IT Infrastructure was formed approximately 5 years ago as a Shared Services Organization, with the vision of delivering reliable, cost effective IT Infrastructure products and services globally for the benefit of the varied business groups and UBS' shareholders.  Over his 15+ year career, he has led effective financial management processes, systems and organizations in the Information Technology, Telecommunications, Financial Services, Banking, and Manufacturing industries; which included a mix of shared services organizations and more traditional, functional departments.  

Read more speaker bios here

• Speaker Q&A's