Over the next few weeks I will be sharing with you some of the gems that came out of the March event on 15 Well Ket Secrets to Shared Services Success (sponsored by market leaders OB10 and Basware).  Where to start?!  With Secret No. 4, of course: ”Practise Lean’ led by Marks and Spencer.   All this is intended to help you with your shared services, e-invoicing and purchase to pay projects.

Make Lean An Innate Way of Thinking and Increase Your PO Compliancy

Marks and Spencer established their shared services centre in 2003.  Now they have 110 FTEs in Finance supporting 65,000 FTEs.  In 2006 they realised they had no KPIs and decided in truth they weren’t really operating shared services, but instead centralised finance.  There were demands from the business to offer more support without increasing headcount.  They realised they needed their team to become more productive, and therefore more efficient.  Therein followed a shift to ‘Create a Passion for Excellence’.  In April 2007 they went live with SAP.  They are indeed the largest implementation of SAP in retail.  They executed Lean and now 90% of customers are satisfied.  Lucy Wilson Head of Operations and Service Management and Jason McGovern Head of Accounting Operations reminded us that Lean is not about cost reduction but about eliminating ‘waste’ and focusing on reducing the time spent on an activity.

Key Take Aways:

1. They switched this and freed up £60 million cash and added £2.2 million to the bottomline through interest.
2. They ran a 5 day workshop and documented each process, and then agreed which bits didn’t add any value, and which bits they didn’t add value to.
3. They also ensured there would be no more than 5 people in the team.
4. Through Lean they have reduced this to 6 pence – a savings of £2 million.
5. Through Lean they have reduced the time an FTE spends on financial processes by 58% – this means productivity can easily double.
6. They calculated that each SAP license cost £500 per annum – they identified all SAP users, and then 120 FTEs that did not require access to SAP and delivered a £60K annual saving.
7. M&S do not have the option of parking an invoice – there are only 2 options – post it on the system or return it.
8. They implemented a No PO No Pay scheme and went from 55% PO to 90% PO – in non merchandise PO invoices are now at 96%.

If these themes resonate with you make sure you attend our free webinar in 2 weeks Discover How to Increase Invoices Processed Per FTE By 300% sponsored by Proactis

Casandra Daubney facilitated at excellent Masterclass for sharedserviceslink.com this month.  Much of her work is about Change.  Her mantra is that if you want to secure change and improvement in performance, then it is all about changing behaviour.  Not systems.  Not policies.  But behaviour.  Being creatures of habit, some of us dig our heels in so deeply and avoid change at any cost.  We resist and tense up and even cry and stamp our feet at the prospect.  Casandra would say that individuals who show these symptoms are in the ‘Denial part of the J Curve’  This is the second time this month I have heard shared serivces execs talk about the ‘J Curve’.

‘So what is it?’  I hear you ask.  I know it might sound fun and a little playful, involving a slide which makes one ‘whoop’ as you descend… but actually it’s pretty painful.  Casandra swears that whenever a circumstance dies, which could be the death of processing an invoice in a certain way to the death of relationship, we start our journey down the Curve.  First comes Denial.  Heels are dug in, teeth are gritted, eyes turn to narrow slits and you do everything you can to do what you always did in the way you always did it.  Then after you see that approach collapsing around you, you become angry.  Anger is the Second Post on the Curve.  You can see angry behaviour everwhere, and in P2P it involves ‘being nasty’ about the new process, standing by your opinion that the old way was better.  However, people instigating change in orgranisations can identify these angy people a mile off and take comfort that atleast they are near the Final Post.  Which is?

Acceptance.  Ah – this is a place of quietness and ease, a place where ‘things just happen’ without the screaming and the shouting.  Acceptance brings you out of the dip in the J Curve and the end place looks better and rosier that the circumstance you were grieving over.  And this really is the Beginning. 

The interesting thing is we go through this curve many times every day.  Another interesting observation Casandra talks about is that you can accelerate the pace at which you go through the curve.  And you can make it more shallow.  But you cannot shortcut the stages and go from Denial to Acceptance.  You will always have those three. 

If you are interested in knowing how to manage people in P2P who are at these stages email me at susie.west@sharedserviceslink.com