A new Shared Services business model for US investment bank
The Situation
An American investment bank was looking to reduce its European cost base. I was leading several projects sponsored by the Vice President responsible for Finance, Admin & Operations (FA&O) and over the course of a few months, he and I came up with a blueprint for a new business unit which would enable them to move back office jobs away from the expensive Canary Wharf location and into a new shared service centre in Glasgow. The bank approved the business case and my small firm was invited to tender for the consultancy support. After being shortlisted against KPMG, we were awarded the contract.
The Task
With me as director in charge, we were tasked with partnering with an internal Programme Director to build a joint bank / consulting team to implement what became known as Alternative Sourcing. The implementation basically involved creating a whole new business: finding premises, redeploying a small number of key individuals from London, agreeing terms and conditions and recruiting a new team in Glasgow, putting processes and systems in place, setting business targets and critical success factors and key performance indicators for all teams in the operation, and then overseeing the migration of work from London to Glasgow.
The Action / Approach
The activity pretty well followed the set tasks. Over a two-and-a-half year period, the new centre moved from start-up to full operation.
I was overseeing a consulting team comprising our Programme Manager, who led the joint bank / consulting team, reporting to the bank’s Programme Director; and a varying number of consultants working on specific workstreams including systems and process migration, HR support and implementation of performance management. I had regular review meetings with the Head of FA&O, who was the overall programme sponsor, and his Programme Director, along with my Programme Manager.
The Result
The programme was a resounding success. The bank achieved its target of reducing people costs by more than 30% and the Alternative Sourcing model was subsequently replicated globally, with further shared service centres being established in the eastern United States and in India.