Friday again – amazing, it seems like it happens almost on a weekly basis – and a date notable for seeing the launch of SSON’s Weekly Wrap, a podcast in which I combine interviews, news, comment and classical music (ok, not really) to, hopefully, not-too-emetic effect. You can listen to the first instalment now: once you’re done laughing, let me know what you think.
Earlier today I interviewed Liz Mackay, Group Head of HR Services UK, AXA, about her organization’s HR transformation journey which was launched around six years ago. You can get the full story when I put this podcast up on the site next week, but one of the salient points to emerge was that yet again one of the biggest obstacles to the process was ensuring robust buy-in from the very top. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve heard this over the past few months but I guess there’s no real way to avoid it completely; the best remedy seems to be that which Liz and her team utilized: demonstrating through solid metrics the absolute worth of the new set-up. Despite all the evidence there still seems to be a great degree of scepticism regarding shared services in some quarters. Maybe the downturn and the increased reliance on shared services we’re observing will change all that. Or maybe not. Maybe this time next year we’ll all be living in caves. Which would definitely be another negative for the housing market.
On a radical tangent: I had the pleasure of meeting Phil Fersht in the flesh for the first time yesterday along with a couple of SSON colleagues. It was an all-too-brief pleasure, but we had time for – as well as a couple of refreshments – a good chat about the prospects for the global economy next year, and about a couple of the more notorious characters from around the SS & O space. I look forward to many more, and more protracted, such occasions.
I’m off. Enjoy your weekend. This will help.
Jamie
Tags: Add new tag, BPO, HR, Outsourcing, Phil Fersht, Shared Services, sourcing, SSON, transformation, Wrap
