Suggested Readings
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Effectiveness is Key to Bigger Supply Management Gains - April 2009
by Dr. Leland Forst, The Amherst Group Limited
When a company evaluates support services for leveraging, what it typically has in mind are efficiency gains. If the organization processes 10,000 payroll or AP transactions monthly, spread among half a dozen business units, there is obviously potential for cheaper service delivery...
TPI Journal of Sourcing Leadership - Jan. 2006
In this issue: p.11 Optimal Organizational Leverage: Where are you on the Shared ServicesSM Continuum?
by Dr. Leland Forst and Holly Newsom Bush, The Amherst Group Limited
Within the boardrooms of corporations
across the globe, there is a common theme
evident in considering strategic initiatives: the
effect of globalization. Moreover, the pace of
change in the availability of options and variety of
cost factors affecting global service delivery (GSD)
continues to accelerate. Simply stated, there are
more alternatives available today than ever before
when it comes to emerging markets for products
and services, and sources for business support
functions...
External Benchmarking Hinges on Internal Data
Industrial Management, July/August 2003
by Dr. Leland I. Forst, CEO and Managing Director, The Amherst Group Limited
The need to collect comparative data has become an obsession among large
companies, particularly those pursuing process improvements or cost effectiveness. The
fascination with benchmarking has ignited debate over what information to collect, how
to collect it and ultimately, what to do with it...
Customer Satisfaction Measurement is Key
Industrial Management (Sidebar), July/August 2003
by Dr. Leland I. Forst, CEO and Managing Director, The Amherst Group Limited
Measuring satisfaction levels on services delivered to internal customers provides a
quantitative baseline for comparing results over extended time periods and enables factbased
decision-making...
Performance Improvement Relies on Customer Satisfaction Input
Sbusiness, January/February 2003
by Dr. Leland I. Forst, CEO and Managing Director, The Amherst Group Limited
You have probably read about the relationship between measuring internal customer
satisfaction and fully leveraging service delivery. Companies that treat their internal
service users as customers typically have a similar commitment to measuring the level
of satisfaction with service delivery. Doing so consistently provides a quantitative
baseline for comparing results over extended time periods that enables fact-based
decision-making...
We Aren't There Yet
Journal of Business Strategy (Sidebar), September 2002
by Dr. Leland I. Forst, CEO and Managing Director, The Amherst Group Limited
Having served as advisor and counsel on Leveraged Service Delivery issues to
Amoco, BHP Billiton, Honeywell, Proctor & Gamble, Southwestern Bell and other
major corporations over the past two decades, I have seen the management
initiative come full circle...
Leveraging Supply Chain Expertise
Journal of Business Strategy, September 2002
by Dr. Leland I. Forst, CEO and Managing Director, The Amherst Group Limited
During the past decade, scores of major companies made the decision to shift
selected functions into new, independent business units for the purpose of
leveraging delivery of services to internal customers. Corporations such as
Alcoa, BHP Billiton, Bristol-Meyers Squibb, Boeing, Chase Manhattan, DuPont,
GE, Honeywell, HP, International Paper, Johnson&Johnson, Proctor & Gamble,
Shell, Southwestern Bell, Southern California Edison, Unisys and others
established these business units, primarily to gain efficiencies in delivering scale
services...
Leverage Services for Effectiveness, Not Just Efficiency
Performance Xpress, January 2002
by Dr. Leland I. Forst, CEO and Managing Director, The Amherst Group Limited
When companies evaluate a support service for leveraging, the objective is
typically to gain efficiency, such as cheaper service delivery. Few anticipate the
change will drive better service delivery, or boost company share price. But it
can, if effectiveness gains are pursued with equal vigor...
Will Shared ServicesSM Continue to Grow?
Customer Service Management, February/March 2001
by Dr. Leland I. Forst, CEO and Managing Director, The Amherst Group Limited
A decade ago, few executives had heard of Shared Services. Today, hundreds of
companies around the globe have thriving Shared Services business units.
As these organizations evolved from their nascent, transaction-based
incarnations into dynamic, market-driven business entities, they gained
increasing acceptance among the corporate hierarchy...
A Leg Up on Acquisition Payoffs
Mergers & Acquisitions, April 2001
by Dr. Leland I. Forst, CEO and Managing Director, The Amherst Group Limited
On a day in early January this year, the headlines streamed reports of merger
and acquisition activity. The Washington Post reported that Trans World Airlines
(TWA), would file for bankruptcy prior to being acquired by American Airlines. An
AP wire story confirmed the Justice Department would approve the $106 billion
merger of America Online and Time Warner...
The Evolution of the Shared ServicesSM Business Unit
Performance Improvement, September 2000
by Dr. Leland I. Forst, CEO and Managing Director, The Amherst Group Limited
Over the past 15 years, corporate America’s downsizing
efforts have largely focused on reducing headcounts. While
slashing overhead and boosting responsiveness were
admirable objectives, most companies employed a “meat-ax”
approach that resulted in reduced morale without improved organizational
performance or agility...
Shared ServicesSM Steps Up
Business Finance, July 2000
by Tad Leahy, Business Finance contributing editor
You Get What You Ask For
The Journal of Business Strategy, March/June 1999
by Dr. Leland I. Forst, CEO and Managing Director, The Amherst Group Limited
It doesn’t take much outsourcing experience to learn you can’t take vendor promises on
faith, but many companies do just that. When management is under the gun to slash
service delivery costs, or under siege from dissatisfied internal customers who can’t get
what they need when they need it, they'll want to make a quick decision. The vendor will
often help speed the decision by cutting prices. In a competitive bidding war for a prized
client, the vendor may even price services below cost to win the account...
Outstanding Service is an Inside Job
The Journal for Quality and Participation, March/April 1999
by Dr. Leland I. Forst, CEO and Managing Director, The Amherst Group Limited
The downsizing efforts of corporate America over the past
15 years have largely focused on reducing headcount in staff areas.
While the objectives of slashing overhead and boosting responsiveness
are admirable, the “meat-ax” approach used typically reduces
morale without improving organizational performance and agility...
The Customer First: Clarion Call at AlliedSignal
Training Magazine, November/December 1998
by George White, Director of Customer Service, Quality and Communications AlliedSignal Business Services
Many times, employees who work in areas
that provide shared services don’t recognize
that other departments of the company
should be treated as clients. To
overturn this mindset and emphasize the
importance of quality, AlliedSignal Business
Services reorganized its traditional structure
into a more client-focused one. By
helping employees understand that the key
to being successful internal suppliers was
to recognize other employees as clients, the
company was able to significantly improve
its measures of performance...
Understanding Best Practices in Shared ServicesSM Organizations
AFSM International, The Professional Journal, August 1998
by Dr. Leland I. Forst, CEO and Managing Director, The Amherst Group Limited
For most companies, the impetus for Shared Services (delivery of internal staff support)
is closely tied to cost reduction and productivity improvement, typically pursued through
reengineering and technology. By internal staff support, I refer to discrete services that
produce observable outcomes; Internal customers include everyone from executives to
employees who receive administrative, problem-solving or strategic support from staff
functions. While Shared Services continues to produce significant productivity and cost
reduction gains, practitioners now recognize the importance of becoming serviceoriented,
business-based, contribution-valued and partnership-integrated. Defining and
understanding Best Practices is an integral step in achieving these objectives...
Running Internal Support Services like a Business
RESOURCE (Life Insurance Office Management Association), December 1997
by Dr. Leland I. Forst, CEO and Managing Director, The Amherst Group Limited
The desire to make staff services more efficient and market-driven has been a priority for much of corporate
America in the past decade. The exploration of various reduction, outsourcing, process
reengineering, TQM and organizational restructuring alternatives
led many companies to investigate - and ultimately implement - a Shared Services
business unit...
A Director's Guide to Shared Internal Services
Director's Monthly (National Association of Corporate Directors), November 1997
by Dr. Leland I. Forst, CEO and Managing Director, The Amherst Group Limited
It is hard to believe that it has been just
a decade since a few major American
corporations independently came to the
conclusion that if staff work performed
by separate business units addressed the
same fundamental needs, there was no
reason to perform it individually within
each unit...
Fulfilling the Strategic Promise of Shared ServicesSM
Strategy & Leadership, January/February 1997
by Dr. Leland I. Forst, CEO and Managing Director, The Amherst Group Limited
The downsizing efforts of corporate America over the past fifteen years have largely
focused on reducing headcount in staff areas. While the objectives of slashing overhead
and boosting responsiveness were admirable, the “meat-ax” approach used reduced
morale without improving organizational performance and agility. One reason why the
emphasis on controlling headcount has been counterproductive is because it ignores
the need to improve important services, eliminate unnecessary ones and put in place a
process justifying the addition of new and needed services...
New Operating Unit Delivers Better Results
Supervision, December 1996
by Dr. Leland I. Forst, CEO and Managing Director, The Amherst Group Limited
Recently, a number of major companies have independently reached the same conclusion: if
staff work performed by separate business units addresses the same fundamental needs, why
perform it individually for each unit? Conversely, if staff work performed by one organizational entity
addresses multiple, dissimilar needs, why perform that work in a bundled manner?
The Customer First, Last & Always; Clarion Call at AlliedSignal
Training Magazine, November/December 1998
by George White Director of Customer Service, Quality and Communications AlliedSignal Business Services
AlliedSignal is an international manufacturing and technology company with
approximately 77,000 employees and 325 facilities worldwide. As you might imagine,
doing almost anything on an enterprise-wide basis can be a formidable task. Providing
internal services to an organization this large and widespread has been a significant
challenge...
Kaiser Permanente Targets Internal Services for Strategic Restructuring Effort
Healthcare Strategic Management, March 1996
by Bernard Tyson, VP of Human Resources for Kaiser Permanente
For many years, Kaiser Permanente dominated the
healthcare maintenance services market. We were
highly profitable, and when an occasional problem
arose, we were usually able to solve it by adding
resources. It was a strategic approach not without drawbacks,
but as “king of the hill” there was little impetus to
change...
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