Risks, issues and critical success factors in shared service center projects

Abstract

This paper is based on a case study performed in a Shared Service Center from SEG Automotive group, a former automotive division from Bosch. Due to the Bosch decision of selling the business unit of Starter Motors and Generators, it was required to create a Shared Service Center which performed the processes, until then executed by central departments to all Bosch divisions. This paper will focus on the project of processes transfer from the Bosch departments to the Shared Service Center. Through semi-structured interviews to the leadership team, it was intended to identify the major risks and issues of those projects and its critical success factors, in order to allow the management to work on measures that can avoid the risks and issues and potentiate the project success. The results show the importance of the alignment and cooperation of all stakeholders during the whole project life. It turns also clear the need of a project manager that leads the project, guides the team and has authority for decisions making. Moreover, the influence of the project team within the project is clear, being crucial to have experience, flexibility and multilanguage knowledge.