DELIVERING THE VISION OF FSSC
One of the key decisions that firms must make regarding the move to the FSSC is how
fast or slowly to proceed towards the fully centralised structure. The evidence to date
suggests that the speed of transition is very much contingent on the organisation in
question. In particular, factors such as the number of sites involved, the level of
integration of the existing IT platforms and the climate for change must all be taken into
account when deciding the pace of change. What is clear, however, is that the likelihood
of a successful transition to the FSSC model is substantially improved when a structured
transition/migration plan is put in place before the project begins. Typically, firms will
follow the following steps when moving to the FSSC structure.
Phase I. Establishing the business case
The focus in the initial stages is on raising awareness of the FSSC concept and on
securing executive sponsorship and ‘buy-in’ at CFO and board level. This will typically
involve briefings to executives on the FSSC concept, and information gathering.
Attendance at seminars/conferences, short sessions with consultants and discussions with
firms that have made the move to an FSSC are often helpful at this stage. The primary
objective at this point is to achieve a shared understanding on the following issues:
• the nature of FSSCs
• the limitations of FSSCs
• likely timescales, benefits, drawbacks and critical success factors.
It is vitally important at this stage that expectations are carefully managed to avoid loss of
executive support later on in the project. Once the firm has a clear understanding of the
issues involved it can begin to assess the business case in detail. This will typically
involve a cost-benefit analysis under the main headings of People, Process, Technology
and Facilities. The question of likely locations, and issues such as green field versus
brown field versus existing locations, will begin to be addressed. Useful cost and other
comparative data is often available from groups such as consultants, government bodies,
recruitment specialists and educational institutions (particularly with respect to graduate/
staff availability). All the large consulting firms now have service offerings in this area and
this can help short circuit what is often a time-consuming data-gathering process. Some