News & Research: Client Successes

Case Study: Facilities Management Support Center Model

As part of a global, multi-million dollar initiative to transform processes and systems for the delivery of facilities maintenance and related services, ScottMadden worked with a large pharmaceutical company to develop a standard support center model for handling employee-assisted service requests and for supporting functional service delivery teams with common services.

• As part of a global initiative to reduce real estate and facilities operating costs, the company needed to standardize multiple technology platforms, disparate service offerings, and site-centric delivery processes
• Customer support philosophies varied among the nine global sites.  Some used formal call centers, others used self-service portals, and some used a combination of self- and assisted service
• Some sites resisted the idea of creating a support center rationalizing that self-service was sufficient
• Some delivery functions resisted the shared services concept as a potential loss of control
• The project budget became an issue because of corporate cost reduction pressures.  Additional business cases had to be developed to justify moving forward.  Moreover, outside resources had to be replaced with internal staff

• Assembled the design team with representation from each site
• Conducted a detailed current-state assessment to establish a baseline of how facility services were requested and supported
• Researched leading practices for customer support in a shared services environment
• Created a business case to justify funding the proposed support center model design
  
• Socialized the concept design with key stakeholders to obtain buy-in and support
• Designed a future-state support center model to:
• Provide help desk assistance to users of the self-service portal
• Give direct assistance to users for more complex issues or when higher levels of customer service were needed
• Offer a shared service function to service delivery teams for common support functions
• Prepared comprehensive design, including governance, organization, operations, scope of services, and service levels as a blueprint for short- and long-term implementation at each site

• The detailed support center model served as a blueprint for each site to develop harmonization plans
• The business case showed a positive ROI by implementing the proposed model.  Savings were achieved from shifting work from high-cost service delivery resources to lower-cost shared services resources
• Gained customer support after a "road show" demonstrated time savings using a one-stop-shop for all facilities requests