Imperial College Shared Services
Business Challenge
When Imperial College introduced an integrated computer system to align its HR, Finance, IT, Procurement and Estate Management functions, it needed help to bring its administrative teams together under a Shared Services infrastructure.
Imperial College wanted to:
- Facilitate teamworking between the previously separate departments
- Build trust amongst the cross-functional team
- Create commercial leverage by helping people to work more effectively together.
How Inspire Helped
Inspire was invited to work alongside communications consultancy partner Dympna Cunnane to run two 2-day workshops for 50 Imperial College middle managers who were responsible for the cross-functional teams. The days were both exploratory and practical; managers reviewed the changes that had been introduced from different team perspectives and agreed what functional changes were needed in order to achieve effective teamworking. These recommendations were then presented to the senior management team for review. The second, follow-up workshop reviewed the senior management response and helped the team to forward the actions required to facilitate smarter Shared Services working relationships.
Outcomes
By helping the middle management team to take responsibility for working together and overcome cross-function team challenges, Dympna Cunnane and Inspire helped a technology-led change refocus its emphasis around the needs of Imperial College’s people. The vision of a Shared Services team became reality as a result.