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Shared services are very trendy things these days, and in some cases they actually work too! I implemented one for Motorola awhile back and it led to some interesting conversations.
Take IT for example. Motorola took the same helicopter view that everything must pay for itself through generation of savings or increased revenues. Then, at the first hurdle it all fell over. Why? The beancounters desperately needed a new finance system yet it couldn't be cost justified under the published rules. Sure it made efficiencies possible, but not to the extent required. The project was of course approved thereby driving a coach and horses through the rules of the SSC.
Going a stage further, setting a SSC call centre up is also costly and tricky. Does one go for specialists and call filter where possible, or just throw the calls at the next available handset? Getting this right is critical for the customer experience. We aren't inrterested in growing pains, we want our service right first time, every time.
There is much much more to setting up SSC's as Donna will probably know, but they aren't always the expected panacae, and certainly rarely deliver the hoped for savings and improvements.
So, having been there and got the tee shirt, I wish Donna luck, she may well need it.