Sustainable business improvement in a global corporation - Shell Services

Setting up a new global organization is a challenge in itself. To do this by harmonizing existing but different business operations across the world into a single, global organization adds another level of complexity. This case study describes how Shell Services enabled such a transformation by developing and putting in place a set of tools, processes and systems that became known as the Shell Services Quality Framework, or SQF. To put the organization into context, Shell Services comprised several companies across the globe employing some 6500 staff with a turnover in excess of $1 bn.

With a clear focus on becoming a customer-centric organization, there was a need to look at the core processes required to sustain improved business performance as perceived by customers. Many of these processes were broken. At the same time, it was recognized that without helping the people in the organization to embrace the values, behaviors and competencies necessary to become customer-centric, the vision could not be achieved. Finally, both people and process improvements had to be underpinned by a quality framework that could be used to define standards, targets and metrics as well as tracking performance improvements over time (Figure C2.1).

With such a diverse and complex organization, no one existing quality model was seen as offering a suitable basis for harmonization and inclusivity. Although some proprietary models were favored locally, there was seen to be benefit in seeking to bring together the best of these into a Shell specific product. Criteria such as simplicity with completeness, inclusion of best practice, availability of supporting tools and suitability for self-assessment were chosen and several well-known quality improvement approaches were researched to arrive at the SQF (Figure C2.2). Each model contributed attributes and strengths, but no single model offered the power, simplicity and completeness of the SQF.

 Structure of the SQF

At the top level, the SQF is a simple but powerful construct consisting of five key chevrons. Four of these are enablers - namely Purpose, People, Resources and Process. The fifth is the Results chevron, which focuses on tracking performance improvement as a result of implementing the framework (Figure C2.3).

Although this may seem a simple construct it has proved tremendously valuable, even at the top level, to ask a simple question about each of the five chevrons. A satisfactory answer is somewhat more difficult to provide than a business leader might expect.

Each of the chevrons is broken down into level 2 and level 3 components in order to define key descriptors, for which tiers of practice, including best practice, can be defined at level four. This is best illustrated in Figure C2.4, where the Process chevron is taken down to level 4 of the framework.