NASA Shared Services Center Beats Expectations, Wins Accolades

Many organizations outsource certain business processes in hope of lowering administrative costs while improving service. Not all such efforts succeed. NASA's Shared Services Center is an example of how to do it right.

An Ambitious Vision

Located on the grounds of the Stennis Space Center near Bay St. Louis, Miss., the NASA Shared Services Center (NSSC) is a public-private partnership among NASA, prime contractor CSC and its team members, and the states of Mississippi and Louisiana.

In May 2005, NASA contracted with CSC to centralize agencywide administrative and support activities dispersed across 10 NASA field centers. The effort involved integrating services in four critical functional areas — financial management, human resources, IT and procurement — in one location. The NSSC would have the capacity to support 20,000 NASA employees, university partners, applicants and contractors.

A Disastrous Intervention

CSC had been the only bidder with experience implementing its own shared services organization. That experience helped weather the many challenges encountered in taking the NSSC from blueprint to reality.

The original go-live date for NSSC was October 1, 2005, but in late August, Hurricane Katrina devastated the coast of Mississippi and Louisiana. NSSC staff temporarily relocated to Washington, D.C. to continue operations. However, there were 100 new positions to be filled at the Mississippi site, so CSC quickly organized a job fair.

It was a welcome event in the area, still reeling from Katrina’s destruction. More than 1,200 people attended the fair and nearly 600 resumes were submitted. Nevertheless, for some positions, attracting talent to the area was challenging.

When all was said and done, NSSC opened its doors after only a 6-month delay, on March 1, 2006. By May 2007, two years after contract award, the 350-member NASA-CSC team had transitioned to NSSC about two-thirds of the processes in scope. All the transitioned activities were meeting established service levels and operating successfully.

Overcoming Resistance

Katrina notwithstanding, moving to a shared services model was a major change for NASA and, not surprisingly, there was considerable resistance. The team prepared for this inevitable challenge in a number of ways:

• Including senior NASA executives in governance
• Educating stakeholders on the benefits of shared services
• Locating change agents at the Field Centers
• Using outside experts to develop the business case and analyze ROI.
• Partnering with customers to develop meaningful service level agreements
• Bringing transparency to the cost and efficiency of NASA support processes.

Exceeding Performance Goals

All-in-all, 49 processes were transitioned to NSSC in two-and-a-half years, and that success was only the beginning. NASA’s $30 million initial investment was recouped ahead of schedule, in 2.3 years instead of the projected 2.8. The estimated annual savings to NASA, originally projected at $6 million to $8 million, has increased to $12 million to $16 million. If that savings rate continues, the NSSC will save NASA $120 million dollars by 2015 – real dollars that will support the mission to Mars.

In March 2009, the NSSC won the Best New Captive Services Delivery award from the Shared Services Outsourcing Network. (Read press release.)

Learn how NSSC took top honors at the 2009 Shared Services Excellence Awards.

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