Accenture (News - Alert) has entered into a management consulting contract with the University of Michigan. As part of the contract, Accenture will assist the University in the deployment of a novel Shared Services Center. The Shared Service Center aims to enhance operational competence by offering extremely economical and versatile administrative services. The university aims to save nearly $17 million each year with these enhanced process, organization and technology-facilitated efficiencies.

Finance and human resource services will be offered by the Shared Services Center, which is expected to commence operations in 2014. A key part of the University’s Administrative Services Transformation (AST) approach is the migration to shared services. For the past three years, the University has been involved in comprehensive benchmarking preparing for the migration.

Inputs for the initative were provided by the university’s faculty and workforce. The new structure will feature strong governance and service administration systems. Accenture will be responsible for change management, business process redesign for finance and HR processes, and organizational design and deployment. The organization will also facilitate technology design and general project administration for the Shared Services Center.

In a statement, Ryan Oakes, Accenture said, “The University of Michigan continues to be a leader in higher education. This program is driving operational improvements to administrative functions while addressing the need for top tier service levels delivered in a cost effective manner. Shared services is rapidly emerging as a key tool for universities to transform their administrative operations to generate sustainable reductions in the cost of providing back-office services while at the same time enhancing service quality.”

Accenture is an international management consulting, technology services and outsourcing organization. The company currently employs more than 266,000 people in over 120 countries. For the financial year ending August 31, 2012, the organization reported net revenues of US$27.9 billion.