From back office to expertise centre

Within Digital Service Delivery, two closely linked change movements ran in parallel. On one hand, the existing back office wanted to evolve into an expertise centre. For that, it had to become clear what the core assignment of the operation was, for which internal and external audiences it created value, which expertise set it apart from classical administration, what role it played in quality, continuity, regulation and process improvement, and how employees could recognise themselves within that new identity.

On the other hand, an additional Process Support team was formed by bringing together employees and task packages from two existing teams. There the emphasis was more strongly on structure and coherence: which assignments belong together, how do we avoid fragmentation and how does one logically working team emerge? The two trajectories had different starting points but the same underlying ambition: evolve from a collection of tasks to a recognisable and professionally organised expertise operation.

We didn't start from job titles or existing structures, but from the actual contribution to the organisation. Together with employees and leaders we mapped which complex questions and files the team handled, which knowledge was not obviously present elsewhere in the organisation, where the team safeguarded quality, prevented risks or ensured continuity, which partners and processes depended on that expertise, and which future role the team could take on.

For the Process Support team we ordered the existing tasks into five recognisable workstreams: management of complex financing and rights frameworks, privacy and confidentiality, quality control and process monitoring, administrative relief, and support for internal operations. Tasks were assessed on criteria such as necessary case and regulatory knowledge, impact on financing, rights, privacy and quality, need for end-to-end process knowledge, vulnerability of the audience concerned, and the question whether centralisation truly added value.

A new structure only works when employees understand why it emerges and what place they get in it. That's why we combined organisational design with a positioning and identity exercise. Not only processes, roles and responsibilities came up, but also questions like: what connects these employees, what do they want to stand for as a team, where lies their mandate, and how do we prevent an expertise centre from once again being seen as merely an administrative back office?

The shift became tangible as soon as the conversation no longer went about 'which tasks do we perform?' but about 'why is this expertise essential?'. Employees started describing their operation from the value they add, not from the tasks they complete.

With that, self-perception shifted too. The department no longer spoke about itself as a back office, but as an expertise centre with its own story, its own positioning and a recognisable point of contact for the organisation.

An expertise centre does not emerge by giving a back office a new name. It emerges when expertise is made recognisable, when assignments are organised logically and employees develop a shared professional identity. The structural exercise gave clarity on the what and how. The positioning and identity exercise made visible why the operation matters and what role it can take within the organisation.

The department now has a sharper core assignment, a recognisable positioning, five logically built workstreams, a first end-to-end process picture, clear criteria for what does and doesn't belong within the team, and a common language with which employees and management can talk about the operation. The back office is thus no longer described only from processing and support, but from its contribution to quality, expertise assurance, risk management and structural process improvement.