What Is Shared Services?
Shared services refers to organizing common business support activities such as finance, human resources, procurement, information technology, or customer operations into a centralized or semi-centralized model that serves multiple business units. Companies use shared services to address duplicated work, inconsistent processes, uneven service levels, and high back-office costs. Projects in this group often include service delivery model design, location strategy, process standardization, transition planning, governance, service catalog and service-level agreement design, and performance management. Clients may seek independent consultant support when evaluating whether to centralize functions, planning a migration, or redesigning an existing shared services organization to improve cost, control, and service quality.
Umbrex Practices in Shared Services
- Contract lifecycle management
Contract intake and approval workflow redesign, clause governance, renewal and obligation tracking, and contract lifecycle management platform selection and implementation
- Global business services design
Service scope, governance, hub location strategy, and migration planning for enterprise shared services across finance, HR, procurement, and support functions
- Legal operations
Outside counsel spend control, CLM and matter management implementation, and legal intake redesign to improve contract cycle times
- Service catalog and service level agreement design
Service definitions, SLA tiers, intake rules, and escalation paths for clearer shared services commitments and performance management
- Shared services governance and chargeback design
Service catalog, decision rights, service levels, and chargeback model design for shared services funding and internal cost allocation
- Shared services operating model design
Scope decisions, retained roles, governance, location strategy, and migration planning for finance, HR, procurement, and other shared services
- Shared services performance improvement
Service center redesign, process standardization, and service-level improvement to reduce cost-to-serve across finance, HR, procurement, and IT
- Shared services strategy
Centralization scope, location, delivery model, and business case design for finance, HR, IT, and other support functions
- Work migration and transition planning
Migration wave design, knowledge transfer, cutover readiness, and stabilization planning for moving work into shared services, outsourcing, or captive centers