What Is Global Business Services Design?
Global business services design is the work of defining how a company should organize, govern, locate, and migrate business support activities into a shared services or enterprise service model. It addresses problems such as duplicated work across regions or business units, inconsistent service levels, high overhead, unclear ownership, and limited process standardization, and it often includes scope definition across functions such as finance, human resources, procurement, and customer support, location strategy, service catalog and service-level agreement design, governance, chargeback logic, talent model, enabling technology needs, and migration planning. Clients may seek independent consultant support when they need an objective view on the right model, a practical business case, or experienced leadership to move from design decisions into execution.
When Clients Seek Support
Clients often seek independent consulting support for global business services design when they need to:
- Decide which activities should stay embedded in business units and which should move into an enterprise service model.
- Evaluate whether to use captive centers, third-party providers, regional hubs, or a hybrid delivery footprint.
- Build a business case for centralizing finance, human resources, procurement, information technology support, or customer operations.
- Redesign support functions after a merger, divestiture, or rapid international expansion has created overlapping teams.
- Standardize service levels, governance, and escalation paths across geographies that currently operate differently.
- Plan a phased migration without disrupting payroll, close cycles, supplier payments, or employee support.
- Reset an existing shared services model that is underperforming on cost, quality, control, or stakeholder satisfaction.
Questions We Help Clients Answer
- What work should move into global business services versus stay close to the business?
- Which functions and process towers should we centralize first?
- Should we use one global hub, regional centers, or a hybrid footprint?
- How much cost reduction and service improvement is realistic from this model?
- What governance, decision rights, and service-level agreements do business units need?
- How do we migrate work without disrupting payroll, close, supplier payments, or employee support?
Common Outcomes and Deliverables
Depending on the project scope, consultants supporting global business services design work may develop outputs or implement results such as:
- Current-state baseline of functions, volumes, headcount, costs, service levels, and location footprint.
- Scope matrix by function, process, geography, and business unit showing activities to retain locally versus centralize.
- Target operating model covering organizational structure, leadership roles, governance forums, decision rights, and control points.
- Location strategy comparing onshore, nearshore, and offshore hubs across labor pools, language coverage, risk, and cost.
- Service catalog with service-level agreements (SLAs), case ownership rules, and escalation paths.
- Chargeback or funding model tied to usage drivers, ownership boundaries, and budget impact.
- Business case and phased migration plan with waves, dependencies, transition risks, and benefits tracking.
- Technology and data requirements covering workflow, knowledge management, reporting, and enterprise resource planning (ERP) handoffs.
- New global business services model live, with teams transitioned, governance forums running, and performance metrics in use.
Selected Capabilities by Industry
Consumer Packaged Goods
Trade Promotion and Finance Hub Design: Design a global business services scope for order-to-cash, trade promotion settlement, deductions management, and procure-to-pay across regional brand portfolios; target operating model, hub footprint, and migration waves.
Financial Services
Operations and Control Tower Centralization: Evaluate how client onboarding, know-your-customer (KYC) review support, reconciliations, and finance operations can be organized into shared service centers; governance and location model that balances control requirements, service quality, and cost.
Healthcare
Provider Enterprise Services Model: Assess which scheduling support, credentialing, human resources administration, procurement, and revenue cycle back-office activities can move into enterprise services across hospitals or clinics; phased transition plan that protects patient-facing operations.
Manufacturing & Industrial Equipment
Plant Support Shared Services Blueprint: Map which procurement operations, master data, spare parts planning support, and finance activities should be centralized across plants; hub design and service-level structure that improves consistency without slowing site execution.
Technology
Revenue Operations Service Model: Build a global business services design for order management, billing operations, collections, and customer support administration across fast-growing geographies; scalable operating model and systems dependency plan.
Telecommunications
Provisioning and Billing Back-Office Consolidation: Redesign how provisioning support, billing operations, collections, and field service administration are delivered across markets; migration roadmap aligned to service continuity and regulatory obligations.
Energy & Utilities
Meter-to-Cash Shared Services Design: Design a centralized model for meter data exception handling, billing support, supplier onboarding, and accounts payable; location strategy and governance approach suited to regulatory, seasonal, and service-level demands.
Private Equity
Carve-Out Standalone Support Model: Define retained versus separated activities, transition service agreement (TSA) needs, and day-one support for finance, procurement, and human resources operations; standalone business services design and execution roadmap.
Consultant Profiles Umbrex Can Identify
Umbrex can help clients identify independent consultants with experience relevant to the operating model, location, governance, and migration decisions involved in global business services design.
- Former McKinsey, Bain, BCG consultant experienced in global business services design
- Former global business services or shared services leader with hands-on experience setting scope, service levels, governance, and hub footprint across regions
- Former CFO or COO transformation leader with experience centralizing finance, procurement, human resources, or customer operations without disrupting day-to-day service
- Private equity operating advisor or implementation-focused consultant experienced in carve-outs, TSA planning, and standing up standalone support functions
Illustrative Engagement Models
The right engagement model depends on the client’s objectives, timeline, internal capabilities, and desired level of support. Common ways clients use independent consultants for global business services design include:
- Rapid Diagnostic or Diligence (Typical duration 1-3 weeks)
Assess current fragmentation, candidate scope, baseline costs, and location options to determine whether a global business services model is justified. - Analysis And Decision Support (Typical duration 4-8 weeks)
Compare centralization scenarios, hub options, and functional scope decisions, and support leadership alignment on the business case, governance model, and transition risks. - Strategy Or Roadmap Development (Typical duration 4-12 weeks)
Build the target operating model, service catalog, funding approach, and migration waves for a phased rollout. - Implementation Or PMO Support (Typical duration 2-6 months)
Lead transition planning, workstream coordination, issue management, and benefits tracking as functions move into the new model. - Interim Or Fractional Leadership Support (Typical duration 3-12 months)
Provide experienced shared services or enterprise operations leadership to stand up the organization, hire key roles, and stabilize performance after launch.