What Is Shared Services Strategy?
Shared services strategy is the set of decisions used to determine how support activities such as finance, human resources, procurement, information technology, and customer operations should be organized across a company. It addresses problems such as duplicated work, inconsistent service levels, weak controls, uneven local staffing, and unnecessary overhead, and often includes scope selection, process standardization, location strategy, captive versus outsourced delivery choices, governance design, and transition planning; clients may seek independent consultant support when they need an objective view on the economics, risks, and practical steps required to build or redesign a shared services model.
When Clients Seek Support
Clients often seek independent consulting support for shared services strategy when they need to:
- Reduce selling, general, and administrative (SG&A) costs after slower growth, margin pressure, or a board directive to simplify overhead.
- Decide whether country, business-unit, or plant-based support teams should remain local or move into regional or global centers.
- Evaluate captive, outsourced, or hybrid delivery options for finance, human resources, procurement, information technology, or customer operations support.
- Rework the support-function model after a merger, carve-out, divestiture, or new parent-company structure.
- Choose among onshore, nearshore, and offshore locations based on labor availability, language coverage, wage inflation, and resilience risk.
- Improve service consistency, controls, and turnaround times where processes are fragmented across regions or business units.
- Align organization changes with an enterprise resource planning (ERP) rollout, workflow redesign, or master data cleanup.
- Build a fact-based business case before asking function leaders to move work out of the business.
Questions We Help Clients Answer
- Which activities should stay embedded in the business, and which belong in shared services?
- What savings, one-time costs, and payback period are realistic for our footprint?
- Should we expand our existing center, open a new site, or use an outsourced or hybrid model?
- Which location options best balance labor cost, language coverage, attrition risk, and business continuity?
- How much process and system standardization do we need before we migrate work?
- What retained organization, governance, and service-level agreements will make the model work?
Common Outcomes and Deliverables
Depending on the project scope, consultants supporting shared services strategy work may develop outputs or implement results such as:
- Current-state baseline of cost, headcount, process volumes, service levels, and fragmentation by function and geography.
- Scope matrix showing which activities move to shared services, stay in the business, or are candidates for outsourcing.
- Target operating model for shared services or global business services, including service towers, roles, governance, and decision rights.
- Location strategy and site shortlist with labor market, language, cost, tax, and risk analysis.
- Multiyear business case covering transition costs, steady-state savings, service-level assumptions, and payback.
- Retained organization design, service catalog, and service-level agreements for business stakeholders.
- Vendor evaluation criteria and request for proposal support where outsourced delivery is under consideration.
- Wave-based migration plan aligned to ERP, workflow, and master data dependencies.
- Key performance indicator (KPI) dashboard tracking productivity, turnaround time, error rates, and internal customer satisfaction.
- New shared services model live, with services migrated, governance forums operating, and benefits tracked against plan.
Selected Capabilities by Industry
Financial Services
Regional Back-Office Hub Design: Design a control-aware shared services model for finance, procurement, and customer operations support across banking or wealth businesses; target operating model, location recommendation, and transition business case.
Healthcare
Health System Support Function Consolidation: Redesign finance, human resources, supply chain, and revenue cycle support across a multihospital system; migration roadmap and service-level model that preserves local market needs while reducing duplication.
Manufacturing & Industrial Equipment
Plant and Corporate Services Realignment: Map which transactional processes such as accounts payable, procurement operations, and master data management should move from plants into regional centers; scope blueprint and phased migration plan.
Consumer Packaged Goods
Regional Business Services Footprint: Build a shared services strategy for trade promotion settlement, customer service administration, finance, and supply chain support across markets; location analysis and multiyear savings model.
Technology
Global Scale-Up Support Model: Design a global business services structure for software as a service (SaaS) companies covering quote-to-cash, renewals support, finance, and people operations; operating model and headcount ramp plan for rapid international growth.
Insurance
Policy and Claims Support Centralization: Evaluate which policy administration, claims support, finance, and call center back-office activities can be centralized without weakening compliance or service levels; business case and retained-organization design.
Energy & Utilities
Utility Support Services Redesign: Assess how to centralize procurement, work management administration, finance, and customer operations support while respecting regulatory reporting and field-service dependencies; target operating model and implementation sequencing.
Private Equity
Portfolio SG&A Model: Develop a shared services blueprint for a portfolio company or platform consolidation covering finance, human resources, procurement, and information technology; synergy model, day-one priorities, and post-close execution plan.
Consultant Profiles Umbrex Can Identify
Umbrex can help clients identify independent consultants with experience designing, evaluating, and implementing shared services models.
- Former McKinsey, Bain, BCG consultant experienced in shared services strategy
- Former global business services or shared services leader with experience designing service towers, governance, and retained organizations across finance, human resources, procurement, or information technology
- Operating executive who has led service center location selection, work migrations, and service-level management in multiregion organizations
- Private equity value creation advisor experienced in overhead reduction, carve-outs, and post-merger shared services build-outs
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 shared services strategy include:
- Rapid Diagnostic or Diligence (Typical duration 1-3 weeks)
Assess the current support-function footprint, cost baseline, and consolidation potential ahead of an investment decision, carve-out, or executive review. - Analysis And Decision Support (Typical duration 4-8 weeks)
Compare scope, location, captive, outsourced, and hybrid options for specific process towers, with economics and risk trade-offs. - Strategy Or Roadmap Development (Typical duration 4-12 weeks)
Design the target operating model, retained organization, governance, and migration waves for a new or expanded shared services model. - Implementation Or Project Management Office (PMO) Support (Typical duration 2-6 months)
Coordinate readiness, stakeholder alignment, transition milestones, issue management, and benefits tracking as services move into the new model. - Interim Or Fractional Leadership Support (Typical duration 3-12 months)
Provide temporary shared services or global business services leadership during stand-up, expansion, vendor transition, or stabilization.