Shared services have been around for a long time, but have only become more widely used in recent years. In some industries we are seeing a sharp increase in the use of centralized shared services. This stems from the desire to house tools and processes in a central location to provide complete visibility into business processes. According to the study “Professional Services: A Benchmark for 2023” by Pierre Audoin Consultants (PAC), shared services are primarily used to improve processes, make faster decisions and act more flexibly.

The top 4 conclusions about shared services from these studies:

1. Shared services for customer-oriented processes
   About half of all business service providers will centralize project management, customer service, sales and marketing by 2023. Shared services are therefore used by many organizations to optimize customer-oriented processes. This is an important step for any organization, but is certainly necessary after a merger or acquisition. Then processes have to be standardized and shared services prove to be valuable.

• Shared services enable remote work
  A fifth of business service providers say they will focus on aligning core processes in project management, contract management and people management over the next three years. This is not surprising, as remote working became established during and after the Corona period. By centralizing core processes, often by placing them in the cloud, business service providers can provide employees with a central location for everything they need. It doesn’t matter where in the world they are as long as they have access to the internet.
• Worldwide services
  In addition to the fact that organizations are increasingly recruiting internationally, they are also able to work more internationally and enter markets worldwide. Because of globalization, the world is becoming smaller and smaller. This makes it increasingly possible to apply existing processes in other regions. The shared services model makes this possible and provides the right foundation for a global service strategy.
• Data compatibility is the holy grail
  A final conclusion that can be drawn from the reports is perhaps the most important: the success of the implementation of shared services depends largely on the data foundation on which it is based. If the data has not been cleaned, contains inaccuracies or is out of date, the “garbage in, garbage out” principle remains in effect. Shared services cannot simply be used as a panacea. First, start by cleaning your data so you can view shared services with the relevant data.

For years, companies have tried to differentiate themselves from the competition by using the best applications and bottom-up software development. But if we are to believe the studies, an era of pragmatism is dawning. By collaborating, sharing services, and housing tools and data in a central location, departments within organizations can move more quickly and risk-free from any location.

This is a post from Bryce Wolf, Senior Manager Industry Solution at Unit4.