9 Reasons Why an Already High Performing SSO Would Move to GBS

Last month I spent the day with a FMCG company. They have had shared services in place since the late 90s, focusing exclusively on the finance function. Their story is almost formulaic – they established shared services, implemented SAP, ran three regional shared services operations in Asia Pac, north America and Europe.

This approach, which seemed so sensible in the 90s and noughties, seems to lack business sense now. The reason being that one common and damaging characteristic of this approach, was that these three SSOs didn’t operate as one. Instead they operated as 3 very separate entities. They:

1. Didn’t share best practices
2. Couldn’t cross fertilize tools, ideas, methodologies
3. Didn’t necessarily have a common process
4. Were hard pressed to benchmark as the processes were different so continuous improvement globally was stifled
5. Didn’t have a common goal or objective
6. Didn’t operate as an integrated, whole being, so offered regional, fragmented support to a global organization
7. Didn’t have a global view of data
8. Didn’t have shared KPIs
9. Didn’t have a common talent program

The Global Business Services model has come into our lives at just the right time. You look at a shared services organization like this, and realize the limitations that come with a regional focus, and there are many.

Ambitious Shared Services Directors that have lived with a fragmented global platform, that fails to best serve the global business, are moving to the next period of transition, and creating global platforms to support their increasingly demanding companies.