Why Shared Services Stall
The traditional shared services model was built to solve a specific problem: reduce costs by centralising transactional work. For a long time, it worked. Organisations saved money, standardised processes, and got better at running routine operations efficiently.
But that is where many shared services organisations are still stuck today. They have become good at being cheap, and not much else. The business sees them as a back-office function, leadership struggles to justify further investment, and the teams themselves find it hard to attract and retain the talent needed to do anything more ambitious.
Across Inixia’s client portfolio, close to four in five organisations begin their engagement at Stage 1 or Stage 2 of the RBO maturity framework, meaning cost reduction and basic standardisation remain the dominant focus, and the shift toward strategic value generation has not yet begun. Inixia has a proven track record of moving GBS organisations up the maturity ladder, accelerating in years what would otherwise take decades to achieve through trial and error alone.
The problem is not that shared services are broken. It is that the model has not evolved to match what the business now needs from it.
What Shared Services Transformation Actually Means
Shared services transformation is the process of moving from a cost-focused, transactional model to one that actively contributes to enterprise strategy. That shift does not happen through a single project or a technology deployment. It requires a fundamental change in how the function is designed, led, and measured.
The end state is what most organisations now call a Global Business Services (GBS) model. A mature GBS organisation operates more like a business within a business. It integrates end-to-end processes across functions, uses data to generate insights rather than just reports, and is seen by the rest of the enterprise as a genuine partner rather than a service desk.
Getting there takes a clear roadmap, the right leadership capability, and a willingness to challenge some long-held assumptions about what shared services is for.
Understanding Where Shared Services Fits in the GBS Framework
Shared services and GBS are often used interchangeably, but they are not the same thing. Shared services typically focuses on centralising specific functions – Finance, HR, IT, Procurement – to achieve economies of scale within those silos. GBS takes a broader view, integrating those functions into a single operating model that serves the enterprise as a whole.
Shared services optimisation is the critical first step on that journey. Before an organisation can evolve to a full GBS model, it needs to get its existing shared services operations running well. That means standardising processes, eliminating waste, and establishing the performance measurement disciplines that will underpin everything that comes next.
A Practical Approach to Optimisation
Optimising shared services is not complicated in theory, but it does require discipline and a structured approach. The starting point is always an honest assessment of where you are now.
Using a framework like the Dynamic Process Transformation (DPT) Model, organisations can evaluate their current maturity across people, process, and technology dimensions. This gives leaders a clear picture of where value is leaking and where the biggest opportunities for improvement sit.
From there, the work falls into four areas. First, standardise and simplify processes before automating anything – automating a broken process just makes it break faster. Second, define what the future operating model looks like and get leadership aligned around that vision. Third, establish performance measurement that goes beyond cost per transaction to capture service quality, customer satisfaction, and business impact. Fourth, build the governance structures that will keep the organisation accountable and aligned as it evolves.
This pattern is one Inixia has encountered across engagements. In one recent example, a global consumer goods enterprise with revenues above ten billion dollars was struggling with fragmented shared services, misaligned leadership, and no unified operating model. Working with Inixia, the organisation aligned its C-suite around a single transformation ambition, established a common operating framework, and built the foundational capabilities its leaders needed to drive change consistently. Within the programme, the organisation advanced from Stage 1 to Stage 2 maturity, with clear governance, consistent KPIs, and meaningful momentum toward a unified service model. That shift – from fragmentation to coherence – is typically where the highest-impact early gains are made.
Driving Shared Services Digital Transformation
Technology is the accelerant, not the starting point. Shared services digital transformation works best when it is applied to processes that have already been standardised and simplified. Deploying intelligent automation to handle repetitive tasks frees up teams to focus on higher-value work. Integrating analytics and AI allows the organisation to move from reporting what happened to predicting what will happen next.
The organisations that get the most from digital investment are those that treat it as a capability-building exercise, not a cost-cutting exercise. The goal is to make the people in the organisation more capable, not just to reduce headcount.
If your organisation is at the stage where you need external support to design and execute the digital transformation strategy, Inixia’s digital transformation consulting services are built for exactly that.
Governance, Operating Models, and Leadership
One of the most common reasons shared services transformations stall is a failure of governance. Without clear accountability structures, well-defined roles, and a leadership team that is genuinely aligned, even the best-designed processes will drift back to old habits.
Effective governance means establishing clear SLAs, defining who owns what, and creating regular mechanisms for feedback and course correction. The operating model needs to be flexible enough to adapt as the business changes, but disciplined enough to maintain operational standards.
Strong leadership is the foundation of all of this. Leaders who have the frameworks and the confidence to drive change across the organisation are what separates transformations that last from those that fade. If building that leadership capability is a priority, Inixia’s leadership coaching for business transformation programme works directly with the senior teams responsible for making change happen.
The Path Forward
Transforming shared services is not a quick fix, but it is one of the highest-return investments a large enterprise can make. The organisations that have done it well have built a competitive advantage that is genuinely hard to replicate.
Inixia was founded by the practitioners who built it. Filippo Passerini and Tony Saldanha created one of the world’s first and largest Global Business Services organisations at Procter and Gamble, a transformation that delivered billions in value, became a Harvard Business Review case study, and set the global standard for operational excellence. Their combined 70 years of experience building and sustaining that benchmark is the foundation of every framework, programme, and advisory engagement Inixia delivers today.
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