Standardise shared-service processes across units, regions and clients
In your words: “Our shared-service processes are not standardised across business units, regions or clients”
- Shared services standardisation
- Global process variation
- GBS governance
The same service is delivered through different procedures, systems, roles and local exceptions across business units, regions or client accounts. This becomes most visible when delivery crosses business units, regions, retained teams, providers or client accounts with different processes, measures and commercial arrangements.
A dependable standard process, with variation understood and justified, lets you govern and improve the service across every unit.
Scale benefits arrive, transitions are quicker, controls are consistent and automation can be reused.
A governed end-to-end process architecture distinguishes the required global standard from justified local or client variation. In practical terms, services can be standardised, transitioned, measured and automated as reusable enterprise capabilities without losing required local or client controls.
- Greater standardisation, faster transitions, more reusable automation and lower service-delivery complexity
- Greater standardisation and reuse
- Clearer retained and provider accountability
- Measures connected to business and customer outcomes
- Governed scaling of automation and AI
- Which services have the greatest process variation across regions or clients?
- Which variations are genuinely required and which are historical workarounds?
- How much automation or training is duplicated because no trusted standard exists?
- Which service has the widest gap between local SLA performance and stakeholder experience?
- What variation is legally or commercially required, and what variation is simply historical?
Deloitte reports that GBS organisations are prioritising process standardisation, efficiency, cost reduction, end-to-end ownership, automation, analytics and GenAI investment.
Deloitte: Global Business Services Survey 2025
SSON identifies lower cost, higher quality, reliability, standardisation, harmonisation and flexible service delivery as core shared-services objectives.
SSON: Shared Services