Whether you are new to shared services or an accomplished veteran looking to expand to a new environment, I have found it useful to ground yourself in the fundamentals of what makes shared services successful. This handbook is loaded with helpful ideas to avoid pitfalls and accelerate your shared services journey.

While the foundational elements of shared services have remained constant since the early days, many aspects have advanced. In setting up a modern shared services organization, consider your value proposition to support your business strategy. The big shift in this value proposition moved away from just achieving transactional cost savings to impacting business outcomes such as increasing customer satisfaction, return on equity, and brand power. Modern shared services organizations look at comprehensive value creation across multiple factors such as user experience, cost-effectiveness, service performance, and risk management.