Support Functions – Shared Service Centers

The Overall Environment for Support Functions and Shared Service Centers

Support functions are very (too?) often viewed as cost centers within various organizations. For several decades, efforts to optimize these costs have led to the emergence of shared service centers (at the national, regional, or global level) supported by numerous automation systems.

In recent years, these teams have begun referring to themselves as “business partners”: the idea of operating at a distance from their clients (the business units)—both physically and organizationally—has ultimately proven not always to be a source of efficiency.

At Cubik, we firmly believe that these service centers must position themselves as watchdogs at the heart of processes (P2P for accounts payable, R2R for general ledger, H2R for an employee’s HR journey, etc.) with an end-to-end perspective, rather than focusing solely on the Shared Services Center’s management mandate.

  • Camille Durr

    Directeur général Cubik Lean - Agence de Paris

The Challenges Facing Support Functions and as seen by Cubik

-40 %

Generative AI could lead to a 40% reduction in sales, general, and administrative (SG&A) tasks over the next five years (Hackett 2024)

Digitization and Automation

In a competitive and complex environment, digitalization and automation (AI, RPA, analytical tools) are becoming key drivers of performance improvement. However, their deployment can only be effective if it is based on a thorough understanding of existing processes. The challenge is to clarify, standardize, and ensure the reliability of end-to-end workflows before automating low-value-added tasks, in order to avoid inefficiencies and maximize the impact of these technologies.

Expanded Performance Management

Beyond operational efficiency, support functions and shared service centers must strengthen their performance management. This means moving beyond an approach focused solely on cost savings to measure the value created throughout the entire workflow. This involves incorporating both qualitative and quantitative metrics, such as business unit satisfaction, turnaround times, and the quality of services provided, as well as the impact of processes on the company’s overall performance.

Organizational Agility

For support functions and CSPs, it is necessary to adapt in real time to the changing needs of the business units, while maintaining a holistic view of processes. The challenge is to establish flexible structures capable of responding quickly to disruptions, incorporating continuous feedback, and prioritizing high-value-added initiatives. This agility not only enables the organization to meet immediate requirements but also to anticipate future transformations by aligning resources and skills with strategic priorities.

Evolution Toward a Strategic Role

To create sustainable value, support functions and shared service centers must evolve from mere administrative support to partners in transformation. This involves structuring processes, optimizing workflows, and supporting organizational change. The challenge is to align the mission of support functions with the company’s strategic objectives, so that they become drivers of the organization’s competitiveness and resilience.

$192 billion

This is the estimate of the global Shared Services Center market size by 2032 ( Global Market Insights 2024)

How We Help Our Clients Overcome Their Challenges

At Cubik, we help organizations transform their support functions and shared service centers by adopting an integrated approach focused on optimizing end-to-end processes and cross-functional management. Our expertise enables us to work at all levels of the organization, from conducting in-depth assessments and redesigning processes to implementing high-performance management systems and evolving toward a strategic role that supports the company’s overall performance.

Our strength lies in a comprehensive understanding of the challenges at hand, combined with expertise in market-leading tools (Celonis, Blackline, SAPhire, SuccessFactors, etc.). This enables us to ensure that your transformations deliver the expected results by aligning your support functions with your goals for performance, agility, and sustainable value creation.

Through our pragmatic approach, we help you clarify, standardize, and automate your processes, while strengthening cross-departmental collaboration and positioning your teams as strategic partners in your company’s transformation.

Our 5 areas of support:

We conduct organizational and performance assessments to identify areas for improvement. Our analyses cover all processes, resources, and workflows to identify bottlenecks, redundancies, or opportunities for optimization.

Using proven methodologies and tailored audit tools, we provide a clear and objective view of the current situation. These assessments serve as the foundation for developing prioritized roadmaps aligned with the company’s strategic priorities.

The goal: to turn these operational assessments into concrete and measurable courses of action.

We implement management systems at all levels, both internally and with stakeholders in the Shared Service Centers. These systems include defining clear governance structures, implementing relevant performance metrics, and establishing appropriate management processes.

We ensure that every team member has the tools and responsibilities needed to actively contribute to our collective performance. The goal is to foster a culture of collaboration and alignment among teams, business units, and departments to ensure the smooth and efficient execution of processes.

We are redesigning end-to-end processes in conjunction with the various technological solutions available on the market. Our approach involves mapping existing workflows, identifying value-added steps, and eliminating unnecessary or redundant activities.

Our solutions integrate with various market tools (Celonis, Blackline, SAPhire, SuccessFactor, etc.), and we support our clients in adopting appropriate technologies (RPA, AI, collaboration tools, etc.) to automate repetitive tasks and optimize processing times.

The goal is to design agile, standardized, and scalable processes that can adapt to changing business needs and technological innovations.

We help you maximize profits and strengthen your procurement practices to improve financial performance. Our services include expense analysis, supplier negotiations, and the implementation of group purchasing strategies or framework agreements for your intellectual property and service procurement needs.

We also support the digitization of procurement processes to improve transparency, traceability, and efficiency. The goal is to reduce costs while improving the quality of services provided to customers, thereby directly contributing to the company’s profitability.

We help teams transition from being mere cost centers to becoming true partners in transformation, with a focus on added value and quality. This involves rethinking their role within the organization and involving them more closely in strategic decisions and cross-functional projects.

We are working to build our teams’ skills, adopt new methodologies (such as Lean or Agile), and implement continuous improvement initiatives. The goal is to turn support functions into a source of differentiation and competitive advantage for the company, capable of anticipating needs and proposing innovative solutions.