10 Pointers to What Global Business Services Means

Global Business Services can mean a lot of different things to different people, You can see our definition here

Here are also 10 pointers on becoming a true GBS:

1. It has to be global – you cannot have a regional GBS, and have another regional GBS in another part of the world. It doesn’t work.
    
2. It has to be multi-functional.  A finance GBS is just a global finance shared services. I’m afraid it doesn’t count.
    
3. It has to report into one person. And here lies the main problem – think about your HR Shared Services Director and your Finance Shared Services Director. Which of these two is less reluctant to relinquish their authority? Neither. So moving from siloed shared services functions to one global business service reporting into one person is possibly the hardest bit. However, once achieved, it’s arguably the best bit about GBS. There is one captain, which means the vessel will move and respond with more agility.
    
4. It might not be led by a finance person. The one person governing over GBS might have two ‘O’s in their title and no ‘F’s.
    
5. It needs to share locations. Gone are the centres for finance, the centres for HR and the centres for IT. The delivery construct is intelligent and multifaceted, with outsourcing, on shoring, off shoring, centres of excellence and competency centres. But crucially, there is the sharing of centres to help with economies of scale and the cross fertilization of best-practice application.
    
6. It shares technology platforms. This means it ideally runs off a single instance of an ERP… but it doesn’t have to. But it does have a global strategy for the ERP landscape it functions off. A GBS also looks to leverage tools with more gusto AND looks to a global stage to play out its technology agenda, ensuring technology decisions factor in implications for all functions.
    
7. It only looks at process as an end to end activity. The lens the GBS uses to look at processes within it is not based on ‘function’, but based on business outcome. The multi-function and single governor aspects of GBS mean that the ‘end to end perspective’ is a given.
    
8. Its ‘just transactional’ days are over. It’s sitting squarely in middle finance, analytics, and taking on ‘value adding’ activities, perhaps becoming the one phone number that any employee calls with any question that can’t be self-served and isn’t of their core role.
    
9. It has brand equity. Because it has a seat at the table, and it is seen as value-add, it is not the corporate wilderness it was once perceived to be. It’s keen to attract and keep the best.
    
10. It is integrated. This could be considered the symptom of having end to end process and having a single governor with a seat at the table. But it seems to be more than this. Integration means being so plugged into strategy delivery, and considered as such, that ultimate success (whatever that might mean to a business) is impossible without the GBS working as it should.

The GBS beast is a living, breathing beast and each week we find new arms and legs sprouting out, which were previously tucked away. And occasionally, we come to realise these new legs and arms are actually instrumental to the evolution of this relatively new form. So a number 11 may be added in the not too distant future.

Download our infographic below on global business services to learn more.