Shared Services: Developing a Positive Brand and Reputation for IT

by Barbara Quinn

In the mid-1980s, high-performing companies introduced the shared-services strategy to lower general administrative costs and improve accountability for customer service. The discipline of shared services is exactly as it sounds: a practice whereby companies or business units decide to share services as a group. Staff groups such as IT are bundled into a separate organization whose core business is to serve the business units and achieve synergies across the enterprise. Although other delivery models for IT exist, shared services is the leading platform for lowering costs, improving service, and demonstrating stronger accountability. Typically, estimated cost savings are in the range of 25%-30%, provided that the organization has at least 3,000 employees.