Shared Services and Business Transformation

Transformation is a strong term to use in any context, especially in reference to international companies with thousands of employees and billions in sales. But that is the only term to adequately describe the driver of change in the nature of a global business. To effect sweeping, institution-wide modifications to a business model, management must relentlessly pursue a strategy of fundamental change.

For these fundamental changes to succeed, executives must also commit to creating truly global financial processes. Standardized worldwide operations then serve as a control point for measuring profit and loss by country, by channel and by products, as well as providing a benchmark for ongoing improvement.

This executive brief covers the challenges shared services executives face as their operations mature, and cost reduction and efficiency gains begin to plateau. It also explores how implementing truly global business processes can change shared services from processing centers into key players in implementing corporate strategies.

Finally, it will outline the strategies used by Lexmark's shared services center to change from a manufacturing-centric provider of printer solutions to a provider of software and hardware to manage unstructured information.