Global Business Services: from labor arbitrage to value creator

CFOs use global business services (GBS) to enhance efficiency, governance and value. Key areas: strategy, technology, talent and improvement.

In brief

• Global business services has become essential to enterprise-wide business strategy as it enhances operational efficiency, governance and value creation for CFOs, supporting multiple functions like finance, HR and IT.
• Key focus areas for GBS implementation include strategic alignment, technology enablement, talent development, strong governance and continuous improvement.
• GBS leverages automation and AI to transform from a cost center to a profit center, offering significant insights and innovation potential.

Chief Financial Officers (CFOs) recognize that leading global business service (GBS) organizations can offer significant benefit to the enterprise and now view it as a core element of modern business strategy.

“When done properly, GBS can be a center of expertise, with highly skilled resources such as data scientists, product engineers, R&D specialists and marketers,” said Dorian Redding, EY Americas GBS Solution Leader.

“In GBS, there exists a community capable of reengineering and reimagining processes and delivering incredible insight into the organization, all while maintaining standardization, transparency and adherence to best practices,” Redding said. “This approach can help deliver value across the dimensions CFOs care about including quality, cost, insight and value.”

• Quality: GBS holistically delivers enhanced governance and quality control via standardization, facilitating the transparency and visibility demanded by CFOs.
• Cost: By leveraging automation, GBS can strengthen service delivery efficiency when assisting internal clients, such as generative artificial intelligence (GenAI)- based enablers to facilitate self-service options for vendors to independently access their invoices.
• Insight: Enriched with AI and data analytics, GBS enhances decision-making and fosters innovation, such as using insights to contest supplier pricing negotiations.
• Value: All working capital flows through GBS. Monitoring and maintenance of cash in GBS can help employ capital more intelligently.

Build GBS with five core areas in mind that strengthen business strategy

For organizations looking to transition to a GBS model, or those already on the journey that haven’t yet realized the expected ROI, there are five areas of critical focus:

1. Clear strategic alignment. GBS should be closely aligned with its organization’s business strategy, especially for large multinational companies that are undergoing change or are integrating acquisitions or divestitures.
2. Technology enablement. Viewing GBS merely as a cost-saving measure undermines its potential for technology-enabled value and insight creation. Automation, AI and analytics are among the tools that can streamline processes, improve decision-making and drive innovation. In the SSON survey, 81% of respondents cite digitization and transformation as how they deliver value from their GBS. In many instances, companies are using workflow technologies, such as ServiceNow, embedded in the end-to-end process.
3. Talent development. A digitally skilled and motivated workforce is essential, necessitating training and development programs. For the truly motivated, GBS can be the entry point toward rewarding careers within the organization, using it as a leadership development funnel. CFOs often find that GBS resources have developed a better holistic understanding of the enterprise, as they see it from end to end.
4. Strong governance. For CFOs, governance is obviously a priority; it must encompass a clear set of activities and robust processes and controls, backed by defined roles and responsibilities, to help ensure accountability. GBS organizations by nature are already doing these things and can help CFOs standardize and govern more effectively.
5. Continuous improvement. GBS is not merely encouraged to deliver improvements — it is expected. Leaders are frequently tasked with achieving budget reductions of 5% or more to foster a culture of process improvement. GBS possesses comprehensive insight into its operations, enabling it to conduct thorough evaluations, establish key performance indicators (KPIs) and swiftly adopt leading practices, all aimed at amplifying the benefits it delivers to organizations. (A smart approach is to negotiate cost reductions into tech enablement.)

Look to the future

Just as GBS represents the third generation of shared services, the evolution to the fourth generation is already underway where upskilled and digitally native GBS personnel move beyond the traditional roles we see today.

“With greater digitalization and touchless processing, we see future GBS roles having alternative skill sets to become more predictive, such as prompt engineering, in place of traditional processing roles such as accounts payable clerks,” Redding said. “The technology of today should mean that many processes are preventive and don’t need a human touch. Instead, a smaller number of people are required to manage exceptions, and ‘intelligence’ roles are squeezing as much insight out of the data coursing through GBS as possible.”

GBS is still often viewed as a cost center, with 83% of executives identifying cost optimization as the primary value of this model, while only 25% acknowledge an improvement in profit margins, according to the SSON survey. But GBS is well-positioned to transform into a profit center and strategic asset within broader business strategy by leveraging data and automation.

“There are large GBS organizations that have significant data running through them, such as cash and inventory that could potentially operate as an independent entity, monetizing its data to generate revenue for the parent organization,” Redding said. “You cannot tell me that there’s not a significant amount of insight to be found within that.”

Regardless of what’s on the horizon, GBS’s best value proposition lies in the here and now. “By consolidating finance activities within a GBS model, organizations can cut costs, boost efficiency, enhance scalability and tap into specialized expertise,” said Deirdre Ryan, EY Global Finance Transformation Leader. “These tactics enables businesses to operate more efficiently and pursue sustainable growth, a goal shared by every CFO I know.”