Shore Paralax, LLC has been involved in the emergence of the Shared Services model for many years. We are proud to have conducted searches major companies who were just embarking on the Shared Services initiative. We have placed many “Paradigm Pioneers” as we like to call them. These are Senior Executives from various backgrounds who had to craft the Shared Services model and who had the courage and Leadership skills to take their organizations into new territory that was often met with resistance. Their successes are only now being recognized and applauded. The firm has expertise in developing candidate pools from many Source Channels.

Shared Services has become the fastest growing business paradigm in many years. It is the logical convergence of several prior initiatives that dealt with bringing efficiency and order to complex business processes. Elements of initiatives such as Total Quality Management, Six Sigma, Business Process Analysis, Best Practices, Outsourcing, Process Improvement, Supply Chain Management and others, have combined into a discipline that is emerging into the organizational umbrella known as Shared Services.

The Shared Services concept, essentially, considers those functions of a business that are common among various components of the business (i.e. divisions, subsidiaries). It is then determined if and how these “services” might better be performed in a more efficient, generally more centralized, singular organization. Although, on the surface, Shared Services often has the reputation of cost cutting and efficiency, the more successful organizations that have implemented this concept usually have a higher more legitimate goal, Improved Customer Satisfaction.

The notion and experience is that as processes are streamlined, systematized and made more efficient, customers benefit in many ways. First of all costs are generally reduced and, therefore, the company becomes more competitive which usually leads to price containment. When companies determine the best way of performing a function, the Best Practice emerges across the entire organization and processes become more reliable and better designed to meet customer requirements. Companies become more predictable and more likely to perform in the way a customer expects.

Companies have approached this new organizational model from many different directions. The usual disciplines considered candidates for a Shared Services organization model are: The transactional components of Finance, Human Resources and Information Technology. Often included in a Shared Services organization are: Supply Chain functions, Legal Services, Facilities and a variety of other non-core competency functions.