Shared services

Factual definition

Services provided centrally for multiple business units, such as finance, HR, or IT. The scope can vary by function and business; savings and service improvements are possible, but depend on implementation.

Shayne Fitz-Coy’s definition of Shared services

Fitz-Coy treats shared services as the place where synergy arithmetic meets the humans who execute it. The consolidated number looks guaranteed on paper, and its optimizers routinely leave two costs out: the transition (service degrades while functions migrate) and the load (the surviving team absorbs the displaced coordination work).

His operating philosophy carries a deliberate counterweight (slack, on the order of 5% overstaffing) because a structure with no give converts every consolidation saving into fragility, and fragility is eventually invoiced in attrition.

How Shayne Fitz-Coy uses Shared services

Quantify the duplication before claiming the saving: list the functions, their current costs, and their post-consolidation costs including the transition. Then test the load: name who absorbs the coordination work the removed positions were doing.

If the plan counts the salaries and cannot name the destinations, it is not a synergy, it is a deferral.

A cost synergy is a promise until the function actually runs once.

Why Shayne Fitz-Coy’s perspective on Shared services matters

Synergies priced at entry are realized (or quietly lost) in shared-services execution. The buyer who can run the consolidation without breaking the underlying service keeps the value.

The one who cannot has bought a cost saving and produced an attrition problem.