Top 10 Shared Services Books

This Top 10 list has been inspired by Joel at the Kaizone, a  content portal for lean books, blog posts and some fantastic resources. To take a look at his full list of the top 100 lean & OpEx blogs, click here.

For a selection of case studies, White Papers, reports, presentations & more, why not take a look at our original BTOES Insights content, or our excellent premium contributor content? Or for some wider reading, take a look at the Top 10 Operational Excellence Books.

Shared Services and Outsourcing: A Contemporary Outlook

By Julia Kotlarsky, Ilan Oshri & Leslie P. Willcocks

"This book constitutes the revised selected papers from the 10th Global Sourcing Workshop held in Val d’Isère, France, in February 2016. The 11 papers presented in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 47 submissions.
The book offers a review of the key topics in outsourcing and offshoring of information technology and business services offering practical frameworks that serve as a tool kit to students and managers. The range of topics covered is wide and diverse, but predominately focused on how to achieve success in shared services and outsourcing. More specifically, the book examines outsourcing decisions and management practices, giving specific attention to shared services that have become one of the dominant sourcing models. The topics discussed combine theoretical and practical insights regarding challenges that industry leaders, policy makers, and professionals face or should be concerned with. Case studies from various organizations, industries and countries such as UK, Italy, The Netherlands, Canada, Australia and Denmark complete the book."

Essentials of Shared Services

By Bryan Bergeron

"What works, why it works, and how to evaluate a shared services program Shared services, a form of "internal outsourcing," enables corporations to achieve economies of scale by creating a separate entity within the company to perform specific internal services, such as payroll, accounts payable, travel and expense processing, etc. Essentials of Shared Services provides a quick, concise overview of shared services fundamentals, bringing senior-level executives up to speed so that they make the right decision. Bryan Bergeron provides a foundation of shared services from a historical, economic, technical, and customer perspective, showing how shared services can impact a corporation's bottom line, both long and short term. He delivers specific recommendations that can be used to establish and manage a shared services effort and includes a variety of examples of programs that work and those that do not."

Shared Services: A Manager's Journey

By Daniel C. Melchior

"In Shared Services: A Manager's Journey, Dan presents the real business cultural challenges along with human factors when taking on such a change in a company's processes. A must-read for any executive, manager, or team member who is considering, decided to, or is already in the process of converting a company from a decentralized organization to a shared services environment."

Shared Services: Adding Value to the Business Units

By Donniel S. Schulman, Martin J. Harmer, John R. Dunleavy & James S. Lusk

"Gaining competitive advantage in today's fierce business environment requires focus throughout the company on value, as measured by quality, cost, speed, and service. In the quest for superior performance, a growing number of companies are now turning to shared services, a tactical technique by which corporations can organize financial and other transaction-oriented activities to reduce costs and provide better service to business unit partners. Written by four authorities, three PricewaterhouseCoopers consultants and the executive who has directed the shared service efforts at Lucent Technologies, this comprehensive resource-the first of its kind-examines shared services from the macro issues that compel senior management to embrace this approach through the design and implementation of a shared services environment that leads to increased customer and shareholder value."

Shared Services in Finance and Accounting

By Tom Olavi Bangemann

"Most large companies worldwide today have some kind of shared services concept in place. Over half of the medium and large companies are currently engaged in some kind of shared service project activity. The investment in shared services is always calculated in millions. In other words, the costs of getting it right (or getting it wrong) can be huge. Tom Bangemann's book is a concise blueprint for identifying, assessing, designing, implementing and improving the process for shared services in the finance and accounting function. The author focuses on critical success factors, the people issues involved, and learning from other people's big mistakes. The book includes a variety of real life examples and real benchmarking data, performance metrics and best practices. The section on implementation is based on a proven five-phase methodology and explains the steps and activities involved as well as showing examples of the deliverables and the results you can expect. Any CEO, MD, CFO, Finance Director and senior finance people will find this book a 'must-have' guide to the process before they start and an excellent benchmark against which to measure the performance of any existing shared service operation.."

Shared services center The Ultimate Step-By-Step Guide

By Gerardus Blokdyk

"What problems are you facing and how do you consider Shared services center will circumvent those obstacles? How do we keep improving Shared services center? How will you know that the Shared services center project has been successful? How would one define Shared services center leadership? Who is the Shared services center process owner?

This powerful Shared services center self-assessment will make you the credible Shared services center domain specialist by revealing just what you need to know to be fluent and ready for any Shared services center challenge."

The Insider's Guide to Shared Services: A Reference Guide

By Richard Dorsey

"Is your organization moving to a shared service model? If so, you are not alone. Why not get started on the right foot? This book will answer questions like "What are common services offered (and how they are determined)?"; "What roles are critical to success?"; "What technology is needed to support this initiative?"; "What chargeback model do you recommend?" and "How do you measure performance?"."

Finance Bundling and Finance Transformation: Shared Services

By Frank Keuper & Kai-Eberhard Lueg

"In managerial literature the challenges of ramping-up, growing and enhancing a (Finance) Shared Services Organization are regularly neglected. Therefore, the compilation will address two objectives: First, based on a generic phase model of an SSO’s development, frequently arising questions related to the management of SSOs shall be systematically discussed and practicable solutions derived. Secondly, a picture of the future of SSOs shall be elaborated, resulting in new future management implications.."