Our accelerators are standalone, customizable products that deliver quick impact to inspire and fund larger transformation journeys.
Transforming support functions isn’t just about going digital. It’s also about designing user-centric processes and applying the right mix of automation, simplification, and organizational change. BCG develops the technical and human enablers—the strategy, technology, and operating model—that help companies add value through digital shared services and support functions.
How BCG Supports Digital Support Functions and Shared Services
We take a holistic approach to optimizing business support functions, orchestrating the many capabilities, processes, and behaviors that come into play. We also help companies identify the moments that matter for customers and employees, so they can radically prioritize excellent services at those times. Our work aims to solve five major client challenges, taking companies from strategy to implementation, while enabling them to keep the momentum going once we hand over the reins.
End-to-End Process Transformation
Companies get the best results when their digital back office is built around user-centric, end-to-end processes. We leverage insights on user needs, preferences, and journeys to design efficient and intuitive experiences—covering such processes as hire to retire, procure to pay, and order to cash.
Technology and Data Enablement for Support Functions
Digital technologies have changed the way companies think about—and engineer—their business support functions. Such technologies as automation, artificial intelligence, and cloud computing can radically alleviate pain points and create exponential value. While combining these technologies in new ways to create value and encourage disruption, we design the appropriate analytics, data governance, and modular IT platforms that are necessary to deploy and scale value-adding digital shared services. In addition, we help clients decouple data from applications, build modern digital and data platform layers, and design lean core enterprise-resource-planning systems for truly scalable, data-powered, and business-centric support functions.
Next-Gen Operating Model
Transformations take off when they are supported by the right process and organizational changes. We work with companies to redesign their organizational structure by helping them with decisions about centralization, the clustering of activities, and reporting relationships in support functions. We also help companies adjust roles and responsibilities, foster new ways of working, and develop the performance management, process flows, and behaviors necessary to realize the full potential of digital support functions.
Shared Services Centers Design
Winning with digital shared services doesn’t necessarily mean bringing everything in-house. We provide expert guidance to help clients set up shared-services centers and make informed sourcing decisions: what to outsource, what to offshore, and how to manage the mix.
Cost Excellence
Streamlined, digitized business operations functions can unleash value while containing costs. Through diagnostics, target blueprints, and solutions design, we help companies identify the right areas—including process optimization and redundancy reduction—to optimize both personnel and nonpersonnel costs.
Our Client Impact in Digital Support Functions and Shared Services
We’ve helped many companies, across industries and geographies, transform their business support functions. Some examples include:
40%
cost reduction
A Global Biopharma Company. We designed and implemented user-centric end-to-end processes, including procure to pay and order to cash. The digitized, simplified support functions sparked an improvement in quality and a 40% reduction in cost—and gave back approximately three days’ worth of time per month to managers.
60k
hours saved
A Global Mining Company. A global organization with distributed talent acquisition teams required 70 days, on average, to fill a vacancy. Through hire-to-retire process transformation, we reduced that period to 20 days—while saving line managers 60,000 administrative hours.
Our Support Function Tools and Solutions
BCG’s digital support functions consulting combines industry-specific knowledge with expertise in such areas as digital technologies, organizational design, and change management. We also draw upon the resources of our tech build and design unit, BCG X—including technologists, scientists, programmers, engineers, and human-centered designers. The result: we don’t just identify the most promising use cases for the digital back office. We accelerate them. Our teams are supported by an array of proprietary tools.
Digital Accelerators and User Journey Mockups
Digital Accelerators and User Journey Mockups
ABO by BCG
Our activity-based optimization software helps uncover inefficiencies and issues in the organization and identify suitable solutions.
ABO by BCG
Digital Maturity Assessment Tools
Our Digital Acceleration Index and maturity assessment tools map clients' digital journeys and guide their next transformation steps.
Digital Maturity Assessment Tools
Benchmarking in Excellent Support Functions and Nonpersonnel Costs
Our proprietary web-based database uses cross-industry benchmarks to help companies compare SG&A costs and efficiency against peers.
Benchmarking in Excellent Support Functions and Nonpersonnel Costs
OrgBuilder 4.4
Our organizational design software provides a single source of truth to enable organizational transformation and change management.
OrgBuilder 4.4
SG&A Health Check
This survey identifies the maturity of a client’s support functions—and zeros in on focal points for improvement.
SG&A Health Check
End-to-End Process Benchmarks
Our benchmarks cover five major processes—such as procure to pay and hire to rehire—giving a holistic view of business operations functions.
End-to-End Process Benchmarks
KEY Impact Management by BCG X.
KEY Impact Management is a one-stop-shop for program management, managing complexity on every phase of a transformation.
KEY Impact Management by BCG X.
Our Insights on Digital Support Functions and Shared Services
Article
February 14, 2024
Support functions are becoming more closely intertwined with corporate success. This requires companies to adopt a new mindset—one that goes “Beyond GBS.”
Article
October 9, 2023
Rather than attempting once again to optimize the matrix, companies are looking for new organizational solutions.
Article
September 20, 2023
With generative AI, global business services units such as HR and legal have a unique opportunity to outgrow the standard transactional focus and deliver real value to the organization.
Article
December 6, 2023
Companies that make their support functions more business-centric can unlock a range of benefits, enhance value creation, and help power an enterprise-wide transformation.
