Selling to a head of shared services

A head of shared services runs the part of the company nobody notices until it breaks. Payroll, payables, IT support, HR operations, procurement processing. Thousands of transactions a day, measured to the second.

They're one of the most numerate buyers you'll ever write to. Vague value claims don't survive their first read.

What the role owns and how it's judged

Shared services leaders own the centralized back-office functions that business units used to run on their own. In larger companies the model is called global business services, with centers in several countries and a mix of in-house teams and outsourced providers.

They own the service catalog, the cost per transaction, the service level agreements with the business, and often the contracts with outsourcing vendors. Many of them report to the CFO. Some report to a COO.

They're builders and operators at once. Half their week is keeping the machine running. The other half is redesigning it.

They're judged on cost per transaction and headcount per unit of work. Service levels and the number of escalations from business leaders. Accuracy, cycle time, and how much work has moved from manual to automated.

And the business's opinion. A shared services head whose internal customers complain loudly loses budget and sometimes the job.

So the pain is usually concrete. A center that grew by adding people and now can't take on more. Automation that stalled at the pilot stage. An outsourcing contract coming up for renewal with results nobody loves.

What they ignore

They ignore percentage promises. "Cut costs by 30 percent" reads as a guess, and they'll ask how you got the number.

They ignore automation pitches with no process work behind them. Most have already bought bots that broke the first time a form changed.

And they ignore anyone who talks down to the work. Shared services people take pride in running something hard at scale. Treat it as a cost center to be cut and you've lost them.

The signals that matter

A new capability center is the biggest one. Opening or expanding a center in a new city is a funded program with a hiring plan, systems to stand up and transitions to run. The capability center post goes deeper.

Job posts tell you what's moving. A cluster of roles for process excellence leads, automation developers or transition managers in one location means work is about to shift. Read six engineering roles in one offshore city for the pattern.

Contract timing matters. Outsourcing deals often run three to five years, and renewal windows open early.

Acquisitions matter too. Every acquired company brings its own payroll, ledger and ticketing system, and somebody has to fold them in.

An example opener

Say a fictional consumer goods company, Brightwater Brands, is hiring a transition manager and four process analysts for its center in Kraków. The parent announced an acquisition of a smaller rival last quarter.

Brightwater is hiring a transition manager and four process analysts in Kraków, a quarter after closing the Lindell acquisition. That combination usually means Lindell's finance and HR work is moving into the center on a tight timeline. My guess is the harder part isn't the people moves but documenting processes that only lived in a few heads at Lindell. Is that accurate, or is the bigger issue something else?

It's built on public facts. It names a real operating problem. And it guesses at something they're likely living with this month.

What the conversation needs

When this buyer replies, expect detail. They'll tell you volumes, sites and timelines without much prompting.

Match it. Talk in transactions, cycle times and transition waves. Bring a point of view on sequencing, what moves first and what waits.

And remember the outsourcing provider already in the building. Many shared services heads want a partner who can work beside the incumbent without a turf war. Say that plainly.

The point

A head of shared services buys capacity and predictability, and they judge you on whether you understand how work actually flows. Lead with a specific guess about the transition or the bottleneck, in their language. For more on this buyer's world, see selling to a VP of operations and selling to a CFO.