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How to Set Up a Shared Services Center (SSC) ?

The Shared Services Center (SSC) has emerged as a strategic solution for optimizing costs, pooling expertise, and improving organizational performance. By centralizing support functions such as payroll, human resources, accounting, or IT into a single dedicated entity, companies free up time and energy to focus on their core business. With the rise of remote work, new opportunities are emerging to outsource these services to countries with high potential for qualified talent, such as those offered by Talenteum. The SSC has thus become a true lever for competitiveness, agility, and sustainable growth for businesses of all sizes.

Setting up a Shared Services Center is not something to be improvised it requires careful planning and a clear methodology. The first step is to identify the processes and functions that can be shared without affecting the company’s core mission. These are often repetitive, low-value but essential tasks, such as payroll management, invoicing, or IT support. Next, the structure must be defined: internal SSC, outsourced SSC, or a hybrid model. The choice of location is strategic: availability of talent, labor costs, technological infrastructure, and data security are all critical factors. Then comes team building: recruit or outsource? Train or integrate already skilled professionals? This is where partners like Talenteum bring decisive value: by providing a community of qualified talents already ready to work remotely, while managing administrative and legal aspects through freelance umbrella employment. Finally, it’s essential to implement collaborative tools, standardized processes, and performance indicators to ensure quality, transparency, and continuous improvement of services.

Numbers That Speak: The Global Rise of SSCs

Today, over 80% of Fortune 500 companies have a Shared Services Center or a similar organizational structure. According to Deloitte, the global SSC market has grown by more than 30% over the past decade. The most commonly centralized functions are finance, human resources, and IT. In Europe, around 50% of large companies have already centralized all or part of their support functions. This trend is driven by digitalization, the search for efficiency gains, and the need to control operating costs. On average, a well-structured SSC can reduce operational costs by 20 to 40%. The model is no longer limited to multinationals: more and more SMEs and mid-sized companies are seeing it as a concrete way to stay competitive against industry giants.

Examples of Companies Betting on SSCs

Major international companies perfectly illustrate the value of Shared Services Centers. Unilever, for example, has set up regional SSCs to centralize its accounting and HR functions across Europe, Asia, and Latin America. Nestlé created its Global Business Services (GBS) to standardize its financial and administrative processes worldwide, while adapting them to local specificities. The same goes for Siemens, which centralized its back-office operations in several regional hubs. Even smaller companies, including mid-sized startups, are now adopting this kind of organizational structure.

These examples show that SSCs are not just about cost reduction: they also help standardize processes, improve internal service quality, and enhance regulatory compliance. Today, thanks to digital tools, even a startup can adopt a shared services model using cloud-based solutions or outsourcing to specialized partners.

Where Are the Main SSC Hubs Located?

Traditionally, countries like India, the Philippines, and Poland have become go-to destinations for Shared Services Centers due to their large multilingual talent pools and competitive labor costs. Eastern Europe including Romania, Hungary, and the Czech Republic is also popular among European firms seeking to centralize functions while staying close to their markets. Increasingly, Africa is emerging as a credible alternative: Madagascar, Mauritius, Morocco, Tunisia, and Senegal are positioning themselves as new SSC destinations thanks to their young, qualified, and French- or English-speaking workforce. These countries offer time zones compatible with Europe and increasingly attractive political and economic stability. The development of robust digital infrastructure makes them particularly well-suited to host remote teams dedicated to support functions.

Talenteum: An Opportunity to Build Your Remote SSC

It’s in this context that Talenteum stands out: our platform provides companies with qualified talent based in Africa, already prepared to work remotely in a flexible and optimized model. With our solution, an SME can build its own outsourced Shared Services Center without the cost and constraints of a physical presence. Payroll management, administrative support, HR assistance, customer service, IT everything can be handled by a dedicated team, selected from our talent pool and supervised by our experts in freelance umbrella employment and HR management. The impact is twofold: reducing operational costs while supporting local employability in often underutilized regions. With Talenteum, the SSC becomes a custom, agile, and socially responsible solution, tailored to the needs of any company whether a fast-growing startup or a large organization looking to streamline its support functions.

Shared Services Are No Longer Just for Global Giants

In a world where performance is combined with agility and responsibility, centralizing support functions has become a strategic choice for all businesses. Thanks to digitalization and ethical outsourcing, any organization can now create its own SSC, improve efficiency, and boost competitiveness. With Talenteum, this opportunity is now within reach for companies that want to combine cost savings, service quality, and positive social impact.

So, the real question is no longer “Why create an SSC?” but rather “When and with whom?”

📌 FAQ: Everything You Need to Know About Shared Services Centers

What is a Shared Services Center (SSC)?

A Shared Services Center is an internal or outsourced entity that centralizes support functions (payroll, HR, accounting, IT) to make them more efficient and cost-effective.

What are the benefits of an SSC for a company?

An SSC helps reduce costs, standardize processes, save time, improve service quality, and allow companies to focus on their core business.

What types of companies use Shared Services Centers?

Multinationals like Unilever, Nestlé, or Siemens, but increasingly also SMEs and startups looking to pool certain support functions.

What roles or functions can be centralized in an SSC?

Payroll management, accounting, invoicing, customer service, IT support, and various administrative tasks can all be centralized.

Where can you set up a Shared Services Center?

SSCs can be internal located at the headquarters or in a low-cost country or outsourced to destinations like India, Poland, Madagascar, Mauritius, or Morocco.

How do you create a Shared Services Center?

You need to identify which processes to centralize, choose a location or partner, build the team, implement management tools, and set up a quality monitoring system.

What’s the difference between traditional outsourcing and an SSC?

An SSC is still managed by the company, which retains control over the processes. Outsourcing fully delegates the function to a specialized external provider.

Why choose Talenteum for your Shared Services Center?

Talenteum offers a pool of qualified, Africa-based professionals ready to work remotely, while handling administrative and legal compliance through freelance umbrella employment.


👉 Contact us to discuss your project and avoid the pitfalls of international outsourcing, or explore our tech platform at: www.breedj.com

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