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Many companies that sourced back office capabilities like IT, finance, and HR in silos are now having a hard time consolidating their data to perform analytics.

Over the last decade, many large companies pursued various models for sourcing low-cost or scarce labor for back office functions. They sent work offshore, whether to third-party providers or company-owned “captive centers.” They outsourced to vendors who performed work on site. And they set up new corporate offices in the U.S. to handle activities like billing, claims processing, or IT. Often, each back office function pursued its own strategy independently.

Now some of these companies are beginning to realize their piecemeal approach to sourcing no longer adequately serves the business. “CEOs are wondering, ‘Why do we have a finance center run by a third party in Mumbai and a captive center for HR in nearby Pune?’” says Marc Mancher, a principal with Deloitte Consulting LLP and the U.S. national leader for its outsourcing advisory services practice. “They want to see a cohesive strategy that achieves the company’s collective goals, rather than the individual goals of IT, finance, or HR.”

One area of the business that a scattered strategy has complicated is analytics. Eric Openshaw, vice chairman and U.S. Technology, Media & Telecommunications leader for Deloitte LLP, says companies can’t readily mine insights from data that’s dispersed across different locations, systems, and formats. “Pulling data from disparate sources back into the enterprise to conduct analytics is an enormous challenge for many companies,” he says.

To resolve the data problems caused by these disparate strategies, Mancher recommends companies charge one executive with developing the appropriate enterprisewide global business services strategy. This strategy may require centralizing back office operations, or adopting a federated model. The global business executive can also champion a master data strategy that either allows data to reside within one organization or gives the company a way to merge data from far-flung systems for analytics, adds Mancher. “Companies that move to a global business services model usually create a master data strategy to address these challenges,” he notes.

Both Mancher and Openshaw believe CIOs are poised to take over global business services because of their experience working with third parties, their broad view of business operations, and because they often serve as their companies’ data stewards.

“CIOs should lead the discussion about bringing back office functions together into a global business services organization and position the move as a means to increase shareholder value,” says Mancher. “Creating a global business services organization may allow CIOs to standardize processes and rationalize technology across back office functions.”

Mancher and Openshaw discuss the advantages of a centralized global business services organization.