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As startups experience rapid growth, operational complexity tends to increase. Multiple departments, expanding teams, and rising customer demands can create inefficiencies if processes aren’t properly streamlined. One effective way to manage growth while maintaining operational efficiency is by building a shared services group. A shared services group centralizes key support functions, such as HR, finance, IT, and customer service, into one cohesive unit that serves multiple departments, ensuring that operations scale efficiently and resources are optimized.
However, building an effective shared services group within a growing startup is not without its challenges. In this blog, we’ll cover three essential tips for creating a successful shared services team that scales seamlessly with your startup. These strategies will help you manage the increasing demands of your business while also ensuring that your team remains focused on the core mission and objectives of the company.
One of the primary purposes of a shared services group is to streamline and centralize administrative functions. As startups scale, departments often create silos of information, leading to inefficiencies, duplicate tasks, and resource waste. A shared services model addresses these issues by consolidating core business functions into a single, unified team that provides support across all departments.
The first step is to identify which business functions make the most sense to centralize. These typically include:
By consolidating these functions, you reduce operational redundancy and free up teams to focus on strategic work.
Once you have centralized your shared services functions, it’s critical to define workflows and responsibilities clearly. Each team member in the shared services group should have well-defined roles, with clear processes for handling requests and tasks from various departments. This avoids confusion, ensures that tasks are completed efficiently, and allows for smooth communication between the shared services team and other parts of the organization.
Project tracking in shared services becomes a key component of this process, ensuring that projects are completed on time and nothing falls through the cracks. By setting up structured workflows, startups can better handle the growing number of tasks as they scale.
A common mistake startups make when building shared services teams is relying on shared inboxes for communication and task tracking. While shared inboxes can seem like a simple solution at first, they quickly become a source of inefficiency. Important messages can get lost, tasks may be duplicated or forgotten, and there is no clear way to prioritize requests.
Instead, startups should adopt project management and ticketing systems to manage incoming requests from various departments. This not only creates accountability but also ensures that no request is overlooked. Moreover, when teams have visibility into pending tasks and their statuses, it becomes easier to track performance and meet deadlines.
Effective communication is the backbone of any successful shared services group. However, it’s important to use the right tools for the right purposes. While platforms like Slack are great for real-time collaboration and informal discussions, they shouldn’t be used as a replacement for ticketing or project management systems.
As your startup grows, the temptation to manage tasks via Slack can lead to chaos. Slack is ideal for instant communication, quick updates, and team discussions, but it lacks the structured environment needed for tracking the progress of projects or managing requests. Using Slack as a replacement for formal task management can result in lost information and overlooked responsibilities.
Instead, startups should integrate formal task management or project management tools with Slack. For example, teams can use Slack for daily communication, while a separate ticketing system or project management tool is used to manage tasks, track deadlines, and ensure accountability.
In a shared services group, collaboration between teams is essential. Each department will have its own unique needs, and it’s important that the shared services team works together to address these requirements effectively. Encouraging open communication through tools like Slack can help break down silos and create a more collaborative culture across departments.
Regular team check-ins, collaborative problem-solving sessions, and sharing best practices among departments can improve efficiency and foster innovation. Communication tools like Slack also provide a way for team members to connect quickly and solve problems without lengthy email threads or unnecessary delays.
One of the biggest challenges when building a shared services group in a growing startup is ensuring that the team remains productive and efficient as workloads increase. Effective project tracking in shared services is essential to managing performance and keeping everyone aligned with the startup's broader goals.
As with any team, it’s important to establish key performance indicators (KPIs) for your shared services group. This could include metrics such as:
These metrics help you gauge how well your shared services team is functioning and whether they’re meeting the needs of the rest of the organization.
To ensure the smooth running of the shared services team, it’s important to implement the right tools for project tracking in shared services. Project management tools like Trello, Asana, or Monday.com allow you to assign tasks, set deadlines, and track the progress of projects in real-time. This transparency helps ensure that tasks are completed on time, that priorities are clear, and that team members remain accountable for their work.
Having a structured system for tracking projects also allows startups to handle increasing workloads more effectively, reducing bottlenecks and preventing burnout among team members.
As the startup continues to grow, the shared services group must evolve. Regular performance reviews are essential to evaluate how well the team is functioning and whether adjustments need to be made. Whether it’s adding more team members, reassigning responsibilities, or introducing new tools, these reviews will ensure that the shared services group continues to operate at peak efficiency, even as the startup scales.
Building a shared services group inside a growing startup requires clear communication, efficient processes, and the right tools to manage tasks and performance. This is where StartingPoint can provide immense value. StartingPoint is a powerful workflow and automation platform designed to help startups manage the growing complexity of their operations by consolidating multiple functions into a unified platform.
StartingPoint offers centralized project tracking, enabling shared services groups to assign tasks, manage deadlines, and monitor progress in real-time. This level of transparency ensures that no task is overlooked, reducing inefficiencies that often arise with shared inboxes or manual tracking methods.
Additionally, StartingPoint integrates with communication tools like Slack, allowing teams to maintain seamless communication without losing sight of project management. This ensures that startups can keep conversations flowing while using more formal systems to track task completion and meet project deadlines.
As your startup continues to grow, StartingPoint will scale with your operations, ensuring that your shared services team remains efficient and productive. With a focus on driving accountability, improving project tracking in shared services, and providing leadership with clear insights into team performance, StartingPoint is the ideal solution for startups looking to manage and optimize their shared services group.
By implementing StartingPoint, growing startups can confidently scale their operations, streamline administrative tasks, and foster a collaborative work environment, ultimately driving long-term success.
