A group whose back-office work is split informally between offices has usually never deliberately decided which work belongs where.

This is usually the structural response to the findings of a finance function assessment. It is also the decision that determines whether a shared service center makes sense for your group at all, or whether a different model suits your structure better.

The three basic models and when each fits

A fully centralized model concentrates most finance activity in one team serving the whole group, which works well for businesses with similar processes across entities. A federated model keeps meaningful finance capability at each entity with a smaller central function for group consolidation and policy, which suits groups with clearly different businesses under one ownership structure. A hybrid model centralizes transactional work while keeping analysis and decision support local.

Why the right model depends on group structure, not company size

A Riyadh holding company with a trading arm and a manufacturing subsidiary usually needs more local finance capability at each entity than a group of similar service businesses. In the second group, centralizing almost everything works cleanly.

Where this connects to specific process decisions

Once the model is chosen, it determines what a shared service center should cover, and it should inform the redesign of specific processes such as record-to-report. A process redesign done before the operating model is settled often has to be redone once the structural decision is made.

A common mistake in choosing a model

A common mistake is choosing a model because a similar-sized company did, instead of analyzing the group's actual businesses. Two companies with equal revenue may need different models if the nature of their businesses differs.

What the work delivers

An operating model recommendation based on your actual business mix and growth trajectory, not a generic best-practice template. It comes with a realistic transition roadmap, since most groups cannot move to a new model overnight without disrupting the finance work that must continue during the change.