Event: Peeriosity Peercast (GBS Shared Services Peer Community)

Date: August 2026

Host: Michael Hostetler, Peeriosity

Presenters: Lead – Continuous Improvement and Senior Manager – Continuous Improvement, a global packaged food company

Attendees: GBS/shared-services practitioners from multiple member companies

Overview

The presenting company’s Continuous Improvement team presented its approach to moving shared-services (GBS) metrics beyond traditional cost and efficiency measures toward metrics that demonstrate real business value. Rather than sharing internal figures, the presenters focused on a transferable framework: how to evaluate existing KPIs, distinguish leading from lagging indicators, balance run/improve/transform work, and build the discipline that turns a metric into a true KPI. The session was highly interactive, built around polls and open discussion with the peer group.

Note that this document is a summary. Peeriosity-100 members have full visibility to company names, presenters, Peercast attendees, and a recording of the Peercast discussion.

Key Takeaways

• Industry has climbed the efficiency S-curve. GBS organizations progressed through labor arbitrage, consolidation, standardization, and automation — each wave measured by cost-per-transaction, productivity, and SLA attainment. Most organizations are now near the top of that curve, where further efficiency gains cost more than they return, and the next wave of value is about outcomes, experience, and enterprise impact rather than pure cost.
• Research underscores a value-measurement gap. The presenters cited four external data points: BCG found only 41% of companies believe their GBS creates value; an MIT/BCG survey of 3,000+ managers found 60% want to improve existing KPIs rather than add new ones; McKinsey found more than half of GBS leaders have no defined way to measure the impact of the changes they make; and only about a quarter of shared-services organizations rate their own measurement maturity as “advanced.”
• Most scorecards are strong on the basics, weak on outcomes. Across six common GBS scorecard themes — cost/efficiency, timeliness, quality/accuracy, risk & control, experience, and business outcomes — organizations are typically strong on the first four (the “engine” metrics) but far less mature on experience and business outcome, the two dimensions business partners and leaders care about most.
• Two lenses for evaluating metrics: (1) Input / Process / Output / Outcome — input and process measures are leading indicators (result not yet locked in), while output and outcome are lagging (already locked in); leading indicators should always be tagged back to the lagging outcomes they are meant to predict. (2) Run / Improve / Transform — a typical GBS organization spends roughly 80% of effort on “run” (keeping the engine stable), 15% on “improve,” and 5% on “transform,” and each category needs its own metrics and cadence.
• A metric only becomes a real KPI when four conditions are met: it has a target and a stated definition of “good”; it has a single named owner (not a team); it sits on a review agenda, not just in a report; and there is a pre-agreed action for when it goes red. The company pairs this with a defined review rhythm — daily huddles, weekly reviews, and monthly/quarterly business reviews — each with the right people and data present to drive decisions.
• Tracking enabled value has changed the conversation internally. The presenting company’s Continuous Improvement team (about 8–9 people, split between the U.S. and India, sitting within Strategy & Operational Excellence inside the GBS organization) has spent over a year tracking the value it enables for the business. The presenters noted this tracking is a key reason the team — traditionally an easy target for cuts — is now in discussions to grow for the first time in years.
• Metrics should cascade and be trended together. Leading and lagging indicators should move together over time; if lead measures look good but outcomes don’t follow, the leading measures may be the wrong ones. Metrics should also cascade from daily/weekly operational measures up through monthly, quarterly, and annual business outcomes rather than existing as independent, disconnected numbers.

Live Poll Results

“Are your metrics true KPIs?”

• 0% of attendees said they fully meet all four KPI requirements (target/definition, named owner, agenda placement, pre-agreed action).
• 86% said they meet the requirements for most, but not all, of their metrics.
• 14% said they need more metrics turned into true KPIs.
• 71% said their review rhythm is generally in place but the team is resource-constrained; the remainder said rhythm needs more attention.

Discussion Highlights

• Member from a global consumer products company: Raised the challenge of tiering KPIs — deciding which measures need active improvement versus “sustain/maintain” — since driving every metric to improve every year has diminishing returns. She also noted that dropping measurement of an area, even temporarily, tends to let performance in that area slip, and stressed the importance of “commercializing” business value internally so frontline teams understand the impact of their work, not just leadership.
• Member from a packaged food company: Commented on the difficulty of moving from “run” to “transform” work, largely because teams aren’t always asking the right questions to identify what needs to change.
• Member from a chemical company: Asked how a newly formed OpEx/service-excellence function should begin integrating KPI discipline. The presenters recommended starting with critical run/operational measures, understanding the business outcomes those measures ladder up to, and piloting the approach in one plant or system before scaling.

Attendees also confirmed that the presenting company’s Continuous Improvement team supports the enterprise broadly — not just the GBS organization — with the ultimate goal of enabling top- and bottom-line results for the business units it partners with.

Closing Notes

• Presenters emphasized that the goal is not to add more KPIs, but to sharpen and better govern the KPIs organizations already have.
• Discussion questions the presenters left with attendees: How many of your measures sit in input/process vs. output/outcome? Is there a pre-agreed action when a metric turns red? Does every KPI have a single named owner? What is your run/improve/transform split? What is the one measure that has changed behavior most in your organization, and why?