Portfolio Family Offices Are Managing Too Many Fire Drills
“You buy a business, and the first problem? Who’s handling compliance? Who’s running payroll?”
It happens every time.
For portfolio family offices managing multiple operating businesses, this isn’t a rare challenge — it’s a recurring pattern. Despite the growth in complexity and asset size, many still approach each new acquisition as a standalone entity. That means fresh hiring cycles, new vendor agreements, and an ever-expanding tangle of systems and reporting lines.
At a certain point, this approach stops being manageable. It becomes inefficient, expensive, and a barrier to value creation.
Family offices that act like investment platforms — with shared operational infrastructure — are the ones that move faster, integrate better, and unlock scale without unnecessary friction. Shared services aren’t an optional feature. They’re the backbone of modern, well-run portfolios.
What Shared Services Really Mean for Family Offices
Shared services aren’t just about outsourcing³.
They’re about centralizing repeatable, critical business functions — from Finance to IT to HR — and making them accessible across the portfolio. This model is already standard practice in large corporations and PE-backed PortCos, but many family offices are only beginning to see its strategic importance.
Key components include:
- Central finance and accounting
- HR frameworks for hiring, onboarding, exits
- Legal and compliance infrastructure
- Cybersecurity and IT systems
- AI-enabled internal reporting and analytics
Rather than reinventing the wheel every time a new business is added, these functions operate through a common framework. It’s not about losing control. It’s about building consistency without compromising strategy. Despite so many benefits, why do most family offices still don’t use shared services (and why is that risky now)?
Many family offices resist shared services for reasons that feel familiar, even understandable.
- Cultural habits run deep: “We’ve always done it company by company.”
- Autonomy concerns emerge: “Every business is different.”
- Complexity assumptions persist: “You can’t standardize HR for both a logistics company and a SaaS platform.”
- And then there’s short-term thinking: “We’re going to sell this business anyway — why bother with integration?”
But these assumptions no longer hold up under scrutiny. Today’s portfolios operate in fast-moving markets. Running everything separately leads to duplicated costs, repeated vendor negotiations, hiring delays, and internal confusion each time you acquire or divest.
Even for companies slated for divestiture, clean, consistent operations improve valuation. Exit-readiness often depends not on the product or leadership team, but on whether the basic processes are investor-grade from day one.
What Actually Breaks When You Don’t Centralize
Let’s be precise about what breaks:
- Hiring lags: It can take 6+ weeks¹ to recruit a controller for a new acquisition
- System sprawl: Multiple ERPs, payroll providers, and disconnected compliance tools
- Wasted costs: Paying full price for core functions at each company
- Transition stalls: Even basic onboarding processes get rebuilt every time
But when you centralize, here is what shared resources actually enable
Shared services are not just an efficient play⁶. They unlock meaningful improvements in execution and governance:
- Faster post-deal integration — IT, finance, payroll, and compliance are already in place.
- Less overhead stress — Central HR handles employment contracts, benefits, exits.
- Better vendor leverage — Enterprise pricing across entities replaces individual contracts.
- Unified visibility — Consistent data reporting across all companies.
According to PwC², shared services can reduce back-office costs by 30–60%.
Yet the real benefit goes beyond cost.
As StrategyMA notes, “Family offices often hesitate because they don’t know where to begin. That’s where firms like us come in — not to run your shared services, but to design the operational framework that keeps your system steady whether you’re buying or selling.”
And this is not just about saving cost – it’s about more control.
A common misconception is that centralization reduces control. In practice, it’s the opposite.
Standardization creates clarity. Instead of relying on each portco’s interpretation of compliance, or IT security, you have one proven process — applied consistently.
That brings⁵:
- Reduced operational risk
- Access to specialized talent shared across companies
- Faster time-to-value post-acquisition
For instance, one unified compliance and cybersecurity protocol creates a stronger, audit-ready position than six improvised ones.
AI Has Made Shared Services Even More Efficient
AI thrives in environments that are structured and standardized — exactly what shared services provide. Once you have centralized workflows, adding AI can dramatically increase speed and productivity.
Practical use cases:
As one operating partner put it:
“It’s not about hiring more people. It’s about making fewer people five times more productive.”
And again, structure is key.
“With AI, shared services go from operationally useful to transformational,” says Managing Principal, Strategy MA. “But it only works best when it’s tied to real, specific goals. That’s where we come in — helping family offices design workflows where AI enhances output, not complexity.”
So, what does a best-in-class shared services model look like?
This isn’t theoretical. The blueprint exists — and the best family offices are already moving toward it.
Key roles inside the platform team:
- CTO or CIO – to oversee system architecture
- Head of Shared HR – managing hiring, exits, compliance
- Controller – financial governance and standard reporting
- Legal and Compliance Lead – contracts, entity structure, regulations
- AI and Automation Strategist – finding leverage, deploying tech
Support is driven by SLAs and structured onboarding playbooks — ensuring every new business enters the system cleanly, with minimal friction.
“StrategyMA works with family offices to build exactly this kind of model — not using templates, but real systems that adapt to your portfolio. The goal is simple: make the back office invisible because it just works.”
If you’re not doing this yet, you’re already behind.
Private equity firms have been using shared services for decades. It’s how they scale without growing their G&A line exponentially.
Today, even large single family offices are moving toward multi-family office (MFO)-like structures internally. Why? Because governance, transparency, and operational continuity matter more now than ever.
Public companies do this to reduce quarterly volatility. For family offices, the incentive is even greater — to protect legacy⁴, ensure execution, and prepare for transitions.
The only real reason not to adopt shared services today is inertia. And in this market, inertia is expensive.
Conclusion: Shared Resources Are the Backbone of a Modern Family Office
In today’s environment, you can’t afford to treat operations as an afterthought.
Shared services don’t dilute your strategy. They enable it — by removing noise, reducing downtime, and giving your team the freedom to focus on what matters.
If every acquisition still feels like you’re building the company from scratch, it’s time to re-evaluate the model. StrategyMA gives you the structure to scale your portfolio — without the usual chaos. So the next time you buy or sell a business, you're not scrambling. You're executing. Cleanly. Efficiently. With control.
REFERENCES
[1] https://www.accountancycapital.co.uk/interim-financial-controller-recruitment/
[2] https://www.pwc.at/de/publikationen/financial-services/shared-services-multiplying-success.pdf
[5 https://www.pwmnet.com/family-offices-turn-to-external-partners
[6] https://www2.deloitte.com/us/en/pages/operations/solutions/about-our-shared-services-practice.html
