Collaboration across borders: Global integration vs local agility.

Collaboration across borders: Global integration vs local agility.

As organisations scale beyond their home markets, they face a fundamental tension: how to generate the efficiency and consistency of centralisation while at the same time preserving speed and essential local market knowledge.

The appeal of shared services is compelling. Consolidating resources promises economies of scale, reduced duplication, consistent quality standards, and unified offerings across markets. Finance teams love the cost savings. Senior leadership appreciates the control and consistency. The reality is always more nuanced than the business case suggests.

The paradox lies in what made you successful in the first place. Local teams understand their markets intimately. The cultural nuances, competitive dynamics, and client expectations that no centralised function can fully grasp. 

The global model traditionally works brilliantly for certain functions. Finance, IT infrastructure, procurement, and compliance benefit enormously from standardisation. These areas reward consistency, and local variation often creates risk rather than value.

Other functions exist in a grey zone. Product development, legal support, HR, customer relations, for example, exemplify these challenges perfectly. 

Concepts like brand architecture and core messaging demand global consistency, clients expect the same quality and values. Yet campaign execution must flex to local language, culture, and channel preferences. 

Complex matrix structures are the result of this ongoing organisational challenge, they are never perfect but the best versions we see at Cophi are those where the willingness to communicate, share challenges, and course-correct are substantially part of the organisational system. Measurement of the relationships and collaboration quality is a key indicator of where the system is working well and where it may need refinement.

Andy Grove (pictured) championed "constructive confrontation" demanding data-backed opinions and ruthlessly testing ideas, he was a pioneer of dual reporting matrix structures that balanced functional expertise with mission-oriented speed. It was essential that what mattered got measured.

Collaboration as a competitive advantage.

Too often, organisations invest heavily in designing the structure but neglect the feedback mechanisms that make it work. 

Local teams encounter problems, a centralised process that doesn't fit their market reality, a delay that costs them a client opportunity, a template that misses cultural nuances, but their feedback goes nowhere. Concerns once, perhaps twice, then stop bothering.

When feedback doesn't flow fast and honestly in both directions, problems fester. Local teams develop workarounds that undermine the very consistency you sought. Central functions remain unaware their solutions aren't working. 

Meanwhile, the teams that have cracked it have no mechanism to share that insight across the organisation.

The speed at which you identify and act on what's not working is perhaps the single most important predictor of shared services success. 

Making the Model Work

Successful organisations don't choose between global and local, they design intentionally for both:

• Define clear decision rights. Specify which decisions require central approval and which sit with local teams. 

• Build for flexibility within frameworks. Centralised teams should provide tools, templates, and guardrails that local teams can adapt rather than rigid programmes.

• Create genuine feedback loops, not feedback theatre. If someone raises a critical issue, they should see movement within days, not months. Establish clear escalation paths and response time commitments.

• Empower honest criticism. If your culture punishes people for pointing out problems with central initiatives, your shared services model will  fail. Leaders must actively solicit critical feedback and demonstrate they value it by acting on it swiftly.

• Build knowledge-sharing into the operating rhythm. Create structured opportunities for teams to share what's working. Regular cross-market sessions where teams present adaptations, workarounds, or innovations.

• Invest in the interface. The relationship between central functions and local teams requires active management.

• Accept that one size doesn't fit all. Your largest markets may warrant dedicated resources that smaller markets share.

Getting it right

The organisations that get this right don't eliminate the tension between global and local. Friction is what drives change and change is essential for long term competitive advantage. A culture where that friction generates light heat rather than fire means that honest feedback flows freely, problems surface quickly, and solutions spread fast.