Seventy Percent of GCCs Fail – Here’s How a Strategy Realization Office (SRO) Can Change That

How an SRO Can Make a GCC Successful

To help a GCC achieve its goals, an SRO does the essential work of providing clear direction, ensuring alignment and lighting the way to operational excellence. This requires expertise in transition and transformation governance, solution delivery risk and issue management, business value management and organizational change management. 

Figure 2 - Strategy Realization Office

An SRO should be structured around the following four management areas.

Strategic Alignment 

The SRO should be prepared to share the market perspective and validate the roadmap for GCC implementation. Be sure to align the GCC with strategic business goals while prioritizing high-value initiatives. Build the appropriate data-gathering infrastructure to facilitate long-term strategic decision-making. Then, provide strategic guidance aligned with organizational vision and objectives. 

Transformation Governance 

The SRO should be given the tools and authority to monitor program progress and deliver key performance metric reports. It should use data insights to proactively manage and minimize risks and identify, track and resolve cross-workstream dependencies. The SRO will need to support “get to green” planning, and validate governance practices to ensure operational excellence, fairness, and integrity.

Benefits Realization 

Expect and empower your SRO to continuously monitor expected value against the business case, milestones and KPIs. The journey toward achieving outcomes is ongoing, so measuring progress should be, too. Prioritize outcomes that are focused on enhancing revenue, saving costs and improving customer satisfaction. Operating models should leverage best practices to optimize overall performance. Ensure solutions are customized to meet organizational needs. 

Organizational Change Management 

The 5-Step Framework for Building a Successful SRO 

An effective GCC is built on an SRO that operates with a structured methodology emphasizing alignment, collaboration and execution. By clearly defining objectives, fostering stakeholder engagement, and ensuring accountability, organizations can drive seamless integration and value realization. This section outlines the key steps on how to set up an effective SRO, enabling GCCs to achieve operational excellence and long-term strategic success. 

1. Align strategic objectives:
   • Collaborate with business sponsors to clearly align on the GCC’s objectives, focusing on achieving successful transformation
   • Align the GCC’s goals with business priorities
2. Establish governance: 
   • Establish a value measurement framework to ensure accountability, with defined roles and responsibilities for decision-making on scope, budgets and timelines.
   • Create clear accountability and reporting structures.
3. Integrate stakeholders:
   • Act as the critical link between enterprises, business units and providers to foster strong and seamless communication.
   • Work closely with IT teams, business units and delivery partners to integrate processes, tools and people, ensuring everyone works together effectively.
4. Implement a value-driven approach:
   • Develop a robust business/value case to prioritize initiatives based on strategic importance, ROI and inherent risks.
   • Steer provider actions and deliverables to meet contractual obligations while monitoring quality, timelines and budgets to drive desired business outcomes.
5. Monitor and optimize:
   • Ensure all efforts align with the broader strategic vision of the GCC and encourage innovation to maximize value realization.
   • Use feedback, benchmarks and KPIs to gauge progress, make requisite adjustments and guide the organization toward its full potential.

Top 5 Benefits of Strategy Realization Office for GCCs

The following five benefits are crucial for organizations aspiring to achieve their GCC goals:

1. Maintain executive alignment: The SRO helps ensure that leadership is aligned on the transformation objectives, which is crucial for guiding initiatives and maintaining focus.
2. De-risk adoption of new technology and business models: By providing structured oversight and risk management, the SRO mitigates the risks associated with introducing new technologies and business models.
3. Build a solid foundation for success: The SRO establishes frameworks and processes that create a solid foundation for a GCC.
4. Value-based oversight: The SRO ensures that all efforts for GCCS are monitored for their value contribution, leading to better decision-making and resource allocation.
5. Achieve adoption and GCC results: The SRO facilitates the adoption of new practices and technologies, ensuring that the anticipated GCC results are achieved.

According to 2025 ISG Market Lens survey on GCCs, the most common enterprise objectives for a GCC start with reducing staffing costs, improving productivity and reducing facility costs. (See Figure 3 below). Achieving these objectives and integrating the GCC into the broader organizational framework requires not only careful planning and execution but also robust oversight. 

Figure 3 - GCC common enterprise objectives

When they are managed well, GCCs can become strategic assets for global organizations. Establishing a competent SRO that supports and monitors the GCC will make the difference. By prioritizing value, innovation and strategic alignment through the SRO, organizations can maximize the potential of their GCCs.

ISG specializes in helping enterprises navigate the complexities of managing GCCs and setting up an effective SRO to ensure GCC goals are met. If you’re struggling to get the most out of your GCC, don’t wait until inefficiencies cost your organization millions of dollars. Contact ISG today to build a high-performing SRO that ensures success.