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Essential, but unloved
Corporate Functions—such as HR, finance, legal, marketing—tend to operate as back offices designed to support the core business. As a result, they’re treated as cost centers, which leads them to focus on compliance and efficiency (e.g., “Please follow our centrally mandated rules”) rather than innovation or impact (e.g., “How can we make you more effective?”).
As a result, these teams tend to be bottlenecks in the flow of business. Teams seeking support face cumbersome processes, slow response times, and rigid, one-size-fits-all solutions.
This disconnect between service providers and their internal customers gets in the way of progress. It’s frustrating. It’s disengaging. And it creates a downward spiral: poor service → pressure to cut costs → limited investment in innovation → even less effective and less valuable services. In the end, an organization is left with a grab bag of hollowed-out compliance teams.
While this model obviously works to a certain extent, it’s possible for these units to evolve into more dynamic, responsive, and scalable support systems.