Head-office solutions
Designing the head office your group can actually defend
A head office earns its keep when the functions it centralises are genuinely cheaper and better run from the centre - and when the cost of running them can be recharged to the entities on a basis that survives scrutiny.
Service catalogue
The five function families we work on
Every one of these is a service the head office provides to the entities underneath it. Naming them, giving each an owner and a service level, is most of the work.
HR & people operations
Typical services a group head office runs in this family. Each one gets a named owner, a service level, an intake route and a place in the intra-group service agreement.
- Group HR policy
- Mobility and assignment administration
- Recruitment coordination
- Performance cycle administration
Decision matrix
Centralise, distribute, or outsource?
Five tests we run against every function in the catalogue. None of them produces a score - they produce a conversation with the people who will have to live with the answer.
| Test | Points to centralising | Points to leaving it local |
|---|---|---|
| Does the group do enough of this for one team to stay busy and stay good at it? | Volume is steady across entities and the work rewards specialisation. | Volume is lumpy or the work is inseparable from local operations. |
| How much of the work is jurisdiction-specific? | Mostly group policy, templates and coordination. | Mostly local statute, local language, local relationships. |
| What happens when this function gets it wrong? | A single controlled process reduces the chance of an inconsistent answer. | Local accountability is what actually prevents the failure. |
| Can the cost be recharged to entities on a defensible basis? | The service is definable, measurable and priceable per entity. | Any allocation key would be arbitrary and hard to defend. |
| Where will the people actually want to work? | The role is more interesting at group level than in one entity. | The role only makes sense embedded in an operating business. |
This matrix is a structured way of asking the right questions. It is not a recommendation, a valuation, or a statement about what any change would cost or save. Quantum Stakes Oy makes no representation about the financial effect of centralising or distributing any function; that is determined in the engagement, with your own finance and tax advisers involved where the answer touches their territory.
Intra-group services
The recharge basis is part of the design, not an afterthought
A head-office service that cannot be described, measured and priced per entity is a service that will be challenged. We document the catalogue, the allocation keys and the agreements at the same time as we design the operating model.
We produce the documentation and the basis. We do not give transfer-pricing opinions or tax advice - your tax adviser reviews and signs what we produce, and we work alongside them rather than around them.
What we hand over
- Service catalogue: what the head office provides, to whom, at what level
- Allocation keys per service, with the rationale written down
- Intra-group service agreement structure, ready for your legal and tax review
- Governance for changes: who may add a service, and how it gets priced
- A reporting line showing what each entity was charged and for what
Scope of business
- Quantum Stakes Oy provides business-to-business management consulting and head-office support services only. We do not offer consumer services.
- We are not a bank, investment firm, payment institution, insurance intermediary or gaming operator, and we hold no financial-services licence. We do not offer investments, credit, trading, wagering or any product with a financial return.
- Advisory work is delivered under a written engagement scope. Nothing on this website is an offer, a guarantee of any outcome, or legal, tax or audit advice.