Growth enablement through shared services: a new operating model for the AEC industry
By Metam
Abstract
For AEC firms, traditional operating models are no longer sufficient to manage multi-project portfolios efficiently. Metam’s shared services model offers a strategic alternative by centralizing support functions to improve consistency and reduce inefficiencies. This approach allows firms to accelerate growth and enhance operational excellence without over-burdening internal teams.
As AEC firms face intensified pressure to deliver faster, cheaper, and safer outcomes across complex multi-project portfolios, the limitations of traditional operating models are increasingly exposed. Inconsistent processes, duplicated functions across projects, and reactive resource allocation often create inefficiencies that erode margins and strain teams.
Shared services present a compelling alternative: a centralized model that consolidates support functions such as finance, procurement, HR, IT, and compliance into unified service hubs. These hubs serve multiple projects simultaneously, enabling consistent standards, process automation, and optimized resource deployment.
Rather than duplicating roles across each project or department, AEC firms can scale more efficiently by centralizing core functions while freeing up project teams to focus on delivery. This operating model unlocks sustainable growth by enhancing cost efficiency, improving service consistency, and supporting agility in expanding market conditions.
Shared services go beyond back-office cost savings. When designed strategically, they become a growth enabler for project-based organizations.
Centralization of expertise: Core functions are staffed by highly skilled teams who specialize in cross-project support. This drives quality, consistency, and faster problem-solving across functions like finance, procurement, or safety compliance.
Process standardization: Shared services enforce common standards and digital workflows across all projects, reducing variability and minimizing risk. This consistency accelerates training, compliance, and integration of new team members.
Increased visibility and control: Real-time data aggregation across departments gives leadership a consolidated view of operations, enabling better planning, forecasting, and performance management.
Flexible capacity management: Firms can scale services up or down based on project demand, reducing fixed overhead and increasing agility. This adaptability is essential in environments with fluctuating workloads.
Faster deployment of digital tools: Shared services create the ideal environment to implement enterprise platforms like ERPs, safety dashboards, or AI tools. New tech can be deployed once, standardized centrally, and scaled across projects without duplicating efforts.
By decoupling growth from direct headcount increases, AEC firms can enter new markets, manage larger project portfolios, and respond to shifting demands without overburdening their core teams.
AEC firms operate in project-driven, geographically dispersed environments where agility, compliance, and cost control are paramount. Shared services help solve long-standing pain points in this context:
Siloed operations: Multiple projects running in parallel often reinvent processes independently. Shared services replace silos with unified support systems that improve transparency and reduce redundant effort.
Administrative overload: Site managers and technical teams frequently spend valuable time on administrative tasks that could be centralized. With shared services, these tasks are offloaded, allowing technical teams to focus on delivery.
Regulatory complexity: AEC firms must comply with varying local regulations, certifications, and reporting obligations. Centralized compliance and safety management functions ensure that every project meets governance standards without duplication or risk exposure.
Workforce pressure: Skilled labor shortages and burnout are widespread in the AEC sector. Shared services reduce pressure on field teams by taking over time-consuming, non-core functions and enabling more sustainable work models.
By adopting a shared services approach, AEC leaders can move from reactive operations to proactive, performance-led management, transforming how firms operate at scale.
Building an in-house shared services center can be a long and complex journey. Many AEC firms are accelerating this transformation by partnering with managed service providers (MSPs) that specialize in delivering shared services aligned with industry needs.
These partnerships allow firms to rapidly access mature capabilities in:
Finance and accounting: Invoice processing, cost control, budgeting, and reporting are handled through streamlined workflows and automation.
Procurement and vendor management: Centralized procurement reduces costs, improves vendor compliance, and ensures consistent supply chain visibility.
Digital operations: MSPs can deploy and manage ERP platforms, data analytics, and integration tools that support centralized project oversight.
Regulatory and ESG reporting: Centralized teams ensure that compliance and ESG documentation is tracked, standardized, and ready for audits across the firm.
Unlike traditional outsourcing, modern MSPs act as strategic partners, working closely with internal teams to co-design processes, integrate systems, and share accountability for performance outcomes.
At Metam Technologies, we work side-by-side with AEC firms to co-create scalable, high-performance shared services operating models. Our consulting-led approach focuses on aligning operational efficiency with long-term business growth, adapting the shared services concept to the project-based, fast-paced reality of construction and engineering environments. Every engagement is grounded in deep understanding of the client’s unique project lifecycles, regulatory obligations, and cultural context.
Co-designing shared service hubs
We begin by helping firms identify which back-office and support functions, such as finance, HR, safety compliance, or procurement, offer the greatest potential for centralization without sacrificing flexibility. This involves stakeholder mapping, maturity assessments, and alignment workshops to ensure strategic clarity. Together, we design shared service hubs that reduce duplication, increase quality, and seamlessly integrate into existing operational rhythms, delivering value without disruption.
Managed delivery of core functions
Once designed, Metam can operate the shared services hubs under a managed services model tailored to each firm’s service-level expectations. We take accountability for key functions, such as invoicing, subcontractor onboarding, regulatory reporting, and bid support, ensuring delivery is reliable, measurable, and continuously improving. Our delivery teams are embedded in AEC workflows, bringing not just transactional execution but also domain-aligned process innovation.
Digital enablement
Technology is at the core of scalable shared services. Metam equips shared hubs with cloud-based ERP systems, digital workflows, and analytics dashboards that unify operations across projects, regions, and functions. We integrate these systems into field tools and project platforms so that decision-makers get real-time visibility and insights from day one, empowering them to act faster and more confidently across multiple projects.
Change support and workforce transition
Transitioning to a shared services model is as much a people challenge as it is a process one. Metam supports this journey with structured change management, tailored communications, and internal capability-building programs. We help leaders navigate resistance, clarify new roles, and ensure that internal teams feel empowered, not displaced, by the new model. Our approach ensures cultural continuity while enabling operational transformation.
We do not apply cookie-cutter solutions or push predefined models. Instead, we act as strategic partners, aligning with each firm’s size, ambition, and values. Our goal is to enable AEC organizations to operate with greater consistency, responsiveness, and resilience, building a shared services foundation that fuels sustainable, long-term growth.
In an increasingly competitive landscape, AEC firms are looking for new ways to grow and scale efficiently. The traditional model of duplicating support functions for every project is no longer sustainable. Instead, a shared services approach is emerging as a powerful strategy for driving operational excellence and unlocking new opportunities for growth.
Shared services represent a strategic opportunity for AEC firms to scale efficiently, reduce complexity, and improve consistency across multiple projects.
Centralizing support functions enables stronger oversight, faster execution, and higher-quality outcomes, while reducing redundancy and freeing teams for value-adding work.
Partnerships with managed service providers accelerate transformation, providing mature capabilities and technology infrastructure without the long build-up of internal capacity.
AEC leaders who adopt shared service models are better positioned to expand into new markets, manage more complex portfolios, and compete in a volatile environment without overstretching teams.
As construction and engineering firms rethink the way they scale, shared services are emerging not just as a cost-saving tactic, but as a modern growth enabler for the next era of AEC operational excellence.
