The recent global economic downturn has left its mark on the retail industry and marketplace. As global companies emerge from the recession, CXOs of various Fortune 1000 companies across the globe representing the consumer-packaged goods, retail, quick service restaurants and other sectors have passionately articulated a common set of needs: to leverage their scale, to be truly global and to use their information as an asset. These needs have led to an increased interest in a global shared services model. CXOs want to use this recovery phase to drive global shared services to consolidate, define and possibly centralize key functions and services in the company to help leverage efficiencies of scale globally, reduce costs and deliver competitive advantage.