The shared services approach has been spreading quite rapidly since the late 1990s and has become a popular organisational change approach to managers who are dissatisfied with their current organisational performance and has subsequently become a subject of interest to academic scholars. The objective of this paper is to present a brief literature review on shared services since this concept is still a relatively new concept with limited academic literature and is gaining research interests from academics. This review is developed from a number of articles written by practitioners and a limited number of books on shared services that has been provoked by a doctoral study on shared services. This contribution will assist scholars engaged in shared services research. This article includes definitions, characteristics, configurations, advantages, key success factors, problems and quality criteria of shared services