SSONext: Recent Episodes
Seth Adler
In this episode of SSO Next, host Heather King speaks with Turan Sahin, CEO of Allianz Services, about his journey building one of the world's leading Global Business Services (GBS) organizations from the ground up. Reflecting on his seven-year tenure, Sahin shares how he challenged early skepticism around captive shared services by focusing on market-driven performance rather than mandates. By prioritizing cost, quality, customer experience, and trust, he positioned Allianz Services as a competitive, world-class provider that business units actively choose to partner with.
A central theme of the conversation is the shift from traditional, transactional shared services to high-value, end-to-end capabilities embedded within the core business. Sahin explains how Allianz Services deliberately moved up the value chain, focusing on complex, skill-intensive work and leveraging global talent to drive real business impact. By aligning closely with customer outcomes and measuring success through end-customer satisfaction, the organization has positioned itself not just as a service provider, but as a strategic partner and transformation engine.
In this episode of SSO Next, hosted by Sally Fletcher, Global Managing Editor at SSON, we continue the conversation on one of today's most pressing leadership topics: AI in the enterprise. This episode turns the spotlight to the C-suite and explores what it truly means to lead in an AI-driven world.
Our guest, Ansgar Thiessen, Head of Global Central Operations at Swiss Re Corporate Solutions, discusses how artificial intelligence is transforming the skills, mindsets, and expectations of future leaders. Exploring how the rapid pace of innovation is altering decision-making and strategic planning, how organizations can handle change fatigue during ongoing digital transformation, and what effective AI leadership looks like in practice.
Drawing on his hands-on experience implementing AI within Swiss Re GBS, Ansgar shares real-world insights into scaling digital, data, and GBS capabilities across a global operation.
A must-listen for executives and shared services leaders navigating the realities of AI, transformation, and modern leadership in the C-suite.
If you enjoy this episode and want to hear more from Ansgar, you can register free of charge to our webinar series, AI for Global Business Services, where Ansgar is a keynote speaker.
AI is something that is truly transforming global business services, in particular Agentic AI, and there is an incredible amount of discussion around the right and wrong way to use it and implement it within GBS.
Two of the topics we hear the most questions about at SSON are regarding buy vs. build and platform vs. point solutions. There is a lot of information online regarding this topic, but it can often be biased, dependent on whether it's written by a vendor and exactly what their solution is. Therefore, SSON invited AI expert Doug Shannon onto the Podcast to give his seasoned perspective.
Doug is a Visionary Leader in Intelligent Automation and AI. He is a pioneer in driving innovation, operational excellence, and strategic vision across global organizations. Recognized among the Top 50 Intelligent Automation Leaders and twice awarded as a Top 25 Thought Leader in this space.
During this episode Doug and I discuss the following resources:
- SSON Research & Analytics State of the Industry Report, of which you can find a copy here.
- Shared Services & Outsourcing Week North America
- Doug's newsletter Brewing Insights.
2025 is an era of transformation for Global Business Services. Whether it’s operating model transformation, process transformation, or digital transformation, expectations are high. We expect these initiatives to dramatically reduce operating costs, improve cross-functional alignment, and increase customer loyalty. However, more often than not, these transformations fail - and one of the primary reasons is the experience. While technology may be in place, the actual work - how it flows across teams and systems - remains fragmented. With that in mind, SSON invited experience and transformation expert Christophe Martel, CEO of FOUNT Global, to talk about what’s missing - and what needs to change. FOUNT believes “The future of work is flow.” Their platform surfaces friction in how work gets done, using input from employees to help organizations break down silos, remove hidden blockers, and improve productivity across complex environments. 🎙️ In this episode, Christophe explores how leading enterprises are rethinking transformation - not just by collecting more data, but by focusing on how people actually experience the work. Note: During the episode we talk about an upcoming webinar Fount Global are hosting with PepsiCo and TI people on the 9th July 2025. If you are keen to join, sign up here.
This episode is the 3rd in our careers focused series, recorded on-site at Shared Services & Outsourcing Week America, SSON’s largest event. The event bought together over 1100 participants, 100 exhibitors and 200 thought leaders. I took the opportunity to interview some of the shared services leaders onsite about their career-paths.
In this episode, we are featuring Lorena Espinosa, O2C Value Creation Consultant, Mars, and CK Taneja, SVP Transformation, Innovation and Resiliency, Northern Trust. During the episode Lorena speaks about her experience with SSON's GBS Certification, if you're interested in learning more about this or registering for the next cohort, the information can be found here.
As a sidenote, both these interviews were recorded onsite at our flagship summit Shared Services & Outsourcing Week North America, so there may be some slight background noise!
If you have any feedback, someone you want to nominate to be profiled or a topic you would love me to cover then please add me on LinkedIn or email me at sally.fletcher@ssonetwork.com
And of course if you like what you hear then please check out the agenda for our next Shared Services & Outsourcing Week North America in September and our Finance Transformation Virtual Summit, 10-11 June.
This episode is the 2nd in our careers focused series, recorded on-site at Shared Services & Outsourcing Week America, SSON’s largest event. The event bought together over 1100 participants, 100 exhibitors and 200 thought leaders. I took the opportunity to interview some of the shared services leaders onsite about their career-paths.
In this episode, we are featuring Adam Holmes, SVP Head of Strategic Operations and Global Communications, Publicis Re:Sources and Carolina Okrongli, Chief of Staff, Nokia Business Services. As a sidenote, both these interviews were recorded onsite at our flagship summit Shared Services & Outsourcing Week North America, so there may be some slight background noise!
If you have any feedback, someone you want to nominate to be profiled or a topic you would love me to cover then please add me on LinkedIn or email me at sally.fletcher@ssonetwork.com
And of course if you like what you hear then please check out the agenda for our next Shared Services & Outsourcing Week North America in September and our Finance Transformation Virtual Summit, 10-11 June. Adam Holmes will be speaking at the Finance Transformation event on the topic of Making Change Count: Why the Majority of Your Memos Fail and How to Achieve True Stakeholder Engagement! so be sure to tune in!
Last month I was lucky enough to go to Shared Services & Outsourcing Week America, SSON’s largest event attracting over 1100 participants, 100 exhibitors and 200 thought leaders. I took the opportunity to interview some of the shared services leaders onsite about their career-paths.
Over the next few weeks we will be releasing several episodes profiling shared services professionals with different career paths, to hopefully inspire you and demonstrate what a shared services career is all about.
On today’s podcast we’re featuring Kendra Lovitt, Director of Relationship Management and Governance, McKesson GBS and Kiran Mann, CEO, Brar’s. They’ll be giving insight into what their job entails and the skills you need to hone to work successfully in their roles.
If you have any feedback, someone you want to nominate to be profiled or a topic you would love me to cover then please add me on LinkedIn or email me at sally.fletcher@ssonetwork.com.
And of course if you like what you hear and you want to be part of our next Shared Services Week, then the links are below:
Shared Services & Outsourcing Week North America.
Shared Services & Outsourcing Week Europe.
The shared services model has typically been one of cost-savings, with organizations saving millions of dollars by offshoring work to low-cost locations. However, as the model has become more mature, creating dramatic cost-savings becomes more difficult – as the changes that produce results (such as standardization and centralization) have already been done. At the same time, many organizations are looking to their shared service centre to provide additional value, this can come through data-backed insights, taking on new-services or driving revenue – which is what we are going to talk about in this episode of the podcast!
Joining SSON on the podcast is Priyanka Grover, Go to market lead for Recievables Automation at FIS. Priyanka will share her insight into how you can drive revenue, combat fraud and enable cost-savings via AI and process improvement.
For more great content from FIS see below:
Podcast: Future of O2C Trends & Insights
Whitepaper: The Definitive Guide to Choosing Customer to Cash Software
Market Report: Future of O2C Insights & Trends
As we head into 2025, the business world is transforming at lightning speed—we’re seeing new evolutions in the world of AI almost weekly, there is a huge and much needed focus on sustainability, a push for automation, and naturally, there is an incredibly dynamic political and economic environment, all which have an impact on GBS. They say forewarned is forearmed so in today’s episode, we’ll break down the Top Global Business Services Trends you need to watch to stay ahead of the curve.
In order to help me explore the innovations, challenges, and opportunities shaping 2025, we invited Chazey Partners to be part of the episode. Joining me from Chazey are Phil Searle, CEO and Co-Founder, Lee Coulter, Chief Transformation Officer, Esteban Carrill, Executive Director, LATAM and Tim O'Donnell, SVP and CRO.
Throughout the episode we reference Chazey’s report Transformation in the Age of AI, which you can download here.
Did you know that, according to SSON's State of the Industry Report 2024, over half of the SSO/GBS leverage outsourcing? However, the nuanced landscape of outsourcing can make talent management all the more difficult.
So, in this week's episode, we delve into the critical talent management decisions shared services leaders face. We're joined by Brad Killinger, CEO of Sapience Analytics, who discusses the importance of leveraging analytics to thrive amidst today's macro talent challenges, and the transformative power of workforce analytics.
If you enjoy this episode, please join us for our webinar with Bradley on how to Level Up Your SSO/GBS with the Power of Workforce Analytics.
In this week’s episode we delve into the future of order to cash and the trends you should be looking out for in the next 12 months. We’re joined by Keith Cowart, Global Market Owner, Automated Finance at FIS, who gives his expert advice on improving order-to-cash processes. This includes how to create a consumer-like experience, assessing customer-risk, artificial intelligence, and payments. Listen now for a short, snappy update on the O2C trends you need to be aware of.
If you enjoy this episode, please join us for our webinar with Keith on Modernizing the Office of the CFO Through Finance Automation.
You can also download the following whitepaper The Definitive Guide to Choosing Customer-to-Cash Software in 2025
In this week's episode SSON talks to Wendy Walker, Solution Principal of Tax Information Reporting at Sovos, about IRS Modernization. Wendy unravells the always complicated world of tax and breaks down exactly what the latest IRS Modernization involves, how it will impact data protection and security, and the steps organizations should take to prepare for these changes.
In the episode we reference the following e-Book and webinar which are great companions for this episode. See the links below to download and register.
The IRS Modernization eBook
Webinar: IRS Business Systems Modernization: Preparing Your Organization for Reporting Changes
This week we're talking to Jonathan Tam, Head of APAC People Services, Food Panda.
Jonathan is an experienced People Leader with more than 20 years in Operations and Project Management. He has supported areas across Customer Service, Information Technology, Banking and Finance, and Human Resource Delivery. Jonathan will be speaking at SSON’s SSOW Philippines event which takes place on August 6-9 in Manila. Ahead of his session, we invited him to join us on the podcast to talk all things people.
Jonathan will be speaking on the topic of – Employee Experience at Shared Services & Outsourcing Week Philippines. Listeners to SSO Next can access 10% off the ticket price for the event by quoting the code TENOFF when they book. Reach out to sally.fletcher@iqpc.de for more details.
Last month, SSON ran one of their most successful Shared Services & Outsourcing Week Europe’s ever! Over 900 shared services and outsourcing professionals joined together in sunny Lisbon to discuss everything from Generative AI to change management to process intelligence.
In order to give you a flavour of the trends discussed, we asked 10 speakers for their top take-away from the conference.
SSON’s next European event is held in London on the 14-16 October, with an incredible key-note, Lord Sebastian Coe of Olympics fame! Listeners to SSON Next can get 10% discount of the ticket price for this event by quoting the code SSONEXT10 when you register. You can check the website or email me at sally.fletcher@iqpc.de for more details.
SSOW London
This week we spoke with Karan R Bhatia, Head of GBS Asia Hub, Sanofi Consumer Healthcare. Sanofi recently set up a global business service center in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, which was a great success and able to grow quickly. In this episode Karan talks us through why Sanofi chose to set up in Malaysia, the challenges they overcame and how Karan’s own entrepreneurial spirit has been crucial in bringing innovation to the GBS.
Karan will be speaking at Shared Services & Outsourcing Week Malaysia which is taking place on June 10-13 in KL. Listeners to SSO Next are able to access discounts the ticket price for the event by quoting SSONext when they register https://www.ssonetwork.com/events-ssomalaysia
There are hundreds of stories of the benefits and opportunities that lie within AI, but when it comes to practical, real-life use-cases, the list gets smaller very quickly. That’s why we were delighted to interview Jannette Perez, AVP Finance, L’Oréal and Nathanael L’Heureux, Chief Solutions Ambassador, Oversight, about L’Oréal’s recent AI implementation. In this episode our interviewees break-down their recent presentation at Shared Services & Outsourcing Week, giving the drivers, outcomes, and challenges of how they’re using AI within their travel & expense process.
You can find out more about Oversight here.
This week’s episode provides something a bit different, a glimpse into SSON’s largest event Shared Services & Outsourcing Week North America. The event, which ran at the end of March, attracted over 150 speakers and 1000 attendees. For those of you who weren’t able to make it, we wanted to provide a sneak peek and some of the key takeaways from onsite.
Note: Listeners to SSO Next are entitled to discounts of the ticket price for selected in-person events around the world by quoting the code SSO Next when they register. Details of upcoming events can be found here.
Last month, at SSON’s flagship event in Orlando, Allianz Services received the award for the World’s Best GBS. The award, which is hosted by SSON Research & Analytics, aims to identify a Global Business Services that represents "the world's best" based on contributing core value to the business in terms of cash, impact on working capital, margin and market growth. This shifts the focus from transactional efficiency, which defined shared services in the past, to supporting business success in a far more strategic way.
In this conversation, we discuss with Turan, Allianz’s transformation in the space of process mining, customer experience and talent development, that led to them winning this award. We also get a sneak peek into the keynote presentation Turan delivered onsite in Orlando, “Redefining GBS in the Next 10 Years.” If you enjoy the podcast please do sign up for our webinar on the World’s Best GBS 2024: Winner Spotlight & Interview
Digital workflows are replacing paper-based processes, streamlining operations and improving efficiency. This trend is driving SSO/GBS to equip their workforce with the necessary digital skills to operate and excel in the new technology-driven ecosystem. As a result, talent capabilities are under the spotlight, with organizations focused on upskilling and reskilling employees, developing new talent models, and embracing flexible work arrangements to attract and retain the really key talent they so desperately need to meet their objectives. One GBS who is doing a particularly good job here is Commerz Global Service Solutions (a subsidiary of Commerzbank AG). That’s why we invited Arne Graeber their CEO to talk to us about his talent strategy.
This podcast is in conjunction with Shared Services & Outsourcing Week Malaysia. Mr Graeber is speaking at the event, which is held in Kuala Lumpur on June 10-13, on the topic of Creating a High Performance Culture at Commerz Global Service Solutions. Listeners of the SSO Next podcast can access discounts off the ticket price for SSOW Malaysia:
- Promotion: 15% off 3 Delegate Passes
- Promo period: 15 April 2024 – 3 May 2024
- Promo code: MY15OFF
Enquiries to sally.fletcher@iqpc.de
In this episode, Sally Fletcher, Head of SSON Digital, speaks to Akhilesh Kohli, GBS APAC Head, Philips, about the pivotal role played by Global Capability Centers (GCCs) in nurturing talent and fostering future value creation. Upskilling and ongoing learning are areas that Philips GBS has long prioritized. They also aim to fuel innovation through cross-functional collaboration and equipping their talent with emerging technologies. All with an eye to the future and ensuring they’re prepared for whatever comes their way.
Akhilesh is a keynote speaker at Shared Services & Outsourcing Week India. Listeners to the SSON Next Podcast can access a Buy2Get1Free promotion for the event, on the 4-day pass only, valid till 5 April 2024.
Promo code: BUY2FREE1
Cost saving has always been an absolute fundamental for shared services, however in the last few years, cost as a theme has slipped into the background, being overshadowed by a drive for value. This is all about to change. Cost as a focus is back, in a big way. With an age-old topic such as cost-savings, it’s important to re-examine best practices and make sure you’re still ticking off all the obvious opportunities. However, with AI tools becoming cheaper and new techniques being developed in areas such as digital transformation and process improvement there may also be new opportunities to drive down costs and impress your CFO.
In this episode Phil Searle CEO and Founder, Chazey Partners, and Lee Coulter, Global Head of Transformation, Chazey Partners discuss their top tips for cost savings. Including supply-chain transformation, investing in the right technology and the areas that will make an impact today!
If you enjoy this podcast – you can catch the Chazey Partners workshop at SSO Week North America, which is focused on Unleashing the Force of Digital Transformation for Autonomous Operations.
In SSON’s most recent state of the industry report, we found that 63% of shared services are providing Order to Cash services to their enterprise! So we wanted to provide some advice and best practice in this area.
That’s why this week on the podcast we invited Keith Cowart, from FIS to talk about what he sees as the trends set to transform AR. Some of these trends are risks to consider and some are very much opportunities, but all will make your accounts receivable team more powerful, robust and ready for whatever life throws at them.
To hear more on the topic of AR excellence, register for our webinar on March 21st focused on Accelerating Cash Flow & Reducing Risk with AI
https://www.ssonetwork.com/finance-accounting/webinars/accelerating-cash-flow-reducing-risk-with-ai
Welcome back to a brand-new season of SSO Next. This season we’re talking to GBS C-Suite and global leaders about topics dear to their heart. Opening the series is Eckard Eberle, CEO, Siemens Global Business Services. Consistently one of the most innovative GBS’s in the world, Siemens are known for being at the forefront of digitalization and are one of the few to have applied Generative AI widely to their GBS. In this episode, Eberle talks us through how Siemens have applied Gen AI in their customer service and employee experience activities, giving his advice and vision for those wanting to tackle something similar.
So, we’ve reached the time of year where we start looking forward to 2024, and examining how we spend our time, where our priorities should lie and what we’re aiming to change and achieve for the year ahead. This can be in terms of career goals or goals for your business. In order to kick start that conversation and provide some inspiration we invited Phil Searle, Founder of Chazey Partners, back on the podcast – Phil shares what he thinks are key trends and themes we should be focusing on for the year ahead.
You can find out more about Chazey Partners here.
Note: All listeners to SSO Next are eligible for 20% of the cost of the ticket price for select live SSON events. The next up is our SSO Week 2024. To find out more message me, Sally Fletcher on LinkedIn or check out our event website.
In this week’s episode we talk to Cristina Duta, Director Intelligent Automation, Global Business Services, Aecom, about the topic of How To Embrace A “We Are All Digital” Ethos Through Citizen Developers & Low-Code Solutions.
We discuss how, in 2023, the boundaries between IT and the business are rapidly diminishing. The truth is that now “we are all digital!.” The growth of low code/ no-code technology, increase in digitally skilled employees and use of technology in our personal lives, means that oftentimes your workforce are capable of supporting digitization in a much bigger way than before. This session discusses how to embrace a “we are all digital” concept throughout your workforce and what it can lead to.
Each year SSON run our Shared Services and GBS State of the Industry Survey. The survey provides crucial benchmarks on everything from people strategy to intelligent automation to what's driving shared services today. In this episode, SSON Research & Analytics, Chief Analyst, Barbara Hodge sits down with Tom Bangemann, Head of Data Development and Insight, to share their top 5 take-aways from last year's report and what to look for in the next.
To take part in the 2024 survey click here https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/38ZFDZ6
Listeners of SSO Next can now get 20% of the ticket price for selected live events across the Americas, by quoting the code SSONEXT when you register or speak with one of our reps. For more details or to take advantage of this offer message Sally Fletcher on LinkedIn or by email at sally.fletcher@ssonetwork.com or visit our event website https://www.ssonetwork.com/events-shared-services-week
This week Phil Searle, CEO and Chief Transformation Officer, Chazey Partners returns to the podcast along with Neil Spiers, SVP Global Business Services, Herbalife. In this conversation, the two dive into their lengthy partnership shedding light on “the art of the possible” in GBS. This includes, how Herbalife are now playing an increasingly strategic role in supporting the achievement of business goals and transformation agendas.
In the podcast we cover their service management framework, project governance structure and progress with Intelligent Automation.
Note: Listeners to SSO Next can get 20% of the ticket price for upcoming live events by quoting the code SSONEXT (this applies only to selected events, gold and platinum tier packages).
Catch Chazey Partners at IA Week, in Atlanta https://www.ssonetwork.com/events-intelligent-automation-event
Or visit their website https://chazeypartners.com
In this episode we'll be talking about introducing Artificial Intelligence into the audit function. And about how this concept is about enhancement of human skill not its displacement. Machine learning isn’t mimicry of human intelligence. It teaches machines to perform tasks and then to progressively improve their performance.
When we use AI and ML in the finance function we can expect speed, inexhaustible functionality, and constantly evolving improvements in data insights. Helping to ultimately make the finance function more visibly productive today and more influential tomorrow. I hope you enjoy this conversartion.
To hear more from Oversight, register for our AP Automation Digital Summit which takes place 1-2 November, online.
https://www.ssonetwork.com/events-ap-automation-november
This week we're delighted to bring you an exclusive look at one of our top sessions from last month's online event, the Intelligent Automation World Series. In the session we spoke to Shail Khiyara, CEO, VOCAL , Amol Rajamane, Global Digital Automation Technology Leader, DuPont and Melanie Dunbeck, Automation Strategy & Enablement Lead, Kelly Services, about their vision and experience with Generative AI.
As mentioned in the intro, if you are interested in the Generative AI bootcamps that SSON is running for the Finance & Accounting and HR functions, then you can view the agenda here https://www.ssonetwork.com/events-shared-services-week/agenda/day-one or enquire at sally.fletcher@ssonetwork.com.
This week's episode sees the return of our popular GBS Careers Corner series, where Leigh Nicholson, Strategic Solutions Lead, Takeda Business Solutions, talks us through his career journey from consultancy to Global business services. We discuss the incredible possibilities that can be achieved within the GBS model, the skills new shared services professionals need to develop in other to further their careers and the importance of stakeholder management. We also discuss the many and varied paths someone can take within a shared services career, and what that can lead to.
If you enjoy this episode you can also catch Leigh and the team at SSO Europe Autumn in October, in London https://www.ssonetwork.com/events-sharedservicesautumn
In this week's episode I interview Harsh Vasavada, Operations Leader (Americas) at Corning. Harsh led the team which were responsible for winning the Award for Customer Centricity at the SSON Impact Awards this year in March. In this podcast, we talk through the project, how Harsh got the buy-in, tracked results and how a focus on CX ultimately enabled the GBS to grow and take on more value-adding roles.
If you're interested in applying for next year's awards, they are part of our flagship event SSOW North America, so keep an eye on the site for more details: https://www.ssonetwork.com/events-shared-services-week
Generative AI has been the buzzword on everyone’s lips for the last few months, but as with any new solution, the more it’s talked about the more the conversation is diluted and the more difficult it becomes to distinguish fact from fiction, marketing spiel from the reality and so on. In this discussion SSON talks to Phil Searle, CEO, Chazey Partners about the opportunities Generative AI can provide for GBS, the risk factors people need to take into account, the processes that are most suited and how Gen AI fits into the solutions catalogue.
To find out more about Chazey you can visit their website https://chazeypartners.com
SUMMER BONUS EPISODE!
We're delighted to be able to bring you a fabulous bonus episode of SSO Next with Precisely. In this episode I talk to Tim Fujita-Yuhas, VP Product Management at Precisely, about data integrity (and how to get the accurate, consistent and contextualized data you need to make confident business decisions). We discuss how to get better data governance, fostering a data driven culture, master data management and how to use automation to assist throughout.
If you enjoy this episode you can also join Precisely's webinar on the 26th July focused on "The Truth (And Myth) Behind Artificial Intelligence and Data Integrity," register here https://www.ssonetwork.com/intelligent-automation/webinars/the-truth-and-myth-behind-artificial-intelligence-and-data-integrity
Last episode we shared a number of interviews gathered onsite at SSO Week Europe in Lisbon. This week is part 2, and I'll be speaking with representatives from Apex Analytix, Infosys, Fresinius Kabi, Experian, SSON Research & Analytics, Datamatics and Kone. We discuss the commercialization of GBS, infusing purpose into the everyday, ERP transformation, data integrity and supplier relationship management.
If you were unable to attend our Lisbon event you can register here for our virtual summit https://www.ssonetwork.com/events-sso-digital-week-europe
I was lucky enough to be onsite at SSOW Europe in Lisbon, Portugal last week. So I took the opportunity to speak to our sponsors, speakers and delegates about what they learnt. Key points discussed included: purpose, employee experience, digital business services, capabailities as a service and change management. This episode is part one and part two comes out next week.
If you were unable to attend in Lisbon, then don't worry. You can register for our online edition here https://www.ssonetwork.com/events-sso-digital-week-europe which takes place in June.
In this episode of GBS careers corner I talk to industry legend Deborah Kops. She's the founder or global business services consultancy Sourcing Change, an advisor in private equity the founder of the BPO Liberty Source and most recently she's focused on the crucial factor of talent.
Deborah has a unique perspective on the global business, shared services and outsourcing industry, having served in provider, buyer, business founder, board and advisory roles. In this conversation she shares her invaluble insight on the capabilities needed to be a shared services leader, how to choose the right GBS organization to further your career, when to switch careers and how to build your leadership brand.
SSON R&A reports that the three top priorities for shared services and GBS for impacting the overall workforce are driving headcount optimization, driving better integration and utilization of technology and driving enhanced performance.
On today’s episode we’ll be looking at How Connected HR processes and Insights can be the key to talent strategy and organizational growth.
Discussion will include:
- The key digital transformations HR need to prioritize in order to deliver a modern HR experience to employees
- How HR is well-positioned to provide strategic insight into opportunities for business growth
- Ways the employee experience from Hire-to-Retire can be better streamlined
As shared services continue to expand their scope of work, we see tremendous opportunities for HR services to integrate activities like employee relations.
SSON Research & Analytics data confirms 17% of shared services plan to bring ER into scope this year.
To better understand the pros and cons, Barbara Hodge, Global Editor at SSON asks Simon Brown, HR services expert, to explain…
As the workforce evolves from a static, in-office, 9-5 placement to a more global, digitally enabled and flexible environment, the work done by humans isn’t defined by their location or physical presence in the office. Sponsored by Brickwork, this episode of SSONext discusses how human-driven administration has been a previously untapped well for talent and business resilience. Joined by Sangeeta Kulkarni, the founder and CEO of Brickwork, we discuss:
- The rising need for talent that is flexible and intuitive in a rapidly digitizing world
- How virtual administrative assistant can fill talent gaps in a competitive landscape
- The unique value human administrative assistants bring to the table
SSON's Impact Awards represent the highest level of recognition for the impact shared services have on enterprise.
The awards are open to shared services and GBS globally, with winners announced at SSON's flagship events. Impact Award winners represent shared services operating at the peak of their performance, and demonstrating leading practices.
At SSOW Orlando, Tesco Business Services took home the Impact Award for World's Best GBS, and Capgemini for Best Service provider.
In this episode, hear from two award winning companies on what it takes to be the best of the best. This episode covers:
- The winning ingredients for high-value service delivery
- What it takes to mature a service center
- The importance of continuous improvement as a culture and strategy for change
In a special episode of SSONext, we sit down with a few of the solutions providers of SSOW Orlando to discuss key insights from senior executives.
Conversations covered some of the most pertinent topics of the event, including:
- Key takeaways from the Environmental Social Governance boardroom
- Top Insights into corporate spending trends and risk in 2023 and the power of analytics and AI to identify and navigate risk
- How AI is delivering the Future of Work and how it defines itself from automation
- Trends in the Future of Finance, from new skillsets, emerging tech and AP error detection and prevention
- Drilling down into the critical role process management will play in the modern shared service organization
Kai Eberhard Lueg is the Chief Operating Officer, Global Business Services, Siemens AG. He has vast international experience in the Siemens Shared Services environment in various leading positions such as Head of Business Process Shared Services and Finance Shared Services as well as CFO of Global Shared Services. Siemens Global.
Prior to these engagements, he was acting as global CFO of the Siemens Wind Power Division. He has been a long term supporter of SSON where he has generously shared Siemens GBS story of cutting-edge digital transformation and end-to-end process excellence. In 2022, for the 6th year running - Siemens GBS made the list of SSON’s top 20 most admired Shared Services Operations.
In this conversation, Kai shares:
- How Siemens GBS have gone beyond traditional services to take on technical activities such as Engineering
- The importance of demonstrating integrity and work-life balance during a GBS job interview
- The wealth of opportunity a career in GBS and Siemens has to offer
SSON Research & Analytics reports that Order-to-Cash is the second most popular service provided by 66% of surveyed SSON members. With the present focus on process transformation and the rise in consideration for the customer – two topics that were certainly front and center at the recent SSOW Orlando event – O2C is posed to be the next site of customer-centric service delivery.
In conversation with three senior leaders from Sidetrade, this episode covers:
- The emergence of a 'secondary' customer; the government tax collection agencies, and how that affects Time to Invoice and Customer Experience
- Leveraging AI and prescriptive analytics for better collection outcomes
- The relationship between the customer and cash applications
It's been an exciting couple of days at SSOW Orlando 2023! I sat down with Barbara Hodge, Global Editor of SSON to discuss our key learnings onsite and the magic of a live event.
In this episode of GBS Careers Corner we talk to Edoardo Peniche, VP GBS at Aptiv. Edoardo is a master shared services leader with extensive global experience establishing world-class operations. He led critical initiatives that included design, implementation, development and transformation of multiple Global Shared Service Centers since 1996, establishing operations in Mexico, Costa Rica, USA, Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, China, India, Philippines and Egypt. In this episode Edoardo delves into his 27 year long GBS career honing in on:
- The importance of making mistakes and making your team a safe place to fail, innovate and come back stronger
- How leaving his home country, Mexico and getting international experience transformed his career trajectory and shaped him as a leader
- How GBS can be a multi-faceted career option allowing you to explore finance, customer experience, sales, marketing and much more!
Christy has been with Mastercard for 7 years. In her current role as Director of Engagement and Communications for Mastercard’s shared services group, she leads a customized framework aimed to optimize the employee experience, and ultimately the customer experience. In the last year, phrases like quiet quitting, burnout and disengagement have become all too common in discussions around workforce productivity. With this in mind, SSONext sat down with Christy to probe a little deeper into what a people-centric culture looks like in practice.
Key Areas Covered Include:
- Defining and measuring nebulous terms like employee engagement
- What does a healthy workforce look like?
- How the modern workplace needs to change in order to prevent disengagement
In this episode of GBS Careers Corner we are joined by Dr Frank Schühler. Frank is the Managing Director for DHL Global Forwarding‘s, Global Service Center which was recently named one of the top 20 most admired SSOs by SSON Research and Analytics. The shared services organization operates with 4600 employees located in Bogota, Mumbai, Chennai, Chengdu and Manila augmented by many bots operated by a Virtual Delivery Center based in Chennai. He has a wealth of experience in leadership, digital transformation and finance.
In this episode we discuss Frank's career path from military service to Global GBS Lead, focusing in on his advice on:
- Gaining international experience
- Use shared services reputation as an underdog to generate pride, energy, belonging and comradeship within your team
- Translating technology into tangible business benefits
Egypt is a rapidly growing economy and labor market, with key skills in the IT and outsourcing industry. In this episode of SSONext we welcome to the podcast Ricardo Langwieder, the Regional Lead for Middle East and Africa at Allorica. Ricardo has over 20 years of international corporate and entrepreneurial experience. He’s lived and worked in Europe, South America, the US, Asia, and he has worked in the MENA region just shy of ten years, making him the perfect person to probe deeper into how Egypt compares on the global stage.
In this episode we spoke about:
- What makes Egypt such a competitive location for outsourcing
- The partnerships and infrastructure the government has built to promote ease of business
- The fast-growing and highly educated workforce whose skillsets compliment many of the services provided by BPOs
In this episode of GBS Careers Corner we welcome to the podcast Dennis Lui, Chief Executive of VITAL Shared Services. VITAL is the shared services arm of the Singapore Public Service. It serves over 100,000 public officers today across 100 Ministries, Departments, Organs of State and Statutory Boards in the areas of finance, human resources and procurement. It has become an award winning hub for innovation and a fantastic example of creative technology use which has been showcased at events worldwide.
In this episode we spoke about:
- Collaborating with tech vendors and educational institutions to provide top level training which will enthuse your staff and give them purpose
- The three skills a shared services leader must develop
- Using RPA and low-code technology to empower employees and give them powers of creation
In this episode of GBS Careers Corner, Sally Fletcher talks to Paul Bryanhill. Until recently Paul acted as the VP, Finance Operations at NBC Universal. He has over 30 years of experience in shared services and finance roles where he has been responsible for design, establishment and operating both captive and outsourced services. He now spends his time mentoring to help support and develop careers for future shared services leaders.
In this episode Paul shares with us the highs and lows of his illustrious career in shared services, honing in on topics such as:
- How to demonstrate your vision and ideas to your manager
- The importance of keeping a learning mindset throughout your career
- Mentoring and reverse mentoring, the benefits of taking feedback from unexpected sources
- When to switch jobs and companies and how to pick the right one
In this episode of SSONext, host Barbara Hodge sits down with Jennifer Kelly Greene, Senior Director of Global Payroll at Otis. A business-oriented professional with hands-on experience in managing multi-location, multinational teams, Jennifer brings a history of success in leading teams in B2B and B2C environments. Highly effective at managing vendors, building consensus, and working collaboratively with all levels to assess, plan, and implement enterprise-wide standard solutions. She is a seasoned strategist with proven superior problem resolution, communication, and leadership skills; able to align teams and prioritize goals while focusing on continuous process improvements and efficiencies to maximize revenue for GBS.
On the docket today is the topic of broadening the skill sets of your people. Jennifer and Barbara dissect:
✅The case for focussing on broadening the skill sets of your talent base so they can capitalize on learning and growth opportunities.
✅Where the balance is for GBS between the people, the process, and the technology to be really efficient.
✅The need to communicate success stories across service management, operations management, transformation, change management, and leadership.
For the full details on that and a lot more, 🎧 listen to the episode 🎧
If you are a return visitor to our podcast, thank you! Could you please do us a favor, and hit the rating button to give us 5 stars? Your ratings help us rank better, and be found by more people. Thanks again.
In this episode of GBS Careers Corner we're joined by Helen Emmett, CFO Global Finance Services at Experian. Helen is not only the first female CFO, but the first CFO outright of Global Finance Services reflecting the growth and transformation of the award winning GFS at Experian.
During the podcast we discuss how Helen got ahead in her career by putting herself forward for big opportunities and taking on unpopular tasks. Also what she learnt working with diverse, global teams and recruiting shared services professionals around the world.
It's a great listen if you are looking for ways to stand out in your role and in search of career inspiration!
In this episode of GBS Careers Corner we talk to Gary Critchley, Senior Vice President for Global Business Services at Qatar Airways which was recently named one of SSONs Top 20 Most-Admired GBS.
During his career Gary has worked for a number of well-known brands, both in the UK and Middle-East, including Marks and Spencer, National Grid, Pepsi Co and BOC Group helping them to transform their finance functions and implement shared services. He has a wealth of experience in leading through change, integrating digital strategies and building strong, diverse teams.
We talk about, how to make your CV standout through storytelling, taking a leadership position and how "varying your altitude" is a crucial skill for shared service leaders.
In this episode of SSONext, Sally Fletcher, SSON's Head of Online Events, sits down with George Connell, former VP Strategy and Finance at Shell GBS. The episode is a sneak peek into GBS Careers Corner where Sally will be exploring the multitude of different career paths available to you in the modern global business services space and how to get ahead in your own GBS career. Whether you’re working in finance, HR, IT, automation or the multitude of other shared service disciplines available today, there should be something in here for you.
In this week's episode Sally and George discuss: George's career path to finance lead in Shell GBS, his defining career moments, the importance of having a mentor and how to pick the right GBS organization for you.
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In this episode of SSONext, host Barbara Hodge sits down with Charlie Chang, Global Talent Acquisition leader and Director at Page Outsourcing in Manila, Philippines. Charlie joins us to explain how outsourcing recruiting functions can provide GBS organizations with the agility they need today; and how to optimize the onboarding process.
Charlie and Barbara dissect:
✅ How the needs of employees and employers differ across regions, and why the GBS recruitment process should reflect that.
✅ What processes GBS are typically looking to outsource?
✅ The struggle to attract and retain the right talent and why employer branding and a clear strategy make all the difference.
For the full details on that and a lot more, 🎧 listen to the episode 🎧
If you are a new visitor to our podcast, welcome! Could you please do us a favor, and give us 5 stars? Your ratings help us rank better, and be found by more people. Thanks again.
In this episode of SSONext, host Barbara Hodge sits down with Simon Brown and Gerard Hussey. Simon is an experienced practitioner in HR transformation, as well as GBS and HR Shared Services leadership. And Gerard is a senior HR practitioner with extensive multifunctional, and multi-industry experience. His focus is on enabling organizations to improve their productivity, performance, and to successfully execute business transformation.
Simon, Gerard, and Barbara dissect:
✅ Why a key factor that GBS and shared services leaders need to focus on right now is supporting employee well-being.
✅ The importance of an intensive survey relating to Human Resources, so decision-making can become not just scientific, but also driven by emotional intelligence.
✅ How HR leadership is changing across different industry segments.
✅ Why more GBS organizations need to focus on career development and mentoring for employees.
For the full details on that and a lot more, 🎧 listen to the episode 🎧
If you are a new visitor to our podcast, welcome! Could you please do us a favour, and give us 5 stars? Your ratings help us rank better, and be found by more people. Thanks again.
In this episode of SSONext, host Barbara Hodge sits down with Emma Beaumont to talk about all things change management, and its pivotal importance for GBS leaders. A serial networker with a passion for brand messaging, communication and content that builds community, trust, and value, Emma is GBS Change Management & Communications Lead at JTI. She brings an Industry and SME focus across GBS, Digital Transformation, Technology, AI and Automation, Data Analytics, Shared Services and BPO.
Emma and Barbara dissect:
✅ A case study of how the CM&C (change management and communications) team at JTI handled the pandemic and managed operations systematically
✅ Why change management has emerged as a critical enabler for GBS at JTI
✅ A foundational framework to guide GBS leaders in setting up a change management team (particularly as we move towards a post-pandemic recession)
For the full details on that and a lot more, 🎧 listen to the episode 🎧
If you are a return visitor to our podcast, thank you! Could you please do us a favour, and hit the rating button to give us 5 stars? Your ratings help us rank better, and be found by more people. Thanks again.
Welcome back to SSONext! This is part 2 of an in-depth mini-series where host Barbara Hodge sits down with Tom Bangemann, Head of Data Development & Research at SSON Research & Analytics. Tom brings profound experience in delivery, sales, and business development, with an impressive international career in Practice Management.
Tom and Barbara offer a deep dive into the state of Global Business Services (GBS), based on SSON survey data. You’ll hear details on:
✅ Why is GBS so important right now, particularly as we head into a recession?
✅ The difference between shared services and GBS
✅ The emergence of “ESG” in GBS scope and responsibility
✅ Organizational structures and leadership in a GBS model – and whether having a single central hub of leaders in GBS is sufficient
For the full details on that and a lot more, 🎧 listen to the episode 🎧
If you haven’t heard the first part of the conversation with Tom, you’ll find it in episode 20, where Barbara chats with him about why GBS needs to refocus on location.
Returning to our podcast? Thank you! Could you please hit the rating button to give us 5 stars? Your ratings help us rank better, and be found by more people. Thanks again.
In this episode of SSONext, host Barbara Hodge sits down with Tom Bangemann, an experienced manager, coach, mentor and board member with a proven content and executive track record. Tom is Head of Data Development & Research at SSON Research & Analytics. He brings profound experience in delivery, sales, and business development, with an impressive international career in Practice Management.
Tom and Barbara take you behind the scenes into SSON’s expansive data resources to offer a deep dive into the topic of location as it relates to GBS and shared services. You’ll hear details on:
✅ Why NOW is the right time to focus on and study in detail your locations of operations
✅ How leaders can leverage their existing footprint
✅ The big driver that is most relevant in today's GBS
For the full details on those points, and a lot more, 🎧please listen to the episode 🎧
If you are a return visitor to our podcast, thank you! Could you please do us a favor, and hit the rating button to give us 5 stars?
Your ratings help us rank better, and be found by more people.
Thanks again.
In this episode of SSONext, host Barbara Hodge sits down with David Hughes, Shared Services Director for Bidvest Noonan, a leading facilities management business in the UK, providing Finance and HR support across the board.
David has over 20 years’ experience designing and operating world class Global Business Services operations. He has a passion for creating values-based cultures and great places to work, where people are inspired and motivated to achieve their full potential.
David and Barbara dig into:
✅ Why automation is a really powerful (and perhaps underutilized) tool for GBS leaders
✅ How to refocus on the fact that the main objective of automation is to improve a company's workflows - so we we can reduce costs, time, and waste, as well as increase productivity.
✅ New automation opportunities come along every day; what markers can GBS use to evaluate, assess and implement the right ones?
For the full details on that and a lot more, 🎧 listen to the episode 🎧
If you like what you’ve heard today on this podcast, do us a favor, and hit the rating button to give us 5 stars. Thank you.
In this episode of SSONext, host Barbara Hodge sits down with Joe Peri, Chief Automation Officer at Change Healthcare. Joe is a go-to expert for all things intelligent automation (IA) and RPA (robotic process automation). He leads teams that transform businesses using technology for reduced cost, increased revenue, and higher customer satisfaction. He tells us he enjoys building and fixing things, and bringing together people, processes, and technology to deliver profitable outcomes.
Joe Peri and our host Barbara Hodge dig into:
✅ What are the top issues when it comes to scaling RPA?
✅ Of all the exciting tools and acronyms, which are the most promising to create end-to-end, seamless processes?
✅ How to keep a culture intact when scaling RPA
For the full details on that and a lot more, 🎧 listen to the episode 🎧
📌This episode is brought to you by AppZen. AppZen is an AI platform for modern finance teams. They overhaul the way finance teams work by automating spend approvals and providing insights that help companies reduce spend, comply with policy, and streamline process.📌
If you like what you’ve heard today on this podcast, do us a favour, and hit the rating button to give us 5 stars. Thank you.
What Can Intelligent Automation do for GBS? Beyond Transactional Efficiency to Digital Transformation
In this episode of SSONext, host Barbara Hodge sits down with Lee Coulter, a veteran of GBS and deeply versed in Intelligent Automation as an enabler of transformation.
Lee’s background includes CIO, COO, CEO and he was an early adopter of RPA in addition to leading the IEEE standards workgroup for IA. This offers an improved perspective on IA “capabilities” as a means of driving cost and operational transformations; as well as new operating models to reshape both workforce and work-flow in complex global environments when the stakes are high.
Lee is a visionary leader, passionately committed to positive impact. In this episode he explains why “IA is not a strategy” – and that it needs to be considered in the broader context of reimagined operating models
Lee and Barbara dissect:
✅ The opportunities GBS teams face to create enterprise transformation that can help weather recessions.
✅ A 10-step approach for GBS to become a ‘Digital Transformation Engine’.
✅ IA as an enterprise capability
✅ The definition of corporate culture, and how it needs to evolve to survive in a VUCA world.
For the full details on that and a lot more, 🎧 listen to the episode 🎧
📌This episode is brought to you by AppZen. AppZen is an AI platform for modern finance teams. They overhaul the way finance teams work by automating spend approvals and providing insights that help companies reduce spend, comply with policy, and streamline process.📌
If you like what you’ve heard today, do us a favor, and hit the rating button to give us 5 stars. That way, we’ll be seen in the systems, which will help us keep podcasting and bring more learning to the shared services and GBS world!
In this episode of SSONext, host Barbara Hodge sits down with Matt Wright, Senior Vice President, Customer Success, at AppZen Inc.
Matt is a seasoned leader with over 26 years in the field of customer success management. Matt’s passion is working in organizations that are focussed on deriving as much value from technology platforms as possible to serve their customers better.
Matt and Barbara dig into details on why it’s vital for global business services (GBS) to focus on institutional knowledge as it relates to technology:
✅ How technology is pushing shared services and GBS forward
✅ The benefits of AI (artificial intelligence) to GBS
✅ The factors that drive true success for businesses choosing to use AI
For the full details on that and a lot more, 🎧 listen to the episode 🎧
📌This episode is brought to you by AppZen. AppZen is an AI platform for modern finance teams. They overhaul the way finance teams work by automating spend approvals and providing insights that help companies reduce spend, comply with policy, and streamline process.📌
If you like what you’ve heard today on this podcast, do us a favour, and hit the rating button to give us 5 stars. Thank you.
Welcome back to SSONext! Hosts Barbara Hodge and Jordan Mullins sit down to chat about DATA on this episode. Specifically, how SSON uses all that data it collects through surveys over the year. The fact is, it’s all reflected back to the market to support shared services and GBS. Listen to this episode for the inside scoop on ‘the why’, and ‘the how’ of finding and using data to your advantage.
Jordan and Barbara dig specifically into:
✅ How SSON shares the data it collects with the shared services industry
✅ What future the research points to, and how to get ahead of these topics
✅ How to get an edge through data
This episode is also an opportunity for us to express our deep gratitude to the shared services and GBS industry. Thank you for always taking the time to respond and provide the input we need to keep bringing you the industry statistics you need to fuel smart decision-making and innovation.
For the full details on that and a lot more, 🎧 listen to the episode 🎧
If you like what you’ve heard today, do us a favour, and hit the rating button to give us 5 stars. That way, we’ll be seen in the systems, which will help us keep podcasting!
Welcome back SSONext! In this episode, you’ll find host Barbara Hodge in conversation with Sandeep Poddar, Head of the AkzoNobel GBS India Center and responsible for managing the BPO relationships, too. Sandeep is a GBS executive with decades of experience in designing and leading Global Business Services teams. His speciality is leading teams in virtual environments, implementing intelligent automation, driving business transformation and cross-functional collaboration.
Sandeep and Barbara dig into:
✅ Why it might be risky to neglect business process outsourcing
✅ Insights into why 6 out of 10 GBS/SSOs are actively outsourcing
✅ How outsourcing has moved up in the delivery value chain
✅ Where ‘Centers of Excellence’ come into play
✅ Getting clarity on how to measure success in outsourcing
For the full details on that and a lot more, 🎧 listen to the episode 🎧
If you like what you’ve heard today, do us a favor, and hit the rating button to give us 5 stars. That way, we’ll be seen in the systems, which will help us to keep podcasting!
In this episode of SSONext, host Jordan Mullins sits down with Tim Johnson, Head of Automation for the Suncorp Group, to talk about the blurring lines between the disciplines of shared services and IT.
Tim and Jordan dig into:
✅ How technology serves as a major driver, and the importance of rigour as organizations scale automation.
✅ The rise of the ‘citizen developer’ - and why more roles are being filled with talent that does not have a technical background
✅ Why the value IT delivers to the business is much more important than the software it oversees
✅ What shared services and IT leaders can do to chip away at the barriers to integration
For the full details on that and a lot more, 🎧 listen to the episode 🎧
If you like what you’ve heard today, do us a favour, and hit the rating button to give us 5 stars.
In this episode of SSONext, host Barbara Hodge sits down with Volker Schrank, Senior Director of Global Employee Experience, Processes & Technology, at Mondelez. Volker’s body of work covers multi-industry HR transformation with a focus on HR diagnostics, strategy development and implementation, organization design, and talent management.
Volker and Barbara dig into:
✅ The definitions of a successful digital HR services
✅Why HR needs to focus – now more than ever – on human relations
✅ How to connect a good HR operations with better employee experience✅ How to know what can be achieved
For the full details on that and a lot more, 🎧 listen to the episode 🎧
If you like what you’ve heard today, do us a favor, and hit the rating button to give us 5 stars. That way, we’ll be seen in the systems, which will help us keep podcasting!
Today, on SSONext, host Jordan Mullins takes a deep dive into the unique nature of the predicted recession and its impact on both talent and accounts payable.
Our guest is Emily Nash-Walker, Global Head of Partner Experience, Tradeshift.. Emily is an expert in enterprise digital transformation and shared services with experience gained at various blue chip organizations where she enables partners to automate, digitize, and grow.
Emily and Jordan dive into:
✅ How the recession will be shaping businesses decisions in the next 12 months
✅ The importance of the way that financial teams respond and the impacts to anticipate
✅ Mistakes that (accounts payable) AP teams could be making right now and what they could be doing better to prepare for the future
✅ What metrics to use as a North star as businesses pursue transformation projects in a recession
This episode is brought to you by Tradeshift. They help businesses connect with their suppliers digitally, remove paper and manual processes across procurement and payment, and help businesses buy what they need faster; all while managing risk.
For the full details on that and a lot more, 🎧 listen to the episode 🎧
Today on SSONext, host Barbara Hodge sits down with Sameer Jalundhwala, a global Shared Services leader with expertise in building Global Business Services (GBS) operating models and transforming processes and systems, leveraging exponential technologies (automation, AI, analytics, blockchain) and new ways of working. He is SVP, GBS Operations & Outsourcing at NTT Ltd where he’s responsible for building and managing Global Business Services operations across 40+ countries, covering back and mid-office processes and delivered through two world class outsource providers.
As an IBM Executive Partner he has led sales, solution and consulting teams building and delivering transformative solutions that have achieved improved client satisfaction and business outcomes.
Sameer and Barbara dig into:
✅ The state of outsourcing today… Sameer paints a picture of what it’s like to go from BPO to BPM and back to BPO; but with a difference.
✅How is outsourcing still relevant?
✅The difference between BPO and BPM
For the full details on that and a lot more, 🎧 listen to the episode 🎧
If you like what you’ve heard today, do us a favour, and hit the rating button to give us 5 stars. That way, we’ll be seen in the systems, which will help us keep podcasting!
Today on SSONext, host Barbara Hodge sits down with Tom Bangemann, Head of Data Development & Research at SSON Research & Analytics. Tom is one of the most experienced market analysts in the GBS space, and a thought leader in service delivery, business support, and GBS development. He talks about the need to retain the stability to deliver what’s required – but be agile enough to react to change, internal or external. His expertise is in benchmarking and KPI models.
Tom and Barbara dig into:
✅ Why the current insecurity drives risk and how GBS can counter this
✅ The future of GBS and what you can expect to see over the next 5 years
✅ How to move from efficiency to effectiveness to experience in an organization
✅ Why technology and talent are two sides of the same coin
For the full details on that and a lot more, 🎧 listen to the episode 🎧
If you like what you’ve heard today, do us a favour, and hit the rating button to give us 5 stars. That way, we’ll be seen in the systems, which will help us keep podcasting!
Today on SSONext, host Jordan Mullins sits down with Manisha Singh, the executive partner for talent transformation at IBM, to discuss how we can provide a better employee experience; and why that is so incredibly important as organizations adjust to a new Future of Work environment.
In a power-packed 20-minute conversation, Jordan and Manisha dig into:
✅ Why employee experience is so important to organizational success today✅ What employee experience looks like in practice at IBM
✅ How this looks day-to-day in hybrid versus in-office versus remote working models
✅ Manisha's inside-track on what IBM is working on in the next five years from an employee experience perspective, which other organizations can emulate.
For the full details on that and a lot more, listen to the episode
If you like what you hear today, do us a favor and hit the rating button to give us 5 stars. That way we’ll be seen in the systems, which will help us keep podcasting!
Today on SSONext, host Barbara Hodge sits down with Venkat Raghavan – a leader in the analytics industry who started as a Java developer and went on to work with some top retailers including Best Buy, Walgreens, Walmart and Tesco, to solve their problems through the power of data and algorithms. His passion is setting up analytics as a capability.
Venkat serves as Associate Director & Global Head of Enterprise Analytics at Tesco
Venkat and Barbara dig into:
✅ Why communication is the most challenging piece
✅ How to discover and solve for pain points
✅ What is good talent in the GBS industry and how to recognize it
For the full details on that and a lot more, 🎧 listen to the episode 🎧
If you like what you hear today, do us a favour, and hit the rating button to give us 5 stars. That way, we’ll be seen in the systems, which will help us keep podcasting!
Today on SSONext, host Barbara Hodge sits down with Suzanne Haenen, PMO Director of the Global GBS-PMO Team at AkzoNobel.
Suzanne and Barbara dig into:
✅ The vital importance of speaking with a lot of people to truly understand current struggles
✅ Why Master Data Management is key
✅ A case for letting go of the fear of being transparent about where things might go a bit off-track
For the full details on that and a lot more, 🎧 listen to the episode 🎧
If you like what you’ve heard today, do us a favour, and hit the rating button to give us 5 stars. That way, we’ll be seen in the systems, which will help us keep podcasting!
Today on SSONext, host Jordan Mullins sits down with Lori Pon - an experienced project manager and insurance professional successful in leading major system implementations and multiple business units.
Lori is Director of Claims Strategy & Innovation at AAA Auto Club Group and possesses strong management and leadership skills, with the ability to motivate and develop high-performing employees, solid planning and organizational skills, including the oversight of key technology initiatives and management of profit and loss objectives.
Lori and Jordan dig into:
✅ The importance on making initiatives more customer centric
✅ Why “You will never have amazing CX if your EX is lacking.”
✅ Insurer tech and its benefits to make work agile
✅ How customer-centricity has influenced the way technology partners are chosen
✅ How to use customer centric metrics to measure the success of functions
✅The benefits of design thinking and great attitude in insurer tech
For the full details on that and a lot more, 🎧 listen to the episode 🎧
If you like what you’ve heard today, do us a favour, and hit the rating button to give us 5 stars. That way, we’ll be seen in the systems, which will help us keep podcasting!
Today on SSONext, host Barbara Hodge sits down with Deborah Kops - Advisor to global business services organizations committed to survive and thrive. Deborah is now focused on their single most critical success factor -talent.
She is Managing Principal of Sourcing Change dedicated exclusively to shared services and outsourcing change management strategy. With experience as a shared services executive, buyer, provider, and private equity adviser, Deborah works with leading companies to manage globalization challenges.
Deborah and Barbara dig into:
✅ Why talent functions hardwired but models are agile
✅ What’s behind talent shortage in the shared services space?
✅ How COVID has affected the delivery models of organizations, making them lose the sense of entity
✅ The capabilities (not skills) and mindsets that shared services professionals need to focus on
For the full details on that and a lot more, 🎧 listen to the episode 🎧
If you like what you’ve heard today, do us a favor, and hit the rating button to give us 5 stars. That way, we’ll be seen in the systems, which will help us keep podcasting!
Today on SSONext, host Barbara Hodge sits down with Jaco Van Der Merwe - ‘the payroll pundit’ - a passionate payroll professional who promotes collaborating with senior management to plan a more strategic payroll that supports and furthers corporate goals. He has deep experience with payroll accounting procedures as well as in designing and implementing internal controls.
Jaco and Barbara dig into:
✅ The advancements and importance of technology in the payroll industry.
✅ How the payroll department gives leadership exact ideas of how many people are employed in an organization, as well as what the profiles and opportunities are.
✅ The opportunity at hand to raise the profile of payroll from experts in ‘pay execution’ to influencers in ‘pay equity’
For the full details on that and a lot more, 🎧 listen to the episode 🎧
If you like what you’ve heard today, do us a favor, and hit the rating button to give us 5 stars. That way, we’ll be seen in the systems, which will help us keep podcasting!
Robert Weltevreden is described as “one of the few truly full-stack GBS leaders out there” and we at SSONext are lucky to have him on as our first guest on the SSONext podcast!
Robert has a long track record in the GBS (global business services) space, most recently at Novartis, and previously Syngenta AG. Despite the pandemic, Robert has achieved some terrific results in productivity, scaling, and customer experience so, Barbara Hodge, Global Editor, SSON and host of the SSONext podcast sat down with him to get his thoughts on where GBS is heading.
Barbara and Robert dive into:
✅ How to accelerate the digital and data journey - something that’s top of mind for shared services leaders in 2022
✅ A common pitfall for GBS (global business services) when accelerating the journey
✅ A framework for setting up the optimal Data Management Center
✅ The importance of data visualization - an automation perspective
The the full details on that and a lot more, 🎧 listen to the episode 🎧
If you like what you hear today, do us a favor, and hit the 5-star rating button. That way each week you’ll find another episode with incredible guests who are defining what’s next in global business services.
The team at SSON are very excited to announce our new podcast: SSONext - Fuelling the future of shared services.
Let’s dive straight into the why, the what – and perhaps most importantly, why you should care if you’re in the shared services industry!
Our promise on this podcast? This will be the 20 minutes a week where you get the information you need to ensure you are in the loop on developments in the GBS and shared services world.
We want our listeners to feel the optimism. So the conversations and case studies you’ll hear will prove to you that there is such a thing as a good problem to have! Because they offer new solutions!
In this pilot episode, we dive into the details of our commitment to expanding our educational capacity using the audio medium (one that any large organization can mimic!) 👇
✅ Separating the facts from the assumptions in the industry
✅ The importance of learning from the next generation of shared services leaders
✅ The need to bring diverse perspectives into shared services industry dialogue
✅ The relevance of a new medium to move the needle on content innovation
✅ And what’s behind the name “SSONext”?
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Robert Welborn returns to take us through his interesting recent past.
Also, join our Celonis Podcast Mini Series guest JP Thomsen by visiting celonis.com/celosphere-live, available on-demand.
Max Just returns to deep dive into the fact that The Future of Work is Now.
Also, join our Celonis Podcast Mini Series guest JP Thomsen by visiting celonis.com/celosphere-live . Also available on-demand following the live stream dates.
Babs Hodge provides insight into BCP based on information first reported on March 25th. And JP Thomsen joins us to discuss Process Mining and how Celonis is helping. You can join JP by registering for Celosphere Live.
Craig Libby reflects on decades in Shared Services and how that history informs his current thinking. And JP Thomsen joins us to discuss hurdles customers are facing and how Celonis is helping. And you can join JP by registering for Celosphere Live.
Intel’s Steven Remsen made the cross-country trip from Portland, OR to Orlando for OPEX Week. We caught up with him to discuss process mining. As a practitioner, he understands the three basic steps of process mining from the academic space: discovery, conformance, and enhancement. He demonstrates this point with one more fantastic story about how data won’t work together if people can’t.
Thanks to Celonis for sponsoring this podcast miniseries. This week, Part 2: Data Disintegration. In this episode, JP explains that "going digital" does not – on its own – guarantee an improved quality of decision making. Join JP live by registering for Celosphere Live through this link.
Uzair Rashid, with CVS Healthcare, explains the importance of structuring innovation. By leveraging technology in conjunction with traditional medical resources, the healthcare system can clean up the funnel of patients who are better served with these new innovations.
Thanks to Celonis for sponsoring their podcast miniseries. This week, Part 1: Disruptive Trends. In this episode, JP discusses current disruptive trends and how we’ve dealt with them in the past. Join JP live by registering for Celosphere Live through this link.
The entertaining Genworth Financial team joins us from OPEX Week 2020 to tell us their enterprise’s transformation story—or journey, more accurately. Kathleen starts off by explaining her view of the company 15 years ago: “It was a very siloed organization. It was very much command and control; very hierarchical. We were focused very much on our processes, like manufacturing, because we came from GE.” Sometimes, as Martijn is quick to interject, they were focusing on the wrong processes. Their new goal was to focus on the customer and increase associate empathy. The leadership team achieved this with some creative physical props that mimic certain hardships their clients experience. However, leading by fear negatively impacts the service a customer receives as well, so Genworth devised a new workforce strategy. “If you really truly believe that the customer is the most important person--because he or she pays your salary--then the front line employees are the most important people, and therefore, your team leaders are the most important leaders. Most people leave their leader. They don't leave the organization.” The team details how they achieved this monumental task.
Joe Jordan joins us from OPEX Week in Orlando. As the director of operational excellence for Edward Jones, Joe sought inspiration from the hit TV show Shark Tank to give a platform to the innovative minds of Edward Jones. If anyone across the firm’s workflow has an idea about how to transform their part of the business, they are given the opportunity to present it to the C-suite. If the idea ultimately increases Edward Jones’s ROI, the C-suite signs of on funding the technology that bring the idea to fruition. It’s an exciting opportunity for voices across the company to be heard and is a win/win for morale and profit. Over the last year, they’ve held about 15 of these Shark Tank sessions and have signed off on 100% of them. Joe explains exactly how the process works and provides a few simple yet powerful examples, from automatic signature verification to RPA processes. Finally, Joe explains what they look for in an employee with the acronym BLT: that is, business acumen, leadership, and technology. Ultimately, the firm’s focus on a growth mindset across all verticals of the organization is what keeps Edward Jones as an industry leader.
Gerald Lackey, VP of Business Optimization and Agility at GAF, discusses their 18-month journey into their current transformation. Gerald is no stranger to enterprise transformations, having participated in a few himself, but he outlines a few unique strategies GAF is taking. For example, GAF is especially focused on business outcomes for their customers. That means that instead of creating a solution and selling it to customers, they are learning about the needs of their customers and creating solutions that fit those needs. Gerald describes this new strategy as a combination between the traditional top-down method and a social movement that involves everybody. Tapping into the entire workflow through internal social media is one strategy GAF employs to create a culture of customer centricity, inclusivity, and change. Gerald dives deep on other unique transformation strategies that meet people—internally and externally—where they are, instead of attempting to force change. Corporate stumbling blocks are more often than not a cause of “people problems.” Gerald wraps up this discussion by explaining how GAF’s agile approach helps navigate those problems effectively.
On this episode of “Tomorrow Today,” Barbara Hodge discusses the power of continuous education. With the turn of the decade, Barbara decided to make some changes to her own learning path. She is fully open to, and expects, new insights from her new experience to spill over into the way she works. On an enterprise level, global corporations also expect talent to continuously peruse new avenues of education. Today’s ever-evolving landscape requires it. Next, Barbara discusses avalanches—both literal and metaphorical—and what they teach us about decision making and risk taking. Ultimately, Barbara’s point is this: if we’re open to new ideas from anywhere and everywhere and tie those ideas back to what we’re doing in our day-to-day, we benefit. Driving the conversation back to AI and technology, the lesson of the day is this: Diversity of thought prevents common pitfalls such as bias and instability.
Reka Mishra is the managing director of the transformation office for the SVB Financial Group. She lays out the basics of mergers and acquisitions before diving in on operational excellence. For M&A, it is imperative to have a target operating model in place. That model must consist of four key elements: people, process, technology, and data. Change management, communication, and HR must also be involved from the onset in order to best address the concerns of the employees. When M&A happens for the sake of digital transformation, it is especially critical that the enterprise is sensitive to the human element. Reka explains how to strike the right balance in order to make the transition as smooth as possible. Mergers and acquisitions aren’t a one-and-done, and they must lead from the top. As Reka says, “It's absolutely critical to get all the executives aligned and in agreement because then you can have a very clear path forward, and then you know you're meeting everybody's expectation. And also it's helpful in them communicating to their employees what's happening at an organization-wide level. It's a consistent message. It's a consistent buy-in.”
Adrian Terry, VP of GM Financial’s OpEx function, discusses their unique approach to IT and RPA. Initially, IT had some processes they wanted to automate. From there, a pilot was developed. It soon became clear that the broader organization could benefit from similar processes, so GM onboarded their own RPA business automation talent. Now, IT and RPA have been conjoined. While each department still has their direct leadership, the “two headed monster” reports to a governance function. Next, Adrian details the execution and benefits of the pod model they’ve developed. After Adrian explains the structure, deployment, and communication aspects of the design, he talks scale. Finally, after briefly touching on some growing pains of the transformation, Adrian sums up the meticulous, thought-out execution of the pods and the future of the business. Adrian doesn’t do anything unless he does it well.
Barbara Hodge reflects on 2019, identifying the trends that shaped the decade. Data, self-service, and automation has affected us all. A new awareness of personal data and its power—for good and for evil—came to light, for example, with the Cambridge Analytica scandal. At the same time, all of that data that has been given and taken has made surprisingly little headway within industry, as enterprises grapple with how to funnel it into tangible action. While it’s easy to sensationalize the negative, Barbara reminds us that GBS and automation has made our lives easier. Barbara explores the automation ideal: a world in which we’re free to pursue our passions because the difficult work is done for us. It’s easy to take progress for granted and worry about the side effects of that progress, but Barbara is hopeful that this Fourth Industrial Revolution will lead humanity into a new era of innovation and inspiration.
NASA’s Pam Wolfe joins us to discuss their RPA journey, which started over two years ago in their Shared Services Center. Establishing RPA governance across NASA has taken time, strategy, and strong support across the agency. In many ways, NASA’s move to RPA is very similar to the typical enterprise, but let’s not forget—NASA sends people to space. In fact, a recent decision was made to send astronauts to the moon and Mars by 2024. In order to reach their goals, NASA went through a cultural and digital transformation shift that received a high level of support from the top—which Pam defines as a necessity. Naturally, governance and security is of the utmost importance during this transformation. Pam shares some astonishing numbers in regard to their progress while laying out a path for the lay-enterprise, if you will, to accomplish similar workflow evolutions.
Hendrik Boehmer is the People Experience & Operations Lead for Unilever. While such a title is a few syllables longer than its counterpart, Hendrik explains that Unilever’s HR transformation involved a complete reimagination of the role. First, hand-picked roles that were once outsourced were brought back in house in order to achieve HR’s new goal: more simple, more impact, and more human. What this entails is increasing automation and the role of human talent simultaneously. While it sounds contradictive, Hendrik details the logistics and execution in full. As with any digital transformation, reskilling and security must be addressed. Unilever has a system in place for both, which Hendrik describes next. Finally, Hendrik mulls over this universal truth and what it’s meant for his career and enterprise at large: the only constant is change.
Martin Felder is the head process automation center at Linde Global Services. He discusses his role with Linde as well as their journey into RPA. Instead of taking the typical low-hanging-fruit approach, Martin tackled Linde’s impending future when deciding where to implement RPA first. He explains the whys and hows of this, including how he got the C-suite to sign off—and fund—such a huge initiative. As Linde is a global enterprise, Michael next discusses the pain points, mistakes, and happy accidents that occurred during the pilot and roll-out of RPA solutions. Perhaps most important, Martin wraps up with his thoughts on human talent, relationships, and how to move into the future of automation by appreciating the people side of things.
In this episode, IEEE’s Lee Coulter discusses the notion that the future of every successful company will depend on the transformation into a technology services business—even pizza. This far-reaching conversation covers the entirety of the current “data chasm.” Lee kicks the discussion off by justifying his aversion to the term RPA. He notes that organizations start with task automation before moving onto intelligent automation, a process that gets lost in the blanket term RPA. Lee says, “Where we are today and what's now happening is that the tool makers and the advanced practitioners are beginning to interact with unstructured data and expanding the use case to now include unstructured data. There's several different specific scenarios in which that occurs. Service initiation almost always begins with unstructured requests, like to a call center or chatbot.”
Dmitri Popov, global service management lead for Mann + Hummel Group, joins us today to discuss scaling RPA. Dmitri himself admits that such a process is painful, in part because of the few successful enterprise examples for which to model after. Dmitri points to IBM as a company who has done it well. Next, Dmitri discusses how to leverage shared services in the most efficient way, exemplifying R&D and certain purchasing aspects. One of the most difficult components of implementing RPA across the workflow is acceptance and adherence. Dmitri doesn’t mince words when it comes to what it takes in a person—not just an enterprise—to accept change, no matter how positive that change may ultimately be.
Roland Haefs, with Henkel, discusses enterprise evolution and the shift from having purely transactional relationships to becoming a true business solutions provider. It takes strong leadership and an entrepreneurial spirit to pull off such a transformation, which Roland details. In order to demonstrate his point, Roland lays out Henkel’s approach to the shared services process of master data management. Next, the conversation turns to RPA and AI more specifically, including its role in shared services and how to make sure it is being deployed effectively. Further, Roland discusses Henkel’s four business priorities: fund growth, drive growth, excel at digitalization, and increase agility.
In this episode, Kai-Eberhard Lueg, Global Business Solutions expert with Siemens, discusses the future of automation. Specifically, commerce is experiencing a new type of customer expectation that involves an increase in personalization and speed. While these two concepts seem counterintuitive, digitalization and shared services make it possible. Digitization is only as effective as the foundation it was built on, however, so Mr. Lueg details the best way to move forward on firm ground. Finally, Mr. Lueg emphasizes the importance of human talent. By building a culture of curiosity and innovation, both employees and enterprise benefit from the expectation and execution of upskilling and reskilling with an emphasis on technical skills.
Dr. Ayanna Howard is a chair of the School of Interactive computing at Georgia Tech, an academic, and a startup founder. While her talents are as vast as her pursuits, she sums up their relation as interactive computing. In her words, “Interactive computing is really this theme that the human is center to everything that we do when we think about computing and artificial intelligence.” Dr. Howard pursues interactive computing for the greater good, including robotics in healthcare and education. She also discusses ethics in computing, including privacy and security.
Michael Xiao starts this conversation a little off topic with Daoism. Or is it? As the conversation goes on, the philosophies behind Daoism get compared to the way humans navigate technology in an almost primal way. Programs like Facebook are designed to be addictive, giving those types of platforms a negative connotation. But at Blue Cross Blue Shield, where Michael works, their approach to AI is for the greater good. However, in order to move any legacy company in the direction of digital transformation, a mindset shift must take place. Michael details three different techniques for change management: process engineering, relationships, and changing the narrative around AI.
Barbara Hodge opens this discussion with why the world needs more English majors. She makes the point that, while STEM majors are on the rise, data is nothing without a story behind it. Today’s workforce needs to be adaptable, well-rounded, and, yes, technologically savvy. What gets overlooked is the importance of building a narrative. As our world becomes increasingly automated, our jobs as humans will be to influence. We must know the data, interpret it in a way that makes sense, and communicate it in a way that is influential. Finally, Barbara gets excited about where technology is taking the workforce—not scared. Listen to her explain why we can learn from the past to help us transition into the next golden age of mankind.
A digital workforce is useless without a plan. Delphine Bernard discusses the steps it takes to make sure your AI is working for you. She stresses the importance of a solid planning phase. During this time, an enterprise should be answering questions such as, what do I want my bots to do? What processes do I want to automate? Next, simulate scenarios with KPIs and ROI. Make sure to have backups in place if bots fail. Delphine outlines the importance of building a strong digital workforce before going live, because, unlike humans, bots can’t adapt on the fly if something goes wrong. Still, it’s worth the effort, as Delphine also notes.
Juan Arya discusses his eight CoE keys to success. Juan doesn’t mince words when it comes to the importance of building a strong, nuanced team and fixing what’s broken. He also discusses why it’s critical to build and sustain capabilities. He reminds us that, while success comes in sets of sprints, ultimately, the race is a marathon. Goals and metrics are another key for Juan, but the numbers are a moot point without the right performance management. Finally, Juan focuses on sustaining and building team skillsets, regardless of who is coming and going.
Alexander Hubel joins us again to discuss his RPA and automation journey with Ericsson. He fills us in the last two years and their evolution toward a center of excellence. Change management, communications, and automation communities are focusing their efforts on automation and business adoption. Alexander describes the difference between tribes and communities within the organization and what their roles entail. As far as machine learning is concerned, Alexander says, “I think from an Ericsson perspective, we’re quite far ahead, and I think that relates to us being a tech company.” This hasn’t come without its challenges, though, which Alexander also delves into.
Barbara Hodge gives us a glimpse into the future of global enterprise. She offers actionable advice on what can be done today to support tomorrow’s AI efforts. The power of predictive outcomes grows as our understanding and technology grows. In fact, our choices as humans are increasingly influenced by machines. Despite this, corporations still struggle with how to best cleanse data. More time is spent on data cleansing that is spent on analyzing, evaluating, and deciding combined. Without a clear vision, efforts toward leveraging AI are watered down and unfocused. Barbara offers customer-centric advice on creating an effective AI plan.
Jack Cheng covers a lot of ground in this interview. He describes NIO, the company he co-founded, as “an EV provider, a mobility company, but [ultimately a] user enterprise engaged with the use of directory.” From swappable batteries to vehicle “living rooms,” Cheng takes a visionary approach to everything he does. His views on globalism are just as unique. He discusses the dangers of indoctrination and group think. He gives us his optimistic insight on the tension between China and the U.S. He even shares insight on how we can bridge the generation gap.
We spoke to Henrik Hanasand, with Seniorrådgiver, a shared service center for payroll and accountants. Hanasand discussed his enterprise’s robotic evolution starting with a proof of concept, consulting, and implementation. Still, finding the right RPA solution involved some trial and error. After relying too heavily on consultants, Hanasand decided to search internally for talent. It worked. Their new approach to a holistic IT solution has given them the flexibility to look at AI more broadly and futureproof their organization. Seniorrådgiver has made a concerted effort to continue the path forward technologically, and it’s paying off.
It may sound simple, but the first step to implementing AI in your enterprise is to know what it does. In this episode, Vivek Wadhwa, entrepreneur and Adjunct Professor at Carnegie Mellon, unlocks the black box of AI, including what is needed to build a proper AI foundation. Hint: it’s more than just data. Wadhwa goes on to bust myths about machine learning and the overinflated claims some vendors make regarding the utilization of ML and AI. By taking an academic, honest—sometimes brutally so—and deep look at corporate AI, Wadhwa helps enterprises avoid the pitfalls of AI’s oversell in the corporate market.
Naomi Secor joins us and shares what's next, "I anticipate that we're going to have a lot more conversation around change management and the role it plays- how to prepare our teams and how to communicate. We're going to have a lot more discussion on how we're actually preparing our enterprises to scale. I think we're going to talk a lot more about the ROI of intelligent automation now that we're seeing all these fantastic case studies come into play. We're going to be able to determine how organizations are measuring effectiveness. We'll be able to see how they're actually building automation into their business plans so that they can hold other teams accountable. And we're going to talk about how we're developing the next generation of automation leaders."
Tarun Chopra is the president of Clements Worldwide, an insurance provider with a specialization in providing insurance solutions to individuals and companies outside their own country. He has also joined our Startup Zone, which offers resources and guidance for startups. Chopra discussed the significant role startups have played in the evolution of the tech space. Industry disruption from startups has pushed the needle forward, and Chopra doesn’t see that ending any time soon. Taking a few tips from the small, nimble framework of a startup, Chopra then offers advice on enterprise change and technological adoptions that are worth looking into.
Deborah Kops, Tony Saldanha, and Lee Coulter are no strangers to shared services. On this episode, they discuss why they joined the The Startup Zone advisory board within SSON. Tony touches on the advantages and agility startups have. Startups are known for leveraging cutting-edge technology and shared services in a way large companies don’t. Lee, also excited to join The Startup Zone, delves into process automation. Deborah plans on helping startups understand a marketplace unfamiliar to them. Big Tech and tiny tech are becoming increasingly digital. Disruption is inevitable, so why not jump in on the fun? The Startup Zone can teach you how.
Suzanne Leopodi-Nichols discusses her role in UPS and how GBS has transformed the company. She goes on to define digital transformation as she sees it and reflects on the last 25 years of growth. As if she’s not busy enough, Suzanne recently joined The Startup Zone with SSON as an advisory. The give-and-take between global enterprises and entrepreneurs can be symbiotic, and Suzanne is excited about bridging the gap between the two. The interview closes with Seth’s trademark questions regarding the mysteries of life and music.
Steve Kato is the UX manager at John Lewis. He joins us at the Omnichannel Forum to discuss organizational change. Today’s consumer involves so many touchpoints it takes a corporation a collaborative way of thinking to reach them in an effective way. In order to get everyone on board from the top down, Steve creates workshops and provides us with some specific examples. “Now they've got to work together on these ideas that have come up. And that's going to be the next step: how we truly get away from the business functions, silos, buying, merchandising, trade, product, design, creative, slam them all together into a cross-functional team.”
Avi Bhagtani from Automation Anywhere joins us to talk about the impact of AI in driving end-to-end business transformation.
Deepak Subarao then joins us and shares the value of working smart and not hard: "If it doesn't add value to the business and if you don't get paid more, really there's no value by working more. So how can you get the same job done in eight hours, is it possible? Let's see now."
Edda Blumenstein is a Ph.D. researcher at Leeds University. In this episode, she discusses her efforts to “…identify how honest retailers are supposed to survive in this dynamic environment that is constantly changing at a speed never seen before. I'm looking at how they can actually develop capabilities to do that.” Edda zeroes in on big data’s role in the transformational process. Today’s buyers expect an experience and a relationship from the brands they choose to do business with. Edda explains why businesses need to implement educated decision making in order to stay competitive prepare for an unpredictable future.
Pfizer’s Anil Bhavnani discusses the future benefits of digital transformation and intelligent automation. Within the medical and pharmaceutical industry, there are a lot of moving parts and little room for error. Technology and automation is saving lives through the accuracy and timesaving processes it deploys. Bhavnadi walks us through what has changed throughout his career, and what he believes the future holds. “At one point in time, we were just kind of doing a very rule-set based kind of process. And here we are changing the entire process. We are automating it. So obviously a lot of people get impacted. You have to work with multiple stakeholders to be able to manage that change. I think that's where the challenge is.”
Syazana Lim is the lead research analyst at SSON Analytics. Lim stresses the importance of benchmarking and includes real-life examples of big brands that have benefitted from it and how. She goes on to discuss why talent acquisition should focus on diversity and the “innovative mindset.” As a millennial herself, Lim talks about which workplace stereotypes she generally agrees and disagrees with. When discussing the future, In terms of what SSON Analytics offers, Lim says this: “We do have reports on intelligent automation and how you go about in your IA journey, so in terms of what the next steps to do to make sure that your workforce is ready for it." She also touches on the power of SSON's intelligent automation tool.
Fernando Nunes, senior process automation architect at Man Energy solutions, discusses his unique approach to IT and business. By leveraging RPA, AI, and BPA tools, Nunes works to empower the business line and decrease IT bottlenecks through process automation. He further explains the Center of Excellence concept using an apt airport metaphor. “Our philosophy was always about enabling our line of business to do large things themselves, and we of course, would have to provide an architecture, a governance, an infrastructure, and we see it more like we provide the airport. Then the line of business will make the flights; the planes to fly.”
Clara Durodié, AI technology strategist, discusses major technological trends taking place within the corporate landscape. Durodié was able to spot the importance of AI when the technology was bleeding edge, way back in 2011, thanks in part to her background in economics and neuroscience. With the volume and velocity of data available today, AI is becoming necessary to operate a successful and profitable business, but how can this technology be utilized responsibly? Are humans really going to be replaced by machines? Durodié touches on these points and more, concluding, “My hope rests on one crucial assumption, which is there will be strong systems in place to ensure that ethical AI is deployed.”
In this episode, Chris Gunning discusses his personal history with shared services as well as its evolution over the nearly 20 years he’s been in the industry. “We're now seen as a strategic asset for the business; an enabler to help drive value for the business; to be an incubator for technology, for reporting, for analytics, for business insights, so a lot of the things that we were talking about back in the day—centralization, standardization, definitely table stakes, process improvement that have to be there—and we're still talking about some of those things. It's nice to see that we as a shared services organization [have] moved up the value chain to add value for the business.
Siemens’ Alexander Thielmann discusses the Fourth Industrial Revolution and its effect on the corporate landscape. The transformation Siemens has embarked on, aptly named Vision 2020 Plus, is a cultural one as much as it is a technology one. With a company as large as Siemens, Thielmann describes this sea change as navigating a fleet of ships. “...with this new change of these fleet of ships, the expectation of the board is also that the ships, or the companies, make more profit... Which also means now they are looking a bit more outside the box.”
Caroline Basyn, Global CIO and GBS Officer at Mondelēz International, discusses the importance of setting a solid foundation before planning and executing a digital transformation. With an influx of data comes new problems to be solved. Instilling a cloud and data strategy, setting up a consumer-centric framework, and building innovation teams out of siloed departments are some of the solutions Basyn touches on. Once the foundation is set, deploying corporate culture changes, Agile workplaces, and AI and ML technology gets done quicker, cheaper, and with more longevity than a quick-fix solution. “I used to say quality is not the enemy of speed, but in a certain sense, you need to be able to marry both.”
Andrew Parris, director of performance improvement at CRH, focuses his efforts on improving corporate functions across the board, including finance, IT, procurement, and HR. How does he do it? Data-backed benchmarking, implementation planning, and change management. Additionally, intelligent automation is taking a front seat. “We're starting to bring some AI into play. Our approach has always been, it's not just about the bot, it's about the right solution for the right problem.”
Manish Jain joins us and shares information on RBCs new Silent Listener Chat Bot: "We are building a silent listener chat bot, which will listen to the conversation when an agent and a client are having those discussions. While those discussions are happening, the chat bot or the silent listener is going to understand the intent of the conversation, what the client is talking about, getting the client, IDs. In the meanwhile while the discussion is happening in goes in the background, brings in all policies and procedures, client, all information ready on the agent's screen. Agent without putting the client on hold is having a continuous discussion"
Manny Korakis joins us and shares the importance of potentially applying different strategies to different companies: "I've learned over the course of this journey that every company is in a different spot in their own journey, and I have to react to that. What's important in one organization at any given point in time, isn't necessarily a top priority in another company at their point in time."
Deborah kops joins us and shares her views on GBS: "It's a dynamic business model. It is not one rigid business model. To be very honest, to some extent we've promulgated that through the consultancy class in this industry, some of those guys are some of my best friends. But a business services platform is whatever you can do at any given time, given your leadership, given a range of external and internal factors. So GBS as a concept I don't buy."
Rob Phillips joins us and shares how venturing into the unknown is crucial to problem solving: "I think there's an overall bias that people have towards the unknown, right? They worry and they discount or they ... There's a risk factor of the unknown. So, the more that somebody can be involved in identifying what the problem is, they're coming to the table saying, "Hey, I know there's something here that needs to get fixed." Then we can work together with them to try, and propose solutions. "
Graham Russell joins us and shares the importance of understanding and implementing Data: "For those of us who have implemented ERPs for 20 years and more, data was usually the number one issue in doing that because as you move from one system to another, one of the first things you had to do was get the data clean, get the data reconciled, make sure there was integrity and so on. It's not new. I think people that don't anticipate it are perhaps not thinking of other projects."
Cindy Gallagher joins us and shares the importance of building personal time into your schedule: "I have surrounded myself with the right people who know how to handle situations. Not only that, but I set myself up properly as well before I went away, saying I was going to be gone, structuring the calendar appropriately, telling people when I was going to be on and off. As a CEO and as anyone who's excelled in their profession, you do have to be careful about where the line is, but you do have to draw that line for yourself."
Xavier Rodriguez joins us and shares the importance of good leadership: "sometimes, you're not the best one on the technical side, but if you are a good leader, you will manage your team."
Tony Saldanha joins us and shares the careful steps that need to be taken in order to implement automation and improve processes: "I think you almost have to have a parallel strategy of automate and transform or disrupt. Because when you kind of look at things like data and AI, I think that's your disruptive part. And you have to be able to walk and chew gum, which is operate and automate and disrupt at the same time."
Lee Coulter joins us and shares the end game in implementing new automated processes: "the reality is that you're not going to want to build heavy IT integration between all these systems. You're always going to be looking for something to stitch these things together in ways that are important to the business that drive some sort of material outcome."
Viral Chhaya joins us and shares the importance of recognizing your company's strengths as well as it's weaknesses: "The one interesting new thing we are doing is, we do callbacks not only for our detractors, low scores, we also do callbacks for our promoters. To also try and understand what is it that we are doing right, because as an organization we believe in the philosophy of strength finders, and therefore we want to capitalize on them and do more of it so that the hope is that we don't have as many detractors. "
Nadia de Villa joins us and shares Manulife's digital transformation strategy for the future: "One is delivering on the digital capabilities and defining what that means in selling insurance in all channels with all our products, but also we're standing up a new delivery model. So we're adapting agile, truly transforming the organization from being a technology discrete project type delivery model to Agile as an organization.:
Steven Jo joins us and shares Silicon Valley Bank's approach to transformation: "We have a new process, new platform, new operating model. We build it out, full agile, and as we're rolling things out, we're creating new teams that are doing certain work that supports our internal and external clients."
Kamila Grembowicz joins us and shares her experience in implementing Global Business Strategy at Adidas: "I think every company has a different culture, a different structure, and every GBS looks different. If you have a company where GBS concept is really not liked by the people, they didn't adapt to change, they maybe went too aggressive in the cuts straight away without the quality. You can have different reasons why you go back to functional model."
Deepak Subarao joins us and shares the value of working smart and not hard: "If it doesn't add value to the business and if you don't get paid more, really there's no value by working more. So how can you get the same job done in eight hours, is it possible? Let's see now."
Anil Bhavnani joins us and shares the similarities and differences of processes when it comes to digital integration: "Digital is different in a way that you're focusing more on how you can leverage technology, and it is the same in a way that ultimately you have to focus on the process. So even when you are doing integrations, typically you are focusing on the process because you're kind of integrating onto one ERP."
Anders Emil Balk-Møller joins us and shares how AI and Robotics needs to develop and evolve within a company: "I want to be a different offering than the traditional IT development. Maybe also more into, that the business is doing that themselves. Right now, we're still depending on IT for our robotics development. This might not be the case in a couple of months, or years, that the business can do it themselves."
Beju Shah joins us and shares the importance of understanding and contextualizing data at The Bank of England: "Within our organization for PRA based data, supervision of banking data is about 80% digitized. The fabric's there and we're collecting it digitally; that now means that perhaps we need to look at the content to see if we can clean up the content and the definitions or we can make that more efficient, and how that then aligns to other jurisdictions and so on."
Justin Reilly joins us and shares insight on overcoming challenges no matter the company size: "When you're starting companies you have the problem of, 'I don't have enough money to do this, so I need to focus on the most valuable, most tangible problem that I can solve with the talent that I can get'. When you're at a big company you have the opposite problem. "
Chris Gilmore joins us and shares his approach to creating a confident user experience for employees: "We are still helping the clients in their digital journeys, but what we are doing here is looking forward, creating IP which we believe might help the clients in the future. So, we are anticipating a problem, we are anticipating the solution, creating IP and products around it and really leveraging the AI and automation as a brand to make sure that we can help our clients navigate their journey."
Sebastian Zeiss joins us and shares how several departments came together to develop software that benefits each others' processes: "We started talking to TSO, can we do an app, and they were like yes we can but it's going to take two years or three. Okay, but what if we combine app with RPA? Both can be done quickly, most likely. And that's what we actually did, and now we actually have the app out in the field and our technicians call it the Swiss Knife of field service, because they can do everything with it."
Moh al Gadban joins us and shares the importance of understanding data versus simply processing it: "Data is the gold that we have in hand. When you're talking about RPA for example, robotic process automation, for each process, or for each task that you are automating, you have an input. You have an output. So all of this is a lot of data, and if we just neglect it and go around it, and we just work on automating a lot of processes, we're losing a lot of important things there."
Will Swanson joins us and shares how he transitioned from call center work to shared services with Schneider Electric: "if you have background in continuous improvement and operational efficiency and leadership development and things like that, I think that's transferrable across the business in a lot of these different areas."
Matt Gustitus joins us and shares what it takes to build a business case for implementing new processes: "Every company functions differently, right? So, it's really hard to pull that together and come up with a game plan that you're going to be able to execute when it's something brand new to you."
Herman Brown joins us and shares how San Francisco has applied IT as a shared service: "I mean, government IT has transformed itself over the last several years where IT was a necessity that businesses saw. Oh, okay, we need computers now so we need somebody to be able to set up those computers and so forth. So IT was really providing a service."
Remigijus Šimašius joins us and shares the benefits of Lithuania's open data policy: "We have this no excuse, open data policy, and with this, we've got very nice new inventions for smart cities, for mobility, for education. People like it. They want to be first in somewhere, to be forward-looking."
Derek Reisinger joins us and shares how workspace environments have changed and how it affects employees: "We come from a culture of which many employees had offices. We're transitioning that. We're in a collaborative workspace now. That means glass offices if you have one, workstations otherwise. We're very, very big on that collaborative space."
Don Fertman joins us and discusses listening to employees: "It's all about listening to the employee and understanding what makes them tick. Understanding what they like about their job, what they don't like about their job, and what you can do to help instill that service culture- so that they're happy, and able to interact with the guests in a positive rather than say a sullen way."
Daiva Glebiene joins us with Pavel Pap and shares insight into change management in company culture: "Change management is something that you embed into the DNA of your company. It's about having the culture in the company to accept the change. Then you don't have to discuss the change management each time you bring a new idea because this is something that you do continuously."
Ralph Kesrouani joins us to share how IT is implemented throughout a company as a shared service: "The main stakeholders of both IT or the whole organization and the shared service committee are grouping together weekly or bi-weekly to come up with the common ground to help the share service prioritize their work on others."
Rosita from Danske Bank joins us and shares how their approach to continuous improvement has shaped a positive environment: "We need to gain and build trust, first, and then we can innovate. Then we got the structured approach, we could propose our initiatives, our ideas. They were not always very much welcomed, but we worked through that. And now, being part of the global team is just a fantastic environment where everybody is equal and we work on whatever is on the table."
Kamila Grembowicz joins us and shares Adidas approach to change management: "We put in place a change management team really dedicated to explain, to work with people what will be changed, what that means for them, and so on. We look on very different channels of communicating what's happening from the boardroom into newsletters, social media. You definitely need to demonstrate some quick wins, and put a face behind the achievement."
Bob Kupershoek joins us and shares the importance of collaborating and learning from IT: "I really recommend everybody to partner with IT, they have a lot of knowledge, you have a lot of good folks that they understand exactly what the latest technology is, they will also give you another way of looking at things as well."
Delphine Bernard shares the importance of diversity on multiple levels: "The key is to build a different type of talent that you need, depending the function of what you're building. You're going to have a mix and I think being sure that you're diverse. Diverse from every aspect, but really coming from different background, different race, different gender. Different types of companies ... we need to have a different flavor and input, because I think we have a lot of brain when we bring more diversity and that's really crucial."
John Therekauf shares positive insight for implementing robotics and AI: "Everybody talks about ethical automation as if, "Oh well, we shouldn't get robots and those things could displace work." Forget that. The ethics question is not whether you should automate, it's the question should be posed as to, you're going to automate, do you know how to do it right?:
Ricardo Badillo shares his experience with implementing AI and how to harness it effectively: "We spent a lot of time understanding and educating our company, our internal organization that the robots actually use the same credentials as any other employee. That the robots don't get crazy and will not be able to do all the type of transactions different to what they were actually trying to do. So, information security was a real challenge and I think, for other companies, it's the same challenge because they need to start adopting those policies to work with robots."
Siemen's Tobias Unger shows us the important deffierences in implementing chat bots as compared to humans: "Humans adapt, so humans are able to use the knowledge they have to deal with unexpected situations. Sally would never do that, because, you have to train each and every capability yourself. Of course, there will be enhanced algorithms or mechanisms in the future, maybe, to ensure that there is a part of self-learning, but you have to be very careful with that, because you want Sally to behave perfectly."
Fernando Marossero on releasing the talent from the employee while implementing RPA: "That means to get the people to do things that must be done by people, let's say, to add value to find new ideas, to be devoted to find a different way of providing service in the different way of solving things. Even to find a different way to train a robot to make a thing more efficient or to have a larger scope."
Camilo De La Vega lays out Lego's philosophy of Continuoius Improvement: "One of them would be stressing the benefits of the change. We had to spend more time looking at different tools, and working with processes, and doing some other stuff that we might not have time to do right now. So stressing the benefits and saying "okay, if we do this, we could get that" and actually seeing those benefits in the wall, printed there, is one of the things to help us implement. Empowering them to do things instead of just cascading the information to make them able to make decisions and getting to some conclusions by themselves.
Technicolor's Xavier Rodriguez shares his experience in successfully creating opportunity for yourself and your team: "Yeah, I like to be the best one, but also, I have learned that my team has to be the best one. So I work pretty closely with the people. Because, at one point, someone gave me the opportunity to keep growing. So, now that I have the opportunity being director, I want to provide the same to my teams."
Chuy Michel's take on how shared services enhance business relationships through globalization: "Globalization means, not only that we have instant access to any type of information or news around the world, but also based on the fact that more and more companies are diversifying. Many companies are placing shared service center in almost every single city in Latin America.So at one point in time, different cultures are becoming service providers or service receivers, so there is an increasing number of business relationships that did not exist before."
Sharath Gopinath of Bacradi joins us the importance of service tied to user experience: "Productivity and accuracy are correlated. If the users are not happy, you’re not getting the work done right, there’s high chances that the first point of failure is there. If that doesn’t happen, there’s no accuracy. So, if that is great, then you enable systems to be accurate, things work. So, for me again it comes back to the human touch which is user experience."
Yamir Lopez on Change Management Methodoligies: "It starts with the strategy. That's why I combine everything. There's a vision, a purpose of what I'm doing this, but not only what I'm doing. It's why I'm doing what I'm doing, and it all connects. Your customer perspective, financial perspective, everything is in the strategy, but then as we get into the people side, that's where we define and decide what are the gaps we have, anything from skill set to do you believe in your manager or how often do you talk to your manager or do you feel appreciated in this organization, so those are key questions aligned to the strategy of the company, but also doing focus groups, having people engaged and involved, accountable of their own journey. Okay, so what do you mean by this, and so posing then to bring ideas, brainstorming on what things can we do to help or to boost engagement.
Edward Blackman joins us and takes us through the evolution of communication: "The conversation used to be, 'I'm from corporate, and I'm here to help,' It's an instant turnoff if you show up in the hospitals and the clinics; they can tend not to like that very much. You use that same approach anywhere else. Of course, it's kind of doomed, but if you show up in a clinic and you have a conversation with a physician and ask them, 'What are your struggles? What would you like to go away, what's working well for you? What does better look like for you?' It turns out, they're going to highlight a whole bunch of things that actually do line up with a strategy. That starter, it makes a huge difference."
Terry Jones joins us and shares the lessons learned throughout his career which began as a travel agent, "I spent 20 years at American Airlines ending as CIO. Then I started Travelocity.com inside of American Airlines, was COO there for six years, took the company public for $1.2 billion. When the company was taken private I left. I became a board member and a speaker and venture capitalist and helped start Kayak.com where I served as chairman for eight years until we sold it to Priceline for $1.8 billion dollars. I've served on 13 public and private boards and recently, the last four years, I've had an AI startup."
From Akzo Nobel, Rob Bradford joins us and shares that "we wanted to create cross-functional centers. So we said we're not going to functionally align so we're not going to have an HR shared service center and a finance shared service center. We're going to be end to end. And so with that comes a whole lot of other requests and accountabilities. So you've got to make sure that the functional leads in the company understand that and that they can share accountability across these end-to-ends." And once the enterprise was set, it was set for success.
New York Life's @DavidCastellani SVP & Business Information Officer joins us and chimes in on timeline applications: "I don't think you're ever happy to start with. You constantly have got to be feeding the beast of change in order to be faster. I mean, think about why ... People always want agility. They say they want speed, but what holds them back? Well, it's the mountain of legacy that was built 40, 30, 25 years ago that actually represents the core. That's the massive speed bump. That's the glue that holds the organizations from moving quicker and faster. Asset reduction is key to this conversation. Without it, you're going to continue to be slow."
On realizing the respective strengths and weaknesses of carbon-based and digital colleagues Maria Salvatore "So actually having worked with humans doing the same thing again and again in 20 different flavors and occasionally making some big mistakes, we think like, you know what? Maybe the machine is a way more reliable in certain respects."
Bobby Abraham joins us and gives us a sense of his transformation remit, “be ready for the future, be agile, be ready for it.” He notes that "it's down to individuals and organizations.” With the pace of change in technology intensifying investing in accelerator programs "helps leapfrog the traditional innovation that happens within larger corporations.” As far as geographic growth, using India as an example where they skipped 3G, he asks what countries can skip 3G and 4G and go right to 5G. Bobby is also a decent human, "I'm absolutely humbled by my journey and I'm always, always just glad, delighted, lots of gratitude for the wonderful bosses, the line managers I’ve had. And I think I've made most of every opportunity just out of sheer hard work and perseverance and purposefully curious."
On generational divides and similarities, Stephen Caulfield returns and shares thoughts on how each generation is starting to gain aspects of their respective colleagues from boomers to millennials, vice versa, and everything in between. And whether it's employees or customers, Stephen shares "it doesn't matter what you tell people about your company in a room at an interview, because they have already researched you online. They have gone to their source of truth to find out what the online world thinks of you. One of the things we've done within Dell EMC or Dell technology is we have a number of social media listening centers that we've put together."
Ricoh’s VP EMEA Shared Service Centres, Andrea Schaffel join us and discusses the importance of consistency, being customer-centric. She discusses how she’s shifting global centers and global center talent around her regions. Andrea shares how she’s taken in sales order processing work, planning and supply chain, administration and controlling finance activity. She shares that “in addition to the transactional work we were already doing for them, we've now taken on a higher level work.” And how no matter what she’s doing, everything comes down to "trust, emotion, relationship and control."
The only woman to summit Mount Everest from both sides, Cathy O'Dowd joins us with her history and some life lessons for us. She was a "stubborn and adventurous kid" who stumbled into mountaineering through a content. In retrospect, everything about that first effort was wrong from the make-up of the team to the raison d'etre. Cathy speaks of setting a rule set at the formation of every team. She discusses failures as successes- not just points for learning. And that when you're climbing a mountain, summiting a mountain is just one of the goals.
Recorded at SSOW in Lisbon, Caroline Basyn joins us and shares her history in transformation which includes many years at P&G, three years at Bacardi as CIO and her current role as Chief Business Services at Mondelez. The stay at Bacardi was short as Caroline explains it- she was coming from an $80B company to a $5B company and so her transformation mission was straightforward. Moving to Mondelez Caroline outlined an aggressive timeline, size and scope for transformation- four services, three years, 3,500 people- which turned into eight services and 5,000 people delivered on the initial timeline.
The current Senior Director of HR Services & Solutions at Chewy joins us. At the moment, he’s only been with Chewy for a short while which is why he shares a fair amount of his experience at his former position- with Amazon. He shares that your amazing Amazon customer experience (which from their point of view is termed 'customer obsession') has obviously been the focus of the organization- but that CX coupled with acquisitions has left back office on the bottom of the list. That said, if you’ve ever seen an Amazon employee present at an event- it’s an entrepreneurial place- and if you want to fix something, they’ll let you focus on a solution if it makes sense. And when prompted he offered some solutions for you: 1. stop pretending that you understand your customer’s experience if you’ve not experienced it yourself. 2. Focus on your job at hand while breaking down the walls of communication. 3. Don’t measure customer experience with off-the-shelf solutions.
Cindy Gallagher joins us and shares her decision-making around taking the position of CEO at Liberty Source. With "a shortage of woman leadership” Cindy feels that it’s important to train and show the importance and need for a blend of talent at the highest levels of all organizations. Regarding her organization, she’s focused on a highly educated and underemployed segment of the population. And considering that quality talent and a lack of understanding of how to implement the future of work is in short supply, Cindy and her team are happily finding placement for US veterans and their spouses. And Cindy gives us her thoughts on intelligent automation: as opposed to taking jobs away, it’s going to change the landscape of work. Over-communicate on your journey. Ensure leadership has a long-term vision regarding intelligent automation. Put your human workforce in a leadership and ownership position of your digital workforce. Focus that digital workforce on delivering tangible goods and your human workforce on delivering quality of service.
Global Corporate Controller for American Express Global Business Travel joins us and updates us on his transition to that role with an overview of that business. Myriad transactions occur and "matching those transactions is no easy task.” With the volume of those transactions being so high, Manny admits that "automating the entire suite would be nirvana.” He shares that he and the team must understand what data is being captured through what technology before jumping ahead. He’s automating what can certainly be automated now, waiting on certain processes that need to be optimized and keeping his ey on cognitive machine learning solutions where he know’s he’ll eventually get “the biggest bang for the buck."