If future historians wrote a preamble for the GCC business climate of 2023, how would that go?
“It was a time of post-recession confusion, a time of inflation. A time of great expectations — from employees, from customers, from investors, from shareholders. A time of obsession with operational efficiencies, and of embracing calculated risks in the interest of delivering exceptional employee and customer experiences.”
They will likely describe our 2023 dawn exactly like that. And they will likely add the decisive coda: “It was the time of GBS.”
“Global business services” is rapidly becoming one of the most popular base strategies for digital transformation for a very important reason. It eliminates silos. While each line of business may have different digitisation priorities, they share many business goals. We have been digitally transforming for long enough in the region to have seen the pitfalls. Siloed agendas clash, and programs crash.
Global business services vs shared services
GBS is an evolution of the shared services model where support was provided across geographies from a single department. GBS brings together shared services such as IT, HR, finance and customer service, into a single organisational structure that eliminates the silos between these departments, and others, and supports everyone regardless of function or location.
A recent survey across GBS-oriented organisations in 45 countries showed 88% had reduced costs, 78% had achieved their standardisation and efficiency goals, and 63% had added business value. I’ll repeat the words of our future historians: “It was the time of GBS”.
The reason I am so confident about the conclusions of future analysts is not just because of present-day studies and stats. It is because of why those businesses are seeing such success. Silos hurt competitiveness and impede progress. This we know. GBS eliminates them. This I can show. Let us take a look at four main areas where GBS adds value in a business.
1. Connected processes and reduced costs
GBS is about process standardisation, automation, and operating efficiencies. To deliver this, silos must naturally dissolve, and a new business paradigm will emerge to take their place — one of end-to-end alignment and collaboration. When technologists connect processes via automation and integration, users across departments get access to common back-end systems of record. No matter where anyone works, or for what department, speedy access to the right data makes them more effective, freeing them up to focus on higher-value tasks.
Process connection starts with merging services into regional hubs. This is followed by adopting global end-to-end business processes managed by global owners. Quick wins are most commonly found in procurement and finance followed by HR and IT, although this may vary from organisation to organisation. All moves should be governed by a global GBS team that thinks and acts holistically.
2. A unified employee experience
As we all know, digital natives demand superior employee experiences. EX is rapidly becoming a competitive advantage in a more open and globalised labor market. A single GBS face is an ideal start in the delivery of superior EX. Portals, mobile apps, chatbots, collaboration tools, and more can form an ecosystem that keeps each employee connected, empowered, engaged, and productive.
It is important to account for workforce size and aggregate skillset, as well as the impact on metrics, when designing the new GBS-based EX. Planned digitisation must match the skillset that exists at the time. This means that quick-win philosophies cannot be predicated upon cost alone. On metrics, automated channels will lead to a greater proportion of complex issues being resolved by human agents, so handle times and related averages may be affected. Enterprises must allow for this and make the appropriate adjustments to executives’ expectations to preserve the quality of the frontline-employee experience.
3. Shared visibility
Cross-departmental visibility allows teams to work more intelligently and be able to continuously spot opportunities for improvement that can reduce operational costs and deliver higher service quality. When measuring the returns on GBS, it is vital to allow for non-financial benefits such as net promoter score (NPS). Some old processes will have no post-implementation twin with GBS, so it will be necessary to allow shared visibility across all service cases to deliver a clear impression of the value delivered by global business services.
This visibility also translates into better governance and compliance and tighter controls over sensitive company and customer data.
4. Agility and continuous improvement
By implementing a culture of low-code application development editors and citizen experience builders, the newly formed GBS organisation can build applications across portal, mobile, chatbots and others. It can scale back-office operations for better business outcomes. It can create superb EX, connect systems and departments, and extend service delivery to new use cases.
The GBS team must be vigilant to ensure value is continually added. They will be responsible for finding efficiency and productivity bottlenecks and deploying improvements. As owners of the organisation’s knowledge strategy, they will drive this change through a range of sub strategies, including the introduction and encouragement of low-code development.
Easy does it
GBS makes things easier, but some care must be taken in its implementation, which is as unique as an organisation’s business model. But if it is undertaken in carefully planned phases by the right team, GBS can drive enterprise-wide efficiencies, improve service delivery, transform employee experiences, and drive greater value — value that shows up as measurable impacts, including cost reductions.
And so, 2023 will have been “the time of GBS” because business leaders everywhere will see it as indispensable to consolidating value and revenue management during challenging times, and a vital tool for building operational resilience and agility that will increase competitiveness in the future.
