Cracking the Value Realization Code: Your Essential Guide to GBS Mastery
Businesses and organizations worldwide are restructuring their corporate functions to include shared services and global business service units. This movement began mainly by offshoring lesser critical business functions to third-party vendors to save costs and improve efficiency, which was made possible due to centralization and standardization.
In recent years, leading global businesses have improved this model and are now turning to Global Business Services (GBS) as another strategic arm of their operations. The GBS unit now serves as a single enterprise organization or network that helps drive collaboration and greater efficiency to improve overall operations within the organization.
What makes GBS capable of delivering on this promise is its ability to leverage data and knowledge across the organization from multiple business functions, units, and geographies. This data is used to make insights that can transform customer and employee experiences rapidly.
Let’s understand how GBS organizations can ride on this wave and meet the needs of business leaders looking for a strategic partner instead of an outsourcing vendor.
Why Many Leaders Prefer GBS to Outsourcing
You might believe that GBS provides the same services as an outsourcing vendor. To an extent, you are right. The earlier shared services models were developed with the primary objective of being cost-saving centers. They rarely went beyond providing back-office assistance and did not possess the capabilities to support the ambitious growth and innovation plans that organizations have.
Today’s GBS models are catalysts of value creation. They rely on AI technologies to help companies remain competitive and relevant. The speed and predictive capability that the new GBS offers allow companies to function with greater agility, intelligence, and creativity. And that is the business opportunity that most leaders see.
GBS Creates Value
The GBS model supports a range of functions within an enterprise, such as finance and accounting. However, GBS is increasingly taking on the responsibility of other activities that are crucial to the success of the business, such as sales and marketing.
Most business leaders today demand innovation and one of their top strategic imperatives is process innovation. For GBS businesses, this translates into finding ways to aid transformation, especially in realigning end-to-end systems and processes within the organization. In such a scenario, GBS leaders’ operational priorities need an overhaul too. They need to look at increasing automation in their current processes and also look at ways to drive greater consolidation of business activities into existing GBS centers.
Today many GBS centers have got on board and are actively driving innovation within their organizations. According to McKinsey, 64 percent of GBS organizations believe that the acceleration of transformation initiatives is led primarily by GBS or as a joint effort between GBS and other business units.
Despite these numbers, many enterprises continue to hold on to the old GBS model. For them to remain relevant in these changing times, they need to revisit their culture, mindset, and direction, or get ready to get left behind.
How to Master GBS to Stay Ahead of the Game?
Here are three primary ways that GBS organizations can crack the code and get a head start:
- Adopt seamless process management
- Using data for smarter decision making
- Exploiting emerging technologies
Adopt Seamless Process Management
Integrating end-to-end process ownership can move organizational operations from siloed functions to improved collaboration and better visibility across different departments and geographies. The biggest advantage of this approach is enhanced digitalization and better process standardization, resulting in improved customer experiences. This can help drive better success and growth for the organization, and many GBS businesses are adopting this model.
Using Data for Smarter Decision-Making
GBS organizations might not realize it, but they are sitting on a gold mine of data. Applying AI’s advanced algorithms and analytics can help draw insights from this data to make critical business decisions, speedily and in real time. Automation alone cannot get companies the desired results. Leaders should have the ability to draw value from data and leverage technology to their advantage.
Exploiting Emerging Technologies
Technologies change every day and GBS leaders need to shift gears and change their approach towards adopting advanced technologies. Rather than wondering whether the latest innovation is ready for GBS operations, leaders need to identify the existing areas that will benefit from the application of the technology.
Also Read: Are you ready for the future of shared services?
The ProHance Solution
At ProHance, we understand the challenges that GBS leaders and organizations face. We believe that GBS organizations that can utilize data effectively to drive meaningful change are more likely to lead the global market.
We have the skills, knowledge, and years of experience providing solutions that can help your organization continue to focus on providing end-to-end services to your customers. We will provide you with strategies on how to leverage data for greater productivity and unlock sustainable growth.
Our solution comes with automated virtual performance dashboards that can quickly capture relevant data and provide leaders with insights based on this data. Leaders can rely on this data to deliver greater value to their customers across all touchpoints and business functions, scoring a direct impact on productivity and the bottom line.
The future of service belongs to GBS solutions, and adopting the right ecosystem for delivery excellence can make your organization agile and ready for the future.
