Jana Vondran is a GBS leader with 20+ years of experience in leading Shared Services. Previously working at Siemens, she is currently the SVP of GBS at Ingram Micro. Jana is a recognized member of SSON and Customer Experience Program Advisory Board of University Of California
Founder & CEO of HighRadius, a fintech enterprise SaaS leader that provides Autonomous Software for Order to Cash, Treasury & Record to Report. Sashi’s leadership has secured the trust of 200+ Global 2000 companies.
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Dead-or-Alive Question #1: In 10 years, do you think BPOs for outsourcing will be dead or alive?
BPOs need to focus more on true automation rather than just transactional services.
They must find ways to add more value and think from a service/advisory perspective.
They need to strike a balance between customer experience and the customization level required for scaling a large company.
In the near future, the contracts with BPOs would depend on the ‘Outcomes’ of their services rather than just conventional transactions.
Dead-or-Alive Question #2: In 10 years, will large, centralized service centers be dead or alive? Especially given the Covid effect of Work From Anywhere?
At Least the large, conventional service centers would perish.
With the pandemic, the hybrid working model is the new theme, and people want flexibility at work.
Organizations need to evolve and have small centers for collaboration and exchanging ideas.
This idea would replace the large, physical service centers with satellite organizations that provide the right mix of talent, collaboration, and expertise.
With the hybrid model coming up, the selection of work time should be introduced to strengthen the scope of improvisation further.
Ex-Young and dedicated employees would wish to strive a bit more at work compared to married employees who want to have a balance between family and work.
Satellite workspaces and the diversity of working hours help maintain the optimum work-life balance that will be highly efficient in the future.
Dead-or-Alive Question #3: In the next ten years, do you think RPA in the current form ‘AS IS screen flow automation’ will be dead or alive?
RPA evolution is in progress, and we are moving towards a more connected automation model.
10 years ago, RPA was estimated to provide 30% – 40% baseline automation, but the current workflow structure in companies allows only 15% automation to be achieved.
Streamlining of processes and synchronization between them seems missing in the present form.
Integrating ML and AI is essential to bring transformation in the current form of RPA that focuses on task automation.
To add greater value, it is crucial to drive more end-to-end processes and automation 10 years from now.
Dead-or-Alive Question #4: What are your thoughts on AI in GBS. In 10 years, will AI be dead or alive?
The use of true AI at the moment is rare and holds a lot of potential.
Companies talk about AI but still need to work on its incorporation into the workflow.
10 years from now, AI will be more mature from a technical perspective and will be an integral part of a Shared Services/Global Business Services organization.
AI provides scope for a predictive mindset and allows room for customer value.
AI has a lot of scope and should be implemented in the functioning of a GBS organization to drive business at a greater pace.
Dead-or-Alive Question #5: In 10 years, given the consistent wage inflation, will India be a top choice for service centers?
Labor cost arbitrage would become a factor of less importance 10 years from now.
The focus would be highly on the level of services that the centers have to offer.
The transition of service centers from mere transaction centers to value centers would be a crucial determinant in the long run.
The vision of emerging leaders is to set up small service centers in resource locations.
Furthermore, they are willing to look out for resources globally and then leverage the optimal usage rather than focusing on setting up a center in a particular region.
GBS leaders choose countries based on the core competencies they offer to organizations for driving growth.
Dead-or-Alive Question #6: Would GBS be dead or alive as an organization?
The leaders should try to incorporate new technological advancements in their workflow and not be afraid to embrace disruption in the marketspace.
The key to success is understanding the concept of GBS and its value proposition and evolving according to the market trends.
Emerging leaders should keep their company’s long-term vision alive and strive to achieve it.
Young people should explore GBS and understand the concept associated with it.
It’s an excellent opportunity to understand the functioning of an organization and how it deploys analytics to measure parameters and drive transformation with the upcoming trends.
