Shared Services Weekly: What are the scariest things a GBS leader can hear?

Hi and welcome to our Shared Services Weekly newsletter!

What keeps Shared Services & GBS leaders up at night? Early findings from the 2024 State of Industry survey reveal that almost half of them have identified upskilling of talent as their top priority for the upcoming year. If you haven’t shared your insights in this industry-essential survey, you can do so here.

What are the scariest things a GBS leader can hear??

In a year where the only constant is change, there are any number of scary things a GBS leader can hear. But forewarned is forearmed and SSON spoke to Dave Hughes , one of our illustrious advisory board about what he considers the biggest fears for GBS today.?

Technology risk certainly plays a huge part, be that the fear-of-missing-out, software failures or promised ROI not being met. To combat this, SSON check out our upcoming online events: this week’s AP Automation Digital Summit and December’s Intelligent Document Processing Digital Summit, as well as Nintex ’s recent report on Driving Continuous Improvement with BPM and Process Tools.???

People risks are another fear factor GBS leaders need to consider. These risks come in the form of employee and customer attrition and dissatisfaction and the negative impact on your GBS brand. The first step to combat these issues, is identifying the root-cause and the truth often lies in the data.

SSON is collaborating with Sapience Analytics to cover How Shared Service Leaders Can Become Orchestrators of Value Through Workforce Analytics. We’ll continue the conversation at our online event CX and Service Management for Shared Services in December.?

Lastly, you can’t talk about scariest things without listing AI, everyone’s favorite boogeyman. The existential risks from AI could result in cyber-attacks, fake-news, and unstopped bias, but used effectively there’s no end to AI’s possibilities. So how do we learn to use it for good not evil. SSON Research & Analytics are hosting a webinar on Hype vs. Impact: Generative AI in GBS, whilst last week’s SSO Next Podcast had some great tips on how AI is Reshaping Finance Roles, check them out for some inspiration!?

Thanks for reading,

Sally Fletcher , Head SSON Digital // Podcast Host SSO Next