HFS Horizons Summit-NYC—Is GBS The Orchestrator and Operator of the Autonomous Enterprise… or Something Else?

Moderator: Phil Fersht, CEO and Chief Analyst, HFS Panelists: Liz Evans, Principal - Transformation: Global Business Services, PwC Tony Filippone, Chief Procurement Officer, AXIS Capital Tony Menezes, Managing Partner - Service Line Leader, IBM Corporation Ian Thompson, VP, Business Services Operations, S&P Global Jennifer Wang, EBS Global Strategy & Design Lead, Johnson & Johnson Consumer Health Session Description: Ambitious global business services organizations (GBSOs) are becoming transformation hubs, aligning themselves to the principles of the autonomous enterprise. These GBS organizations drive talent, technology infrastructure, automation, and AI to provide rapid data access, support leadership decisions, and minimize manual interventions that impede progress and speed. The goal of an autonomous enterprise is to enable humans to remove ourselves from some parts of the system so that we can continuously improve the whole ecosystem—and GBS can provide governance capability over key decision touchpoints for organizational leadership. Rather than sticking to the traditional “finance factory” setup, where GBS and shared services tend to get stuck in the back office, GBS leaders must link the front and back offices, ensuring processes run smoothly across functions to deliver the data and outcomes the business needs. Leaders need to understand the data they require for success and assemble and govern the systems to deliver it. So, how are current GBSOs moving toward autonomous enterprise? Leaders from inside and outside GBSOs will discuss and debate these questions: How do you design and implement change programs and work closely with the employee experience leader to transform the back-office mindset from antiquated business functions into one aligned with the business’ direction? What is the value of automation and AI, and how can you embed these technologies within each operation? What are the challenges of eliminating the back-office mindset? How do you turn it around and align it with the direction of the business? Will today’s Chief GBS Officer become tomorrow’s Chief Transformation Officer?