Interactive Seminars and Keynote Plenaries

Monday, 19th May

Please click on the links below to learn more:

Morning Plenary: Meet the world’s only ‘Historian of the Future’ at the launch of the 8th Annual Shared Services Week
Morning Seminars: Sessions A - F
Afternoon Plenary: Going global with Shared Services: The world is your oyster
Afternoon Seminars: Sessions G - L
Full Day Seminar: Get Set, Go! Planning & implementing a successful SSC launch
Afternoon Plenary: The shape of things to come: 21st Century business and economies

8.00 - 9.00 Registration, Morning Coffee & Networking

9.00 - 9.45 Morning Plenary: Meet The World’s Only ‘Historian Of The Future’ At The Launch Of The 8th Annual Shared Services Week

James Bellini
Fellow of the World Innovation Forum

To kick off the 2008 Shared Services Week, we have an inspirational, brand new addition to the Shared Services community. Described by the BBC News Magazine as ‘an eye to the future’ James has more than twenty five years’ experience in futures analysis, with a strong focus on the future evolution of economic, financial and technology topics.

James describes himself as ‘an historian of the future’ with a close interest in key strategic challenges facing current and future management up to Horizon 2025. Renowned worldwide for his visionary insights, James will provide an incredible and one-off insight for the Shared Services community on:

The 500-year Delta; timing and culture in business strategy
Future challenges for senior managers
New business ‘eco-systems’
Corporate psychology
The changing marketplace including the demographic revolution and its radical impact on the future marketplace:
- Rise of the aspirational consumer
- Post-family households
- Financial services
- pensions, savings products, insurance
- Government and public services
- Issues of work/life balance
- The ‘connected’ society
- The new ‘engagement space’

For a whirlwind insight into tomorrow’s world and how it can affect your business strategy for future growth, be sure to join James at the launch of the 8th Annual Shared Services Week.

Don’t miss the exclusive book signing with James!

Mould your education programme: Tailor your day and choose from these morning, afternoon or full day seminars

Morning Seminars:

10.00 – 12:30 Workshop A: Creating a robust staffing strategy in a competitive climate: Thrive, Survive or …?

Achieve 30-40% improvement in efficiency like COLT while meeting service commitments in a highly competitive labour market

With a clear strategy, and active management, your centre can thrive in highly competitive labour markets and ensure consistent service delivery.

Attracting and retaining the right staff has always been a critical success factor, and obstacle, for all SSOs. Growing competition for the necessary skills and experience increases the likelihood of staff attrition, higher operating cost, and lower service quality. You need a robust staffing strategy to ensure effective service delivery through creative sourcing and minimising attrition. As the market for Outsourcing and captive Shared Services increases, so too do the challenges. Today’s ‘hot spot’ labour markets were yesterday’s emerging sites with relatively low competition for labour. If this is not a critical challenge for you right now, it soon will be!

Sourcing and securing a pipeline of talent aligned with your needs
Utilising a 360? strategy for staff retention
Insulating service delivery from staff attrition
Recognising, planning and managing the cost of creating a winning workforce

Kirk Wikenson Kirk Wilkenson
Director Shared Services
COLT Telecommunications

Kirk is leading key transformation initiatives for COLT to improve service, efficiency and control in back office functions. He recently led COLT’s programme to establish a captive Finance SSC in India and is currently leading COLT’s Next Generation Billing Initiative.

10.00 – 12:30 Workshop B: Mastering performance metrics: Charting the growth of your SSC to monitor progression

Sasol, a South African based oil and gas company, operates in 30 countries. After two years of preparation, Sasol Secunda Shared Services went live on January 1, 2007. Instead of selecting areas to be implemented, management had to make a case to exclude them. Everything from Finance to Maintenance Services, Human Resources to Information Management, Facilities to Corporate Affairs were to be included by default. As a result the company is already on track, achieving financial benefits and improving on service excellence.

In this seminar, Anneli will focus on the performance metrics used to ensure this rate of success.

Delegates will take away a fundamental understanding of how to turn these metrics into an actual growth strategy:

Realising the financial benefits of your outsourcing implementation
Focusing on internal marketing: Acknowledging your employees as your key tools to improved product delivery
Creating a vehicle for further enhancements to your Shared Services model
Ensuring continuous improvement for long term results

Anneli Pretorius
Financial Manager: HR Shared Services
SASOL

Anneli’s portfolio includes the financial aspects of the payroll function, corporate HR reporting and benchmarking their HR Shared Services function. She started her career, after accounting articles, as a Financial Accountant specialising in various HR business applications.

10.00 – 12:30 Workshop C: Migrating and offshoring: Assessing the recent developments for onshore, nearshore and offshore models

Leveraging labour arbitrage and streamlining back office processes are key drivers for nearshore or offshore models. As many large-scale corporations have set up operations in the typical hotspots in East Europe or Asia, skilled labour has become a scarce resource there. Additionally, new workflow management technologies have reduced the need to set up transactional centres in order to optimise the cost structures. Therefore, the decision for the right model has become more complex. In this session you will learn about a methodology to 1) differentiate between onshore, nearshore and offshore models, 2) identify process models to carve out onshore and offshore components, and 3) design the ideal local/regional/global footprint of your service function.

Understand true benefits and risks of nearshoring and offshoring projects
Assess your own capabilities in comparison to potential service provider capabilities
Specify the true need to move offshore
Design the ideal service function operating model – transactional centres vs. centres of competence
Understand state-of-the-art technologies that help reduce transactional work

Soren Dressler Soeren Dressler PhD
Director of the Offshoring Institute and Professor of International Accounting
University of Applied Sciences, Berlin

10.00 – 12:30 Workshop D: Maintaining high SSO performance through merger and acquisition periods

Managing SSO delivery through mergers and acquisitions is vital to ensure ongoing Shared Services success. However, uniting various business operating procedures can significantly impact SSO delivery. InBev have significant experience of mergers and acquisitions and Leandro will lead this interactive discussion based session on how to maintain SSO delivery throughout.

Setting clear accountability for any changes in leadership and control throughout the process
Ensuring newly created Shared Service models will deliver service as high, if not higher, post merger
Assessing proven examples of successful Shared Service delivery before, during and after a merger

Leandro Balbinot
Director Global IT/IS Services
InBev

10.00 – 12:30 Workshop E: Transforming your Purchase-to-Pay operations from transaction processing to real business support

Optimising the Purchase-to-Pay process is on everyone’s agenda. Every department is interested in developing their part of the process, but how can you ensure end-to-end process improvement for the entire Purchase-to-Pay process?

Attending this workshop will enable you to leave ready to:

Ensure sustainability and innovation through greater visibility
Improve transparency through continuous measurement
Achieve control and compliance throughout the whole Purchase-to-Pay process
Lead your organisation to excel in Purchase-to-Pay process improvement

Joanna Kinson Johanna Rantala
Business Consultant, Global Operations
BasWare

Johanna has several years’ experience in which she has been leading and participating in numerous development projects in international companies related to Supply Chain and Purchase-to-Pay process development, performance management and change management. Her recent customers include Booz Allen Hamilton US and SITA UK.Ω

10.00 – 12:30 Workshop F: The A to Z of Benchmarking: How do you really measure performance the right way?

Finding the right metrics is one challenge, actually making valid comparisons is another.

This workshop offers you dedicated time with world-renowned benchmarking experts. Not only will you learn how to instigate benchmarking, best practices and improvements in your organisation, but you’ll also see real data and definitions of what best practice and World Class truly are.

Gain insight into The Hackett Group’s practical guidelines for:

Starting on the transformation journey
Base-lining and the benchmarking journey
How long does benchmarking take and what resources are required?
Choosing appropriate metrics and KPIs
What are the areas that can be benchmarked?
What are the key benefits of benchmarking and performance metrics?

You’ll leave this workshop with a deeper understanding of a range of real life metrics as well as best practices used in Shared Services. Take this information home and apply it to your organisation.

Seminar includes The Hackett Group’s very latest research results!

Summary of the newest Hackett research on Finance & Shared Services
Location analysis update

Wouter van Gelderen
Senior Director Finance Transformation
The Hackett Group

12.30 - 13.10 Afternoon Plenary: Going Global With Shared Services: The World Is Your Oyster

Noah Franklin
Group Director of Business Services
Cadbury Schweppes

After in country and regional consolidations, the logical next step in Shared Services is to go global. Enormous benefits can be reaped from scale driven cost efficiencies, policy and reporting standardisation, 24/7 follow-the-sun operations, as well as better business continuity planning. Of course there are critical challenges to be faced and choices to be made. This discussion session provides insight into how Cadbury Schweppes have adopted this approach successfully and how many of their key findings are also very applicable to SSCs operating on a regional or national level before working onto what other options may be viable in the future.

13.10 - 14.00 Lunch & Networking

Afternoon Seminars:

14.00 – 16:30 Workshop G: Achieving the full value proposition of outsourcing

Outsourcing continues to expand as a viable business option and it is rapidly growing in Europe, North America and beyond. As part of a larger business strategy, a well-chosen and well managed outsourcing deal can both save money and add value to your business. But many find it hard to achieve the full outsourcing value proposition.

Join Linda as she shares her previous experience as AT&T HR Director managing a large comprehensive HRO deal and her expertise as one of the founding leaders of the HRO Buyers Group and Chair of the HR Outsourcing Association’s Standards and Research Committee. Linda will be providing a frank and balanced view of outsourcing, what it can do, what it can’t and what you must do for yourself.

This workshop will cover the basics of making and managing outsourcing deals and more. Whether you are considering Business Process Outsourcing for the first time or wondering how to improve the results of the outsourcing relationships you already have – this session will provide you with practical and proven information and tools.

Making the decision: How to get started and what you need to know first
Making the deal: From the “Request for Proposal” to signing the contract
Making it work: Critical success factors to leverage and key pitfalls to avoid

Linda Merritt
HR Director (retired)
AT&T

14.00 – 16:30 Workshop H: Boost your team’s sense of “belonging” to your corporate strategy: How closely is YOUR SSO aligned?

When a cleaner at NASA was asked by a visitor what his role was - he quickly replied ‘I’m helping to put a man on the moon!’

This kind of team-work needn’t be a dream. Kellogg’s will use its own experiences, including the SSO’s Scorecard tool, to stimulate discussion and debate around how best to get your SSO teams ‘hooked’ into the company strategy, boost the teams sense of ‘belonging’ and celebrate key successes along the way. This session will provide insight for both new and mature centres and will help focus efforts to what should be done vs what can be done.

This workshop will explore:

Best practice procedures to ensure that your SSO team clearly understands the aims and direction of your organisation
Gaining a clear line of sight for SSO employees to understand how they help deliver the strategy
Aligning your SSO to the business by setting smart targets to help achieve the company’s goals
How best to communicate all this and keep it alive

Elka Gupta
Manager Cost Accounting and Customer Service
Kellogg’s

Claire Shard
Manager Financial Reporting and Quality
Kellogg’s

14.00 – 16:30 Workshop I: Raising the bar: Proven strategies for establishing high performing Centres of Excellence

In this interactive session, Lisa will pose her thoughts, ideas and experiences of creating the culture, teams and level of performance necessary to establish and stretch high-performing, fast-paced and development-hungry Shared Service environments.

Leave this session with a deeper understanding of:

What culture means to you and your team
The importance of ensuring you have the right core values
Developing individuals to drive success in your team
Team-building for performance results
Leading by example and from the front
Making excellence and expertise co-exist
Commercially orientating your SSC
Ensuring visible and credible links to Finance strategy
How your SSC could underpin your Finance Transformation activities

Lisa Hooley
Managing Director
Tetra Pak Business Services Ltd.
Winner! 2006 Shared Services Thought Leader of the Year

14.00 – 16:30 Workshop J: Small scale? Think big: Leveraging SSO success with the SME and Mid-Market

With more and more SME and Mid-Market models considering and adopting the Shared Services model, this brand new session has been introduced to bring the challenges and issues specifically faced by SME and Mid-Market companies to the forefront – and above all, find ways to conquer these challenges!

Grant has worked in three different SSOs and will draw on his personal experiences whilst working at McGrawHill, Interpublic Ltd and now in his role as Programme Manager on the Avid Technology Ltd. SSO implementation.

In particular Grant will cover:

Leveraging your role as a ‘big fish in a small pond’ in smaller companies: Recognising and using the weight that you have within the overall business
Managing upstream to gain buy-in from higher up the food chain, without removing their sense of control
Creating a high performance SSO team by recognising and utilising internal talent and being prepared to make difficult decisions
Recognising and using your strengths as an SME when hiring externally
Establishing the correct SSO leader for ongoing success

Grant Farrell
Programme Manager on Shared Services implementation
Avid Technology Inc.

Grant’s experience in both the systems, controllership and operational side of Shared Services make him ideally qualified to present on both the technical and strategic ‘how to’ factors for succeeding with Shared Services within SMEs.

14.00 – 16:30 Workshop K: Adopting Lean Six Sigma: Delivering improved and accelerated services at lower cost

Using Lean Six Sigma to map and improve your processes has many tangible benefits, such as faster and better service at lower cost, but can feel daunting to begin. This workshop will focus on the elementary tools you can use to kick start your Process Improvement program so that you can:

Specify value in the eyes of your customer: Value as a function of speed, accuracy and cost
Objectively measure your performance: Drive continuous and breakthrough improvement by baselining your critical processes across departments
Identify, improve and control factors affecting the success of critical process performance measures: Eliminate any waste and variation you discover along he entire value stream
Sustain your ROI: Building a process flow and control system to imbed the solution into your organisational culture

Critical take-away lessons include:

Understand the basics of Lean Six Sigma: What is a sigma? Why are there six of them? What is Lean?
Clearly identify the needs and wants of your customer
Identify key factors to getting started with Lean Six Sigma, and building the momentum to keep it going!
Implement DMAIC quickly and effectively: Six Sigma’s power in identifying and controlling variation

Howard Miller
Lean Six Sigma Deployment Leader, Payment & Commercial Operations
HSBC

Howard is a certified Master Black Belt and has been responsible for deployments in both the manufacturing and financial services environment.

14.00 – 16:30 Workshop L: Drive greater value from your SSO through innovative process automation

Automation technology continues to act as an enabler for the transformation of Shared Services as you reach for the ‘lights out - self service’ environment that will deliver those essential cost savings.

However, selecting the correct technology for the correct processes will be they key to sustainable efficiency gains as your SSC matures. Join Trintech to find out how you can improve efficiency and reduce costs whilst focusing on tighter internal controls and improved service. The workshop will highlight a variety of innovative ways in which you can help to drive more value from your SSC and will discuss:

Driving value from the back office: Leveraging your existing technology investment for improved performance
Deploying technology for compliant financial processes: The impact of tighter controls and transparency
Reducing financial risk: Managing critical spreadsheets that augment current financial processes

David Taylor
Director of Strategy and Planning
Trintech

David has been with Trintech for over 9 years, and brings a wealth of knowledge from the Office of Finance to Trintech, from Finance and Accounting operations to Financial Planning and Analysis, and Mergers and Acquisitions. He is currently based in the Dallas, TX office, and is responsible for Strategic Planning, Corporate Business Development, Quality, Process Improvement and tactical Financial Planning.

14.00 - 16.00 Workshop N: How to improve and increase collaboration between Finance and Procurement functions resulting in increased savings and risk reduction

Over the past 15 years, most large companies have invested in the implementation of ERP to strengthen their internal processes. As a result, automatisation islands have been connected, avoiding most of the discrepancies between Manufacturing and Finance, or between Finance and Human Resources. The next challenge to enable access to a heightened level of savings is to "electronify" external processes with trading partners such as suppliers.

One key success factor to effectively implement efficient processes with suppliers is to present "one face" in front of them - this means Procurement and Finance teams are now collaborating and share the same vision and goals, such as:

Increasing compliance (fiscal, legal, contractual) at source (on the supplier side)
Reducing document processing costs by asking suppliers to enrich invoices with information required by Procurement and Finance
Creating a defined joint Supplier Enablement program by mixing Procurement criteria (volume, revenue) with Finance criteria (invoice processing costs, discount opportunities)
Improving spend visibility based on more accurate invoice information

In this seminar Serge will use his extensive experience to discover best practices in the areas above and will encourage you to share your own experiences to compare and contrast with the most advanced companies in Finance and Procurement collaboration.

Serge Labouyrie
Senior Manager
Network & EIPP Solutions, Europe, Ariba

Full Day Seminar

10:00 – 16.30 Workshop M: Get Set, Go! Planning & implementing a successful SSC launch

Full Day Seminar (breaking for lunch)

Implementing Shared Services is a huge challenge requiring disciplined programme management across a number of work-streams. Planning must be taken seriously and a methodical approach to implementation ensures a higher likelihood of success.

Shared Services can mean a fundamental change, which is met with considerable resistance in many organisations. And often its implementation coincides with systems initiatives, placing a further strain on the ability of the organisation to cope.

To respond to this challenge Cemex created a “Move to SSC” methodology, encompassing all of the elements needed to implement from creating the vision, documenting the service baseline and target performance metrics, to process agreement, training and knowledge sharing, supported by project and change management services.

Any SSO is in the spotlight from day one. There’s no doubt that the pressure is on to perform. However with the right planning and methodology and using critical success factors from those who have gone before, this is not impossible. During this interactive workshop you will learn practical lessons from Csaba’s experience of establishing Shared Services for Cemex in Eastern Europe, together with case study insights from Phil’s experience spanning 14 years of Shared Services implementation.

Harness the knowledge to:

Understand the importance of a shared vision, and supporting communications and change management
Instil an implementation methodology: Ensuring that all SSO and implementation project team members are aligned
Design a repeatable approach: Understanding the importance of documentation to support knowledge sharing and training
Create a smooth process transition: Agreeing the activity split and developing the key metrics to monitor progress
Manage service provision from day 1: Finding techniques and learning for service level management
Avoid common mistakes: Putting the critical success factors into practice

Philip King
Associate Partner, Head of Shared Services Solution
Atos Consulting

Csaba Kis
General Manager, Cemex SSC
Budapest

Tailored to your needs! Complete the on-line questionnaire in advance of attending this session, to ensure the session is focused on your pressing objectives for planning and implementing a successful Shared Services organisation.

16.35 – 17.20 Afternoon Plenary: The Shape Of Things To Come: 21st Century Business And Economies

Frances Cairncross CBE
Formerly Management Editor
The Economist

As former Management Editor of The Economist, Frances Cairncross has had a first-hand insight into the forces that affect today’s commercial marketplace. And, as head of one of the oldest colleges of Oxford University, she expresses her views with clarity and humour.

In this session she will guide you through the differences between old and new economies, and how they will shape 21st Century businesses.

Close to the heart of all Shared Services professionals, Frances will also refer to her 2002 book The Company of the Future, to explore the challenges and opportunities that Information Technology creates. And if you are offshoring or considering it in the near future, this session is an absolute must-attend as Frances will discuss how the ‘death of distance’ has become less of a concern, as telecommunications will revolutionise the role of distance in your lives.

For a true insight into the shape of things to come in 21st century business and economies, do not miss this session!

18.00 – 20.00 Welcome Reception At Bodegas Cava

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