SSON Podcast: Ep.67 Andrea Schaffel, Ricoh

"Do the right thing for your company, whatever works, if you've got whatever model works for you. And so if it's looking at what a lot of people call GBS, great, but I don't have to call it that to be successful."

Andrea Schaffel, Ricoh

Ricoh’s VP EMEA Shared Service Centres, Andrea Schaffel join us and discusses the importance of consistency, being customer-centric. She discusses how she’s shifting global centers and global center talent around her regions. Andrea shares how she’s taken in sales order processing work, planning and supply chain, administration and controlling finance activity. She shares that “in addition to the transactional work we were already doing for them, we've now taken on a higher level work.” And how no matter what she’s doing, everything comes down to "trust, emotion, relationship and control."

Seth Adler: From Ricoh, Andrea Schaffel joins us. Welcome to SSON on B2BiQ, I'm your host Seth Adler, download episodes on SSOnetwork.com through our app in iTunes, within the iTunes podcast app and Google Play, or whatever you currently get your podcasts. 

 

 

 First some supporters to thank, and then Andrea Schaffel.

 

 This episode is supported by SSON with over 100,000 members, the shared services and outsourcing network is the largest and most established community of shared service and outsourcing professionals in the world. SSON is a one-stop shop for shared services professionals offering industry-leading events, reports, surveys, interviews, white papers, videos, editorial infographics, and more. Engage at SSOnetwork.com.

 

 This episode is also supported by SSON Analytics, digestible data-driven insights for shared services and outsourcing. SSON Analytics is SSON's global data analytics center. It provides shared services professionals with the global data insights you need through interactive maps, tools, and charts. Get headline industry statistics sent straight to your inbox. It's that simple. Explore the first layer of industry data for free now. Start a conversation to find out more, sign up at SSON-Analytics.com.

 

Andrea Schaffel: I'm Andrea Schaffel vice president of Ricoh Shared Services for Europe, Middle East, and Africa, with Ricoh Europe PLC.

 

Seth Adler: You're one of these EMEA people.

 

Andrea Schaffel: I'm an EMEA person, yes.

 

Seth Adler: Mm-hmm (affirmative), how do you ... Let's go percentages, on EMEA, how much is ME, how much is E, how much is A?

 

Andrea Schaffel: I would say E is probably 90%.

 

Seth Adler: Okay, if you're honest.

 

Andrea Schaffel: If I'm honest. A is a few percent, ME is 1%.

 

Seth Adler: Okay.

 

Andrea Schaffel: So that's kind of how I would split it.

 

Seth Adler: So then let's just go with the 90, right?

 

Andrea Schaffel: Yeah, sounds good.

 

Seth Adler: For the time being, but I do wanna ... Well, I wanna talk about ... I mean how much growth really is there? Just because you cover the area, not necessarily for Ricoh, but generally, how much growth are you feeling in the Middle East, how much growth are you feeling in Africa?

 

Andrea Schaffel: All right. So Middle East, I definitely think I'm feeling some growth. I think more people are going to the Middle East in their businesses, so they need somebody to support those businesses. I definitely feel that certainly our business is growing a lot in the Middle East, which is fantastic-

 

Seth Adler: And it seems like the OPEC nations, the oil-dependent nations are turning away from that as a kind of one-trick pony, they're really moving into a more diversified type of economy.

 

Andrea Schaffel: They have to be more diversified, don't they? I mean oil is going to be limited at some point, and there's a lot more out there other than oil. So we've just started some new business with some dealers selling our products, it's going fantastically.

 

Seth Adler: Oh, wow.

 

Andrea Schaffel: Yeah. And including one of these Middle Eastern companies owned by a man, a single man, and he's raising his daughters to take over the business. And isn't that a fabulous change?

 

Seth Adler: Sure.

 

Andrea Schaffel: 'Cause in the Middle East, who would have ever expected that.

 

Seth Adler: Yeah, that, even, I mean, I feel-

 

Andrea Schaffel: From Saudi.

 

Seth Adler: Yeah, you and I are kind of in the same age range, when we were growing up, that would just never have been possible-

 

Andrea Schaffel: Exactly, yeah.

 

Seth Adler: ... that the daughter would take over.

 

Andrea Schaffel: Absolutely.

 

Seth Adler: Yeah.

 

Andrea Schaffel: So it's good.

 

Seth Adler: Huh, interesting. What about Africa?

 

Andrea Schaffel: Africa, I think it's growing. So from my experience there with Ricoh, so we are growing, we have a lot of dealer-type business there, a lot more in the southern part of Africa, and then very northern Africa, Egypt, those areas. I don't know that there is as much going on there actually.

 

Seth Adler: As much growth.

 

Andrea Schaffel: Yeah, as much growth, yeah.

 

Seth Adler: Okay, fair enough. Okay, so then that's that, and then now we'll talk about the 90%. Where are you on your GBS journey, Andrea?

 

Andrea Schaffel: It's interesting. So I don't believe in the term GBS-

 

Seth Adler: Oh boy, isn't that part of your job title?

 

Andrea Schaffel: No, I don't have a GBS job title-

 

Seth Adler: What was job title?

 

Andrea Schaffel: Ricoh Shared Services.

 

Seth Adler: Oh, okay.

 

Andrea Schaffel: So you can call anything whatever you wanna call it. But I do global business services work, but I do it on a regional basis. So I don't think that has to limit you, and a lot of people get really caught up in this word global. Just for me, it's waste of time and energy to worry about it. Do the right thing for your company, whatever works, if you've got whatever model works for you. And so if it's looking at what a lot of people call GBS, great, but I don't have to call it that to be successful.

 

Seth Adler: I agree with you, and of course your phone's ringing 'cause you're a busy person, or at least giving you some sort of alert. But I wonder why this annoys you, because I feel like I'm under your skin when I say GBS.

 

Andrea Schaffel: Yeah, what is the point? What does everybody get so hung up on a title.

 

Seth Adler: See?

 

Andrea Schaffel: And it's about what's underneath the cover, right?

 

Seth Adler: So what's underneath the cover? When you think about your shared services operation, what are we talking about? What are the [inaudible 00:05:03]?

 

Andrea Schaffel: So we're talking about multifunction, we're talking about supporting 23-24 countries, we're talking about doing consistently across all the countries, having a single ERP system, and being able to provide a service-

 

Seth Adler: Well, now, I'll poke the bear, it sounds you're a global business services to me, is what you're talking about.

 

Andrea Schaffel: Well, that's okay, but we don't do it globally at this point.

 

Seth Adler: That's what ... Okay, fair enough. So business services, you're fine with, it's just the G part.

 

Andrea Schaffel: Yeah, the G part, yeah.

 

Seth Adler: Is it because you're not ... And again, I don't know why we're spending this much time here, and we are at SSON in Lisbon, but not really Lisbon.

 

Andrea Schaffel: No, definitely not Lisbon.

 

Seth Adler: In Estoril.

 

Andrea Schaffel: Yes.

 

Seth Adler: So, it's like down the road, it's like the Cannes to Lisbon's Paris.

 

Andrea Schaffel: I guess.

 

Seth Adler: Kind of, sorta.

 

Andrea Schaffel: A bit closer.

 

Seth Adler: It is closer. Oh, it's definitely closer geographically, but I mean the feel of this town is like ... But I'm trying to make the point of everything is local, as opposed to just looking at the one big thing and doing the broad strokes, and applying the same exact principles across the whole thing, but you did say that you do want to do that, right? Is have consistency-

 

Andrea Schaffel: Yeah, we do wanna have consistency, we wanna support everybody as well as possible, we wanna be very customer-centric if we can, and quite frankly, if I can get some more work from other parts of Ricoh around the world, that's great, I don't know that I would ever call it global business services, it's just a title.

 

Seth Adler: Okay, fine, yeah, so we're good, we're done with that.

 

Andrea Schaffel: Good, fine.

 

Seth Adler: As far as delivering for the customer, how local does that get then? How disparate and different do you need to be in each locality?

 

Andrea Schaffel: I'll tell you, we really make some differences when we look at how we do our collection strategies. So collecting cash from customers, there's certain ways of working in countries, can't always standardize that? So that's why we're very local, and I leave people in countries for that. I don't put them into a common center. Yet, we'll have some overall guiding principles that we all work towards, being-

 

Seth Adler: [crosstalk 00:07:11] And again, not to take your intellectual property, but guiding principles such as?

 

Andrea Schaffel: Such as ... It's a good question. Our guiding principle is about how we treat our external customers, how we respect them when we're trying to collect cash, what kind of processes we put in place for dunning strategies as an example. So that's sending collection letters out. So we there to be very consistent across Ricoh Europe on what we want to do with that, and have that respect, so that's important. And following our guidelines for how we wanna manage our outstanding debt.

 

Seth Adler: Okay, so I'll get back to my first question, then I'll use different words, and I think that you can even hear the voice of Hannah [Reeve 00:07:58], or that might be Amanda. If you've been to an SSON event, you know both of those names, right? But as far as the journey for Ricoh, did you come in and establish the thing?

 

Andrea Schaffel: Yeah, so, no, I joined Ricoh five years ago, it's already established.

 

Seth Adler: It was.

 

Andrea Schaffel: And what's interesting I they had four shared service centers for this region, which I joined, I though wow, that's a lot.

 

Seth Adler: Right, for the region?

 

Andrea Schaffel: For the region, absolutely. So there were very good reasons why they had done that, we're now kind of shifting a little bit. So I've recently closed a center in South Africa, opened a center in Gdansk, Poland, and I'm now working on moving other activities in from our operating companies that have not been in part of shared services to this point. And I've also made an announcement, we're gonna be reducing our German shared service center, moving work from Germany into Poland.

 

Seth Adler: Into the Gdansk center.

 

Andrea Schaffel: In Gdansk, yeah.

 

Seth Adler: All right, I pronounce it Gdansk, 'cause that's how my girlfriend from Poland pronounces it.

 

Andrea Schaffel: Ah, right, Gdansk.

 

Seth Adler: Yeah, so, it's a sea-side town in the North of Poland.

 

Andrea Schaffel: Yeah, it's beautiful, on the Baltic Sea, yeah.

 

Seth Adler: Absolutely, she says-

 

Andrea Schaffel: Have you been.

 

Seth Adler: No, we have to go in the summer-

 

Andrea Schaffel: It's gorgeous.

 

Seth Adler: ... time is what she says.

 

Andrea Schaffel: Very busy though, but it's beautiful.

 

Seth Adler: Okay, all right. And so what are you enjoying about the talent there in Gdansk?

 

Andrea Schaffel: Yeah, the talent is fantastic. So a lot of young people, which is great, very smart individuals, well educated. So education is incredibly important to Polish people I believe, but in this market, 90% of our staff have university degrees, fantastic language skills, so not just people learning in school, but native speakers that have moved to the area. And what's great about that region is people from the rest of Poland want to move there. So we can get some experienced shared services folks that are willing to move on their own dime, because it's so fantastic.

 

Seth Adler: It's the Estoril of-

 

Andrea Schaffel: It is the Estoril.

 

Seth Adler: ... of Poland. All right, so then what's going from Germany to Poland then I wonder? That's the talent that's there, and so okay, great, they can probably deal with what? What are they gonna be dealing with?

 

 Section 1 of 3 [00:00:00 - 00:10:04]

 Section 2 of 3 [00:10:00 - 00:20:04]

(NOTE: speaker names may be different in each section)

 

Seth Adler: That's there. Okay, great. They can probably deal with what? What are they going to be dealing with.

 

Andrea Schaffel: We're going to be moving some of our finance and accounting work that we do there. We're going to be moving ... we have a leasing business, a captive leasing organization, so we lease finance for our customers. We're moving a group that does all the activations of the contract. That covers 20 countries, so we need all these languages. That's going to be moving. Then eventually, we'll look and see if there's other things that we might like to move.

 

Seth Adler: I see. Okay, so that's what's going from Germany to Poland.

 

Andrea Schaffel: Poland, yeah.

 

Seth Adler: But if I'm counting ... that's three. Where's the third one? Or fourth one, rather.

 

Andrea Schaffel: Fourth one. I've got one just outside of Barcelona, Spain.

 

Seth Adler: Ah-ha. Oh, these are terrible places that you need to go.

 

Andrea Schaffel: They're horrible. Yeah, I know.

 

Seth Adler: Goodness.

 

Andrea Schaffel: And North Hampton and the U.K.

 

Seth Adler: And North Hampton and the U.K.

 

Andrea Schaffel: Yeah.

 

Seth Adler: Okay. What's in outside of Barcelona and what's in North Hampton?

 

Andrea Schaffel: These centers all do the same thing. Traditionally, they've all done the same thing. We've done all of the billing, all of the finance and accounting, master data management, collections, all of that activity's been handled in these centers. What the company did was they separated by operating company, so Spain will handle France, Portugal, Spain, Italy, they do Belgium as well, and South Africa now. They've just split up regionally, but they were doing the exact same activities.

 

Seth Adler: Okay. Exact same activities. Understood. You also mentioned that you want to even take on more services.

 

Andrea Schaffel: Yes.

 

Seth Adler: What are we talking about?

 

Andrea Schaffel: It's really fantastic. What I've just recently moved from Denmark, Finland, and Norway is all of their sales order processing work. I've taken on their plan and supply chain, so it's logistics for everything and all the administration for those countries, as well as taking on their own controlling finance activity. In addition to the transactional work we were already doing for them, we've now taken on a higher level work.

 

Seth Adler: What's nice is that you're already working with them, so maybe it was already a level of trust.

 

Andrea Schaffel: There is a level of trust, yes. I would say the most interesting piece of information; however, when we moved the order processing work all of a sudden we're hearing that we're just not doing as great of job or there's a lot of back orders. When you stop and think and you say, "Well, how were your stats before you moved us?" It's very interesting because all of a sudden the covers are very open. The managing directors of these countries see what was happening or not happening before it ... or when it's moved.

 

Seth Adler: Uh-huh. Oh. Right.

 

Andrea Schaffel: There's trust, but there's a little bit of worry that we're not as good as they are, of course.

 

Seth Adler: I see. How do you have those conversations, because you just mentioned the metrics but much of this is just ... I don't want to say emotion, but-

 

Andrea Schaffel: It is emotion. It's relationship. It's control.

 

Seth Adler: Okay, fine.

 

Andrea Schaffel: When we go through transitions I have a weekly meeting with managing director, sales director, and a project manager from the country before we go live. Once we go live, a daily call with these guys or women. We just take it from there and it's step-by-step. It is building relationships. It's my meeting with these individuals. It's having them go to our center and my sending some of the folks from the center to the countries. So much is relationship and being able to give facts. Once people see facts, it starts to take away some of the emotion but it takes time.

 

Seth Adler: It does take time.

 

Andrea Schaffel: It's not an overnight.

 

Seth Adler: You are dealing with a fair amount of the globe. I know that you're based in the U.K. because we talked about it on the way over to these microphones.

 

Andrea Schaffel: Yes.

 

Seth Adler: But you sound like you're from the U.S.

 

Andrea Schaffel: Yes.

 

Seth Adler: We'll get into that in a moment.

 

Andrea Schaffel: Alright.

 

Seth Adler: But I wonder what you have learned about the people of the world. Right? What's different about this part of Europe, and that part of Africa, and this part of the Middle East? What's the same, and what's different, I guess, as far as people and the way that they deal with the issues that you were just mentioning?

 

Andrea Schaffel: Right. That's an interesting question. There are, of course we would assume, a lot of differences because there's just different ways of being. Some countries are much more direct in their approach as Americans can be.

 

Seth Adler: Right.

 

Andrea Schaffel: Some people are much more subtle and take things personally. But I found everybody really wants to do a great job and they're doing the best that they absolutely can. That is common everywhere.

 

Seth Adler: So, start with that understanding.

 

Andrea Schaffel: Start with that understanding.

 

Seth Adler: Interesting.

 

Andrea Schaffel: But they're doing it for the right reason.

 

Seth Adler: Uh-huh.

 

Andrea Schaffel: And then help them get over a hurdle, whether it's myself, or somebody on my team, or from an operating company work together on how you get past that hurdle. But that's the differences.

 

Seth Adler: Yeah. Alright. Now over these five years that you've had this RICO shared services enterprise, what have you noticed changed most?

 

Andrea Schaffel: I think what's changed most, just with my particular organization, is that the leaders of the centers are all acting as one. When I joined, they were very much their own silo, their own business, they didn't want to be one.

 

Seth Adler: Yeah. "We do it this way here."

 

Andrea Schaffel: Yes, and it's the best way. It's the only way.

 

Seth Adler: Of course, yeah.

 

Andrea Schaffel: What I changed is that we all have common objectives now for every year. If one does well, then everybody has to do well. If one falls down, then we've all fallen down. It really makes the ownership be a part of the whole organization and not just in a country, or in a particular center. That's been really fantastic.

 

Seth Adler: It removes the [Fiftum 00:15:29] approach.

 

Andrea Schaffel: Totally removes the [Fiftum 00:15:29] approach. I think the other really great thing is that when I joined we had a very large employee base, about 1,200 employees, and we were not supporting the entire organization. We ramped up. We're supporting the entire organization now, and we're doing it with less people. That's a really big positive change for the company.

 

Seth Adler: To what do you owe that? The ability to do that.

 

Andrea Schaffel: I owe the ability to learning and everybody being on a similar system that we really had overstaffed initially when we'd gone live. RICO made the decision to go into shared services and go onto an ERP at the same time, so that's stressful.

 

Seth Adler: Sure, to say the least.

 

Andrea Schaffel: Employees swell.

 

Seth Adler: Yeah.

 

Andrea Schaffel: But I think the others we became much smarter on the system and how to use it. As we did more transitions overtime, we could do it better with the operating companies and what they needed to change.

 

Seth Adler: We're just good at this now.

 

Andrea Schaffel: Yeah, we've gotten better. I don't think we're good. I think we've gotten better [crosstalk 00:16:25].

 

Seth Adler: Well, compared to yesterday.

 

Andrea Schaffel: Compared to early days, yeah, of course.

 

Seth Adler: You mentioned these objectives, and again, without taking the intellectual property. What objectives could you share with us that just are universal so to speak. I don't want to say global, right?

 

Andrea Schaffel: No. Our objectives are really around reducing our over 90 day debt. Not only does that impact my collections teams, but it's our billing teams. We share those objectives also with the finance directors in each of the countries under the CFO. That's a plus. We manage our cost, which is also very important for us. I'm trying to think of a third one that we've got going. We've got some major projects that we do, so each of the leaders have a major project to own and we all participate in those.

 

Seth Adler: Does that mean that your shared services is not reporting up to finance?

 

Andrea Schaffel: We had been reporting up to finance till just last month.

 

Seth Adler: Huh.

 

Andrea Schaffel: We now have a new person, joined our executive level over corporate services, and she's now reporting it to the CEO.

 

Seth Adler: I would imagine that's great.

 

Andrea Schaffel: Yeah, it's great.

 

Seth Adler: How has that changed ... you know.

 

Andrea Schaffel: Look. For me, it's been no change.

 

Seth Adler: Because you're a pro. You've been doing this. You know what you're doing.

 

Andrea Schaffel: Yeah, been doing it awhile. I worked for the CFO before, so always access to the board. It's not really new, it's a shift and that's fine.

 

Seth Adler: Why do you think they did that? Would you suggest this change to other organizations?

 

Andrea Schaffel: I think they did it because of the CFO we had had much too much on her plate.

 

Seth Adler: Got it.

 

Andrea Schaffel: She just was spread much too thin.

 

Seth Adler: Yeah.

 

Andrea Schaffel: I think now we've got a CFO and he's really focused much more truly on our finance side of the house. And then have a corporate services side that covers legal facilities. IT is under that, shared services. It just makes sense, and it works.

 

Seth Adler: You mentioned two C-level women, so that's good.

 

Andrea Schaffel: Yeah. Yeah, it's fantastic.

 

Seth Adler: And I've got you sitting in front of me.

 

Andrea Schaffel: Yeah, it's great.

 

Seth Adler: As far as C-level and EVP, SVP ... are we doing okay there it sounds like.

 

Andrea Schaffel: We're doing okay in the head office area. I would say our operating companies are behind.

 

Seth Adler: Okay.

 

Andrea Schaffel: But in our PLC organization, I think there's five of us. Five strong women running human resources. Our CFO, she's now our COO. She was promoted recently. Our senior VP of corporate services and there's another vice president, along with myself, who runs our process governance group.

 

Seth Adler: For your colleagues that you network with, that you speak with on a regular basis, who are still at organizations that have mostly male C-level folks and top level management that is all male with one or two women here and there, how is it different? How is the culture different, or is that not something that we can even conceive of?

 

Andrea Schaffel: It doesn't impact me, really. When I work with colleagues or peers in other companies, I really don't get under their cover, so I don't feel that at all.

 

Seth Adler: I gotcha. Okay. The shared services folks tend to talk, so I wonder if you'd heard anything or if you could promote a balance of leadership.

 

Andrea Schaffel: Well, I'll tell you. Interestingly, two of the center heads I have are women. In Germany and the U.K. I just hired a lady to run the Poland center. What's interesting ...

 

 Section 2 of 3 [00:10:00 - 00:20:04]

 Section 3 of 3 [00:20:00 - 00:29:57]

(NOTE: speaker names may be different in each section)

 

Seth Adler: I just hired a lady to run the Poland Center. What's interesting in Poland is I work a lot with a group called Invest in Pomerania, so it's the Pomeranian region. They were so impressed I hired a woman, because I think it may be the only women leader in that tri-city area of a shared service organization. And maybe there's one other. I think Thomson Reuters is also a woman, but yeah, that's it. They were just, "This is just great to have a woman." And I don't really think that much about it. Yes, I think it's really important, but I don't hire somebody because of their sex.

 

Andrea Schaffel: Fair enough. Yeah, no, and that's the proper term. My sister tells me that all the time. I say gender, she says, no, it's not. So, but whatever. How do you think we're doing as far as that is concerned? Just generally, you know, and now that we've stumbled upon this topic, I don't mean to belabor the issue here, but?

 

Seth Adler: I guess things could always be better, you know?

 

Andrea Schaffel: Yeah.

 

Seth Adler: Whether you look at black, white, Asian, women, men, you could always be better, I guess. And I think-

 

Andrea Schaffel: In terms of diversity of thought.

 

Seth Adler: ... in terms of diversity of thought and who you employ. For me, coming from America, I'm very accustomed to diversity discussions. So I used to run a diversity area for a large company, and so I know all about that. I come to Europe, when I came 10 years ago and moved, I was really surprised that lack of discussion about it. So it's changing and it's improving in Europe, which I think is fantastic.

 

Andrea Schaffel: Okay. So then now let's dive in, because you just did tell us about your past year from LA.

 

Seth Adler: Yes. Born in Los Angeles.

 

Andrea Schaffel: Okay. LA. We love it, that type of thing, right?

 

Seth Adler: Okay.

 

Andrea Schaffel: That's Randy Newman, I think?

 

Seth Adler: Yeah. We love LA. Yeah.

 

Andrea Schaffel: Right, yeah.

 

Seth Adler: Yeah, Randy Newman.

 

Andrea Schaffel: And so were you at a Lakers fan? Is that what it was?

 

Seth Adler: I was a Lakers and a Dodgers fan.

 

Andrea Schaffel: Sure. Who do you remember at first base for the Dodgers?

 

Seth Adler: Steve Garvey.

 

Andrea Schaffel: Oh, look at that. Yeah.

 

Seth Adler: Was he on first base?

 

Andrea Schaffel: Number six. Absolutely. Not to be confused with number six, Steve Sax, who played second base after Steve Garvey left. Steve Garvey was already on the Padres of San Diego.

 

Seth Adler: Okay. Ooh yes.

 

Andrea Schaffel: There's no reason for me to know this or for us to talk about it, but when did you leave LA? Did you stay around or-

 

Seth Adler: Oh, I left LA in 1986.

 

Andrea Schaffel: So a while back?

 

Seth Adler: A long time ago and moved to Atlanta from there.

 

Andrea Schaffel: Okay. Was that for employment?

 

Seth Adler: I went without a job. I tend to do that. I thought I didn't want to live in LA anymore, and I picked Atlanta as the best city for me to move to.

 

Andrea Schaffel: It's got the world's busiest airport is what they say.

 

Seth Adler: I guess it does now. Yeah.

 

Andrea Schaffel: That's what they say.

 

Seth Adler: Yeah.

 

Andrea Schaffel: We'll just have to believe them.

 

Seth Adler: We'll have to believe it.

 

Andrea Schaffel: Right. What did you eventually find in Atlanta?

 

Seth Adler: Well, I started out as a financial controller for a restaurant franchise. A large restaurant franchise.

 

Andrea Schaffel: Would it be one that we know? Shoney's. Do you know Shoney's?

 

Seth Adler: Oh yeah, I know Shoney's.

 

Andrea Schaffel: All right.

 

Seth Adler: Even though I'm from New York, I know Shoney's because it's not really in New York, or the northeast. All right, so that's where it all began.

 

Andrea Schaffel: In Atlanta, and then I went to Turner Broadcasting and that's where my career really took off. So that's where I got into the diversity thing. That's where I did the first shared services organization.

 

Seth Adler: Was that when Ted Turner was still running it?

 

Andrea Schaffel: Absolutely.

 

Seth Adler: Okay. So did you meet with Ted?

 

Andrea Schaffel: Absolutely, yeah.

 

Seth Adler: So this is a dynamic business leader from kind of ... He's long since retired, right?

 

Andrea Schaffel: Yes.

 

Seth Adler: But what could you share for those of us who know who Ted Turner is, you know, gave us CNN.

 

Andrea Schaffel: Yeah, absolutely.

 

Seth Adler: Which was a different thing back then, but whatever.

 

Andrea Schaffel: An amazing guy, incredibly bright, but I think one of the smartest things Ted ever did was he had the right people around him to see his ideas become successful, and that makes a huge difference if you're willing to let that go and know you can't do it yourself, so fantastic from that side of things.

 

Seth Adler: Also a different type of thinker, for him to be kind of first in on the diversity thing. It makes sense to me based on what I know about him.

 

Andrea Schaffel: Yeah, definitely that, you know, looking at the whole 24 hour news, he was first with that. The movies channel, so TNT, Turner Classic movies, Cartoon Network. So much excitement.

 

Seth Adler: And TBS.

 

Andrea Schaffel: Yeah, TBS of course.

 

Seth Adler: Also managed the Braves.

 

Andrea Schaffel: The Braves. So after that, I became a Braves fan. I have to say when I went to an opening game one season, and I found myself against the Dodgers and I stood up and cheered for the Braves, I thought, "Oh my God, I've changed."

 

Seth Adler: Look what's happened.

 

Andrea Schaffel: Yeah.

 

Seth Adler: Exactly. Was Dell Murphy in right field by any chance?

 

Andrea Schaffel: Yeah, Dale Murphy was there.

 

Seth Adler: Number three, I think.

 

Andrea Schaffel: Yeah, I'm just trying to remember.

 

Seth Adler: Actually, I know. I'm trying to make like I don't know, but I do know. Anyway, all right, so good. So then now we've got an actual, and again we've got the SSON voice behind us, but now we've got some real actual almost executive level experience happening, right?

 

Andrea Schaffel: Yes, exactly.

 

Seth Adler: And from there, where did we go?

 

Andrea Schaffel: From there, so I had been at Turner for about 14 or 15 years, a long time. So I'd moved around in the entertainment side of the business and then did the corporate thing with the shared services. I was then recruited by Lockheed Martin in Bethesda, Maryland to run their shared service.

 

Seth Adler: Such a different business though.

 

Andrea Schaffel: Totally different. But that's what I love about my career. You know, shared services you can do anywhere, you don't have to have a particular field to manage. So yeah, totally different. So I've gone from restaurants to entertainment, news and sports to now the world's largest aerospace and defense contractor.

 

Seth Adler: What did you take from that experience, I guess? What was the lesson learned from the entire stay there?

 

Andrea Schaffel: Which stay?

 

Seth Adler: Lockheed.

 

Andrea Schaffel: Lockheed. Wow. How to really work through a lot of, red tapes not a good word, but a lot of structure and a lot of in the box. Not necessarily the way you would run a back office operation-

 

Seth Adler: They're moving couch over there, so that's what you're hearing.

 

Andrea Schaffel: ... you know, what I took away was that they're the smartest people ever I've worked with in my life. I would have go to some dinners with some scientists. I couldn't have a conversation with them.

 

Seth Adler: Well, they're literally rocket scientists.

 

Andrea Schaffel: Literally rocket scientists. Amazing out of the box thinking, but a lot of rigor around what we were doing in the shared services world. So, putting a lot of structure and that makes a really big difference. So whereas Turner was not as structured, Lockheed Martin incredibly structured.

 

Seth Adler: And, it seems like Turner would have been kind of conceptually open minded, whereas Lockheed wouldn't have been.

 

Andrea Schaffel: Not as.

 

Seth Adler: How did you break through that?

 

Andrea Schaffel: That's a good question. They already had shared services going at Lockheed-

 

Seth Adler: Oh, they did also.

 

Andrea Schaffel: ... yeah, they did. So I came into-

 

Seth Adler: See, that's the way to do it is you already did it, okay, yeah. I don't have to start from scratch.

 

Andrea Schaffel: ... I've done it once.

 

Seth Adler: Where did you do it?

 

Andrea Schaffel: At Turner.

 

Seth Adler: At Turner, right. Of course.

 

Andrea Schaffel: ... so it just came in, but once again, looking at how we pull it together and reducing how we could reduce our costs already in the shared service. But what I had the opportunity at Lockheed to do also is have an international shared services organization, so people based in Hong Kong and in Geneva. So, I had the whole world that we were looking at from there, so that was very exciting and it gets you going.

 

Seth Adler: Do you know what my question would be?

 

Andrea Schaffel: What is your question?

 

Seth Adler: Was that Global Business Services?

 

Andrea Schaffel: It was not.

 

Seth Adler: I don't know why I think that's funny, but you're at least laughing. Silently, but nonetheless.

 

Andrea Schaffel: Do you know what? I never would have thought it was Global Business Services. No, not at all.

 

Seth Adler: We will talk more about that, I guess next time.

 

Andrea Schaffel: Okay.

 

Seth Adler: All right? At this point with the voice behind us, I will ask you the three final questions. I'll tell you what they are and then I'll ask you them in order.

 

Andrea Schaffel: Fine.

 

Seth Adler: What's most surprised you at work along the way? And you've got really diverse work experience. And by the way, did you work at an Orange Julius when you were still in LA when you were a kid?

 

Andrea Schaffel: I didn't, but I've been to Orange Julius, yeah, in Westwood, yeah.

 

Seth Adler: So what's most surprised you at work? That's the first question. What's most surprised you in life? That's the second question. On the soundtrack of your life, one track, one song that's got to be on there, but we'll get to that. Don't worry. We'll help. What's most surprised you at work along the way?

 

Andrea Schaffel: What's most surprised me at work is, although I've worked in different industries, all people are the same. All problems are the same.

 

Seth Adler: You kind of mentioned that, right? You know.

 

Andrea Schaffel: I don't think that you would expect that going from an entertainment business, to an aerospace and defense contractor, to then being in pharmaceuticals, to then going into consulting, and now to an IT kind of services company.

 

Seth Adler: Sure. You wouldn't expect that.

 

Andrea Schaffel: No.

 

Seth Adler: What was pharma? We missed that.

 

Andrea Schaffel: AstraZeneca, in the UK.

 

Seth Adler: Big one, yeah. We'll bypass the consulting, right?

 

Andrea Schaffel: That's fine. Yeah.

 

Seth Adler: You know, why not?

 

Andrea Schaffel: Why not?

 

Seth Adler: What's most surprised you in life? It might be something that you learned at the consulting shop.

 

Andrea Schaffel: Hmm. Most surprised me in life. Maybe that I'm the black sheep of the family, and keep moving further east and east and east.

 

Seth Adler: Is everybody still kind of back home?

 

Andrea Schaffel: Everybody's still in California but me.

 

Seth Adler: Really?

 

Andrea Schaffel: Yeah.

 

Seth Adler: How often do you get back?

 

Andrea Schaffel: Not often. I'm not a very good daughter.

 

Seth Adler: I see. Okay. And your folks are both still around or no?

 

Andrea Schaffel: Yeah, yeah.

 

Seth Adler: Really?

 

Andrea Schaffel: Yeah.

 

Seth Adler: Well, congratulations to you on that. Do they come to you?

 

Andrea Schaffel: Yes, they do come and visit.

 

Seth Adler: Of course they do.

 

Andrea Schaffel: My grandmother's a 101, so there you have that.

 

Seth Adler: Get outta here.

 

Andrea Schaffel: Yeah, fantastic, isn't it?

 

Seth Adler: Wow. All right. So you got good genes in that family.

 

Andrea Schaffel: Good genes. I'll be around a long time.

 

Seth Adler: Even though you're the black sheep.

 

Andrea Schaffel: Yeah.

 

Seth Adler: All right. On the soundtrack of your life, one track, one song that's got to be on there.

 

Andrea Schaffel: You are so beautiful.

 

Seth Adler: Oh. That's nice. Now which version? Because I've got Joe Cocker going in my brain.

 

Andrea Schaffel: Yeah, Joe Cocker.

 

Seth Adler: Okay.

 

Andrea Schaffel: Yeah, yeah. From way back when.

 

Seth Adler: Wow, look at that. That's good. That guy had a voice, right?

 

Andrea Schaffel: Yeah, amazing.

 

Seth Adler: He's also English.

 

Andrea Schaffel: Right.

 

Seth Adler: So then there you go. So you had the Dodgers, then the Braves, and now you've got Joe Cocker because you live in England.

 

Andrea Schaffel: Exactly.

 

Seth Adler: Andrea, this has been a pleasure.

 

Andrea Schaffel: Thank you. It's great talking with you.

 

Seth Adler: We will check in with you down the line.

 

Andrea Schaffel: Okay, fantastic. Thanks.

 

Seth Adler: And there you have Andrea Schaffel, very much appreciate her time. Very much appreciate your time. Stay tuned.

 

 Section 3 of 3 [00:20:00 - 00:29:57]

 

 

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