As automation frees up time and technology reshapes work across every function, the traditional job-title mindset is starting to show its age. Today’s Shared Services leaders need more than functional expertise—they need adaptable, cross-functional skills that evolve with the work.
Explore whether skills-based organizations are truly the future—or just another buzzword. We’ll look at how Shared Services teams are rethinking roles, mapping capabilities, and redefining what career growth looks like beyond the org chart. From building new competencies to assessing talent through a skills-first lens, it’s time to ask: Are we evolving fast enough to keep pace with the way work is changing?
As customer expectations grow more complex, GBS teams can no longer operate in isolation. It’s time to embed customer insight directly into the GBS operating model and serve as a digital bridge between the back office and sales, marketing, and other customer-facing functions. This shift moves GBS beyond efficiency and SLAs toward true front-line impact, powered by data, empathy, and process leadership. Discover how service organizations can reframe their role to deliver business value, build trust, and influence enterprise priorities by putting the customer experience at the center.
This case study will help you to:
Modern GBS organizations are stepping beyond efficiency to drive growth, margin, and cash, not just cost. They are fueling enterprise outcomes by innovating and productizing services, deploying AI and Agentic AI, evolving operating models and talent, and scaling value safely on strong foundations of data, trust, and risk. According to SSON Research & Analytics, the top five GBSOs today highlight growth, margin, and revenue as their core value drivers over cost. How do you define yours? Join leaders who are leveling up their GBSOs to deliver better business outcomes.
The panelists will:
11:20 – 12:00pm – Round 1
12:00 pm – 12:05 – Break to Change Topics
12:05 – 12:45 – Round 2
Self-service has been a buzzword in HR for over a decade—so why is it still taking up space on every conference agenda and transformation roadmap? Because the work isn't finished. And more importantly, the expectations are changing.
This session digs into why self-service continues to dominate HRSS priorities, what’s actually evolving beneath the surface, and how organizations are moving beyond “better portals” into smarter, more embedded, and more human-centered support. From micro front ends to AI-curated content, and frontline enablement—learn what’s new, what’s next, and why the self-service conversation isn’t going away anytime soon.
You’ll explore:
Change can shake even the strongest teams, especially when it means redefining how and where work gets done. When Siemens transitioned from a global to a regional shared services model, Michelle Irwin and her team were faced with balancing business needs and human impact. Behind every org chart update was a story of people, their questions, their fears, and ultimately, their growth.
In this practical, experience-driven session, Michelle pulls back the curtain on what it really takes to lead teams through large-scale transformation. She’ll share how her team:
Built trust through transparent, two-way communication, even when the answers weren’t easy
Created talent retention and engagement programs to keep top performers motivated amid uncertainty
Designed reskilling and retraining initiatives to prepare employees for new roles and responsibilities
Navigated cultural and linguistic nuances to keep a global workforce aligned and connected
Used continuous feedback and surveys to course-correct and strengthen team confidence throughout the change journey
Expect honest lessons, actionable takeaways, and a reminder that successful transformation isn’t just about the new model. It’s about bringing your people with you every step of the way.
Payroll is more than a back-office function. It’s the foundation of employee trust and one of the most visible HR processes. But in a digital, data-driven era, payroll transformation is about more than getting paychecks right and on time. It’s about redesigning the process to be predictive, seamless, and deeply connected to the employee experience. From harnessing automation to eliminate manual errors, to integrating payroll data with workforce insights, HR Shared Services leaders are reimagining payroll as a driver of engagement, compliance, and organizational agility.
In this session, we’ll explore how HRSS can:
As new technologies reshape the business landscape, Shared Services and GBS leaders are being challenged to reimagine the very foundations of how work gets done. But technology alone doesn’t drive transformation—people, processes, and performance must evolve in tandem.
As Shared Services and GBS organizations look to scale and innovate, process harmonization is no longer optional—it’s foundational. Explore how leading enterprises are leveraging process mining and execution management to align siloed workflows, standardize operations, and pave the way for intelligent automation and AI. Learn how to move from fragmented execution to real-time, data-driven process excellence—turning complexity into a measurable growth driver.
Order-to-Cash is one of the most high-impact—and often under-optimized—processes within Shared Services. As enterprises scale, O2C becomes more complex, fragmented, and critical to working capital performance. Hear how an AI-powered O2C platform helps global organizations unify operations, improve customer experience, and accelerate cash flow—no matter where they are in their GBS journey.
What if travel and expense (T&E) management wasn’t a source of frustration—but a showcase of operational excellence? Discover how next-gen Shared Services and GBS organizations are transforming T&E from a tedious back-office task into a streamlined, data-driven engine for compliance, efficiency, and visibility. Join this session to learn how companies are using intelligent automation and policy-first design to tame complexity, curb spend, and create a seamless experience for employees on the move.
T&E may not be your flashiest process—but it touches nearly everyone. Walk away inspired to make it a shining example of what process excellence can look like in a modern SSO.
Finance transformation is no longer just about cutting costs. It’s about protecting cash, maintaining compliance, and building confidence in financial data. Dive into a real-life use case that outlines how this balance was achieved by automating oversight, reducing leakage, and improving stakeholder trust. Walk away with a roadmap for uniting compliance and cash flow under a single transformation strategy.
As organizations launch or expand SSO functions, the traditional focus on cost reduction is no longer enough to define success. Today’s business environment demands that SSOs deliver broader enterprise value—driving agility, compliance, customer experience, and innovation from day one. Go beyond spreadsheets and expense reductions to articulate how your function can become a catalyst for transformation.
One of the most overlooked risks in standing up a new SSO is the lack of a cohesive data strategy. Early-stage centers often face fragmented systems, unclear data ownership, and inconsistent reporting—challenges that can slow progress, hinder automation, and erode stakeholder trust. The solution? Establish a data-first mindset from the start. Together we will learn how to build a unified, enterprise-wide data foundation that supports decision-making, process visibility, and future AI-readiness.
Before you automate, map. Join this session for a step-by-step guide on how to bring order to operational complexity through process mapping and smart automation strategies specifically geared to new SSOs:
Too often, business units request new features without fully grasping technical complexities, while IT proposes solutions without fully understanding the business need. Add to this the rising role of information security in digital and AI initiatives, and misalignment can quickly create costly delays, frustrated stakeholders, and compliance risks.
This session explores how organizations can move from siloed conversations to shared governance models that bring business, IT, and Info Security to the same table from the start. By establishing common frameworks, aligning priorities, and embedding security into the design process, companies can accelerate transformation while ensuring trust, compliance, and business value.
Action Items:
When it comes to driving cost optimization at scale, vendor rationalization is often overlooked—but it can unlock powerful efficiencies and enterprise-wide value. In this candid case study, hear best practices on how you can partner closely with procurement to consolidate a fragmented vendor landscape through a disciplined, strategic vendor indexing initiative.
Discover how the team:
Walk away with actionable strategies for conducting a successful vendor indexing exercise, securing cross-functional alignment, and partnering with procurement to build a more cost-efficient, agile, and future-ready Shared Services organization.
Procure-to-Pay (P2P) is often fractured by functional silos—where sourcing and payables operate independently, undermining enterprise value and efficiency. Explore how to unify these functions into a single, streamlined value stream that delivers measurable impact across the organization. Together we will discover how mature Shared Services environments are tackling these obstacles with automation, standardization, and end-to-end visibility.
In a time when cost control is critical and expectations for procurement continue to rise, unlocking deeper insights into category savings is a top priority for GBS and procurement leaders. Technology is now a key enabler in identifying savings opportunities, improving compliance, and ensuring procurement is a strategic lever for the business. But not all tech is created equal—and CFOs are looking for low-risk, high-impact solutions that can deliver immediate value with minimal disruption.
The traditional playbook for cost reduction in Shared Services and GBS is no longer enough. As the pressure to deliver more with less intensifies, GBS and Shared Services leaders are shifting focus—from pure efficiency to enterprise enablement. This session brings together organizations that have evolved their scope to include non-traditional, high-impact functions like sales enablement, engineering, compliance, and real estate. Join forward-thinking GBS leaders to answer the hard questions:
As revenue pressures intensify and data becomes a frontline asset, organizations are evolving GBS beyond traditional support functions. Get a behind-the-scenes look at how one enterprise successfully integrated sales enablement and commercial operations into its GBS model—creating new value streams, accelerating go-to-market efforts, and reshaping its perception as a growth engine.
McCormick’s Technical Shared Services team stands out as a unique example of scope and value evolution, moving beyond traditional back-office functions to deliver complex, business-critical services across quality, regulatory compliance, product certification, and technical documentation.
What sets McCormick apart is the integration of these technical and regulatory services within their GBS, enabling rapid, high-quality support for both internal and external stakeholders. Their ability to deliver complex documentation within 24 hours, navigate global regulatory environments, and support business expansion into new markets demonstrates the strategic value of a mature, innovative shared services model. Join this session to:
AI can’t deliver real change if it stays in silos. This session shows how people and AI work together to run end-to-end processes like hire-to-retire, source-to-pay, and order-to-cash. We’ll break down where humans add value like handling exceptions, ensuring ethics, and shaping experience and where AI brings speed and scale through pattern detection and smart insights.
A hallmark of SSOW has always been the ability to meet the highest volume of true peers in shared services, so that you can make those connections that will allow you to benchmark and discover where your SSO is doing good work, average work, or, sometimes, mediocre work. This session gives you the opportunity to benchmark against the best of the best. Join SSON Research and Analytics as they detail the KPIs common to the Top 20 Most Admired GBSOs and see where your SSO stacks up.
Upskilling isn’t just about climbing the career ladder—it’s about preparing employees to adapt when priorities shift overnight. But agility starts even before day one. Recruitment strategies must evolve alongside reskilling efforts to ensure new hires bring adaptability, adjacent skills, and growth mindsets into the organization. This session focuses on building agility into both your skills strategy and talent acquisition approach, so HR teams can redeploy existing talent, recruit for versatility, respond to new technologies, and fill urgent gaps without losing momentum.
Action Items:
More Details to Come