Impact Awards

Your team's best work deserves recognition. The SSON Impact Awards brochure has everything you need to enter North America's annual celebration of excellence in shared services, presented at SSOW.

Inside, you'll find:

All award categories, from Automation to Technology of the Year.

Judging criteria, eligibility rules and key dates.

How to apply and what to expect at the black-tie Awards Gala.

For in-house SSO and GBS teams with measurable results to show. Entry is free, and applications close January 15, 2027.

Awards Gala: March 10, 2027 | Rosen Shingle Creek, Orlando, FL

Want a copy emailed to you? Click here to request a copy.

Discover what makes shared services truly award-winning. SSON’s latest feature showcases how the world’s best Shared Services & GBS organizations turn ambition into measurable impact — through innovation, bold storytelling, and purpose-driven transformation.

Inside the Blueprints of Excellence

• Transform with Relevance & Storytelling – Judges like Tom Nesteruk, Jana Vondran, and Jo Anne Dimitriou, reveal how innovation and narrative go hand in hand, encouraging submissions that go beyond data to tell a story of impact and creativity.
• Siemens – Change Management & Business Transformation Impact Award – Agile “Hub Model” delivered 4.4% customer value growth and $7.4M in savings.
• SLB – Automation Impact Award – Achieved 70% PO automation, 22% cost reduction, and a 400 bps engagement lift.
• T-Mobile & Infosys BPM – Customer Centricity Impact Award – Reduced query turnaround by 55%, saved $600K annually, while maintaining 99% SLAs.
• Johnson & Johnson – Process Improvement & Value Creation Impact Award – Unifying fleet policies into a single global framework, streamlining operations and accelerating long-term value creation.

Each story brings to life the bold thinking, creativity, and measurable results that define shared services excellence — proving that transformation isn’t just about efficiency, it’s about people, progress, and purpose.

Fill out the form to the right or click here to have your copy emailed to you and discover what award-winning shared services look like in action!

About This Award: Automation has changed the nature of SSO/GBS work over the past decade plus. The impact of automation on service delivery can take many forms – workflow technology, self-service systems, Robotic Process Automation, and now also Artificial Intelligence. The options are endless and ever-expanding. This Automation Impact award is focused on the strategic automation methodology being implemented, its benefits, and the hard, quantifiable impact that the automation has brought to shared services.

Please return the completed application to will.thomae@ssonetwork.com 

About This Award: Service providers form an invaluable part of the service delivery ecosystem. For those SSO/GBS that elect to use a third party BPO (business process outsourcer), the resources they can tap, along with the expertise and technology thus offered, are core reasons for outsourcing. There are hundreds of service providers that Shared Services Organizations can utilize to help improve their processes, apply their technologies and achieve a higher level of service for internal customers. This award category is focused on singling out a service provider that has improved an SSO’s impact and efficiencies beyond the original scope – and which has, therefore, become an invaluable partner – not only to the SSO, but the business, as well.

About This Award: Change Management & Business Transformation can take many forms: a different means of managing service delivery, increasing specialized knowledge, offering “expertise” services, accelerating digital transformation, embracing the workforce of the future, etc. Shared Services are the engines driving transformation, so how are they reflecting today’s enterprise priorities? Alongside any transformation, the ability to manage change as part of your day-to-day operations is crucial to ensure the cultural transformation required for execution and growth. This award is focused on the strategy, improvement methodology, benefits and impacts achieved by Shared Services along with their ability to navigate hyper-change.

About This Award: Creative Talent Management can take many forms: long term leadership capability, building a strong talent pool, creating a culture in which managers are accountable for their talent, defining the right profile of people and skills, etc. Managing talent effectively is a major challenge. This award category is focused on the strategy, skill sets, improvement methodology, the rise of digital talent, benefits, and hard improvements that Shared Services have achieved in talent management.

About This Award: Customer Centricity in Shared Services can take many forms: understanding and meeting customers’ expectations, effective management of customer needs, designing the experience, complaints resolutions, developing metrics that matter, and encouraging feedback that drives continuous improvement. As customer expectations and behaviors have caused seismic shifts across business models, organizations have enhanced their focus on customer experience through front, middle and back office processes. This Award will focus on how business services are driving a consistent and seamless experience across all of customer touchpoints. This award category is focused on the strategy, methodology, benefits, and hard improvements Shared Services have made to improve the focus on their customers.

About this Award: Finance Transformation can be measured in various ways. Cost cutting, of course, but also value-generation, faster cycle times, data standardization, or leveraging cognitive technology to improve decision-making – to name just a few. This application focuses on the results or outputs of a specific Finance Transformation, highlighting its impact in measurable terms compared to the initial baseline.

About This Award: HR Impact can take many forms: improving employee experience, becoming an employer of choice, elevating self-service capabilities, increasing personalization and customization, better business partnering, leveraging analytics to support HR processes, reducing cost, and fostering innovation through digitalization and new generation technologies. This award category is focused on HR transformation resulting in measurable “impact” such as cost, capability, workforce, talent, etc.

About This Award: Process improvement can take many forms: Eliminating waste in operations, eliminating friction points for customers, process redesign as part of continuous improvement, innovations in process outcomes or even training related processes. Value creation means delivering shareholder value in terms of either top-line growth, bottom-line improvements or even experience related value-add. This award category is focused on the strategy, improvement methodology and benefits/hard improvements in process improvement and value creation that have been made by a shared services organization.

Step into an unforgettable night of recognition, energy, and celebration. The SSON North American Impact Awards, held during the Shared Services & Outsourcing Week (SSOW) conference in Orlando, shine a spotlight on the people and teams redefining what’s possible in shared services, outsourcing, and GBS.

Here’s what you’ll experience in the recap video:

• A front-row look at the awards ceremony and its electric atmosphere.
• Insights and reflections from winners and nominees.
• Unfiltered moments of joy, pride, and celebration.
• A behind-the-scenes glimpse at how we honor innovation and impact across the industry.

Whether you're a transformation leader, strategist, or rising talent, this is a chance to see what excellence looks like, and why it matters.

About This Award: There are hundreds, if not thousands, of technologies that Shared Services can utilize to improve their performance and outputs. This award category is focused on singling out one technology solution that has significantly impacted a Shared Services’ performance to the extent that it has become invaluable. This application could relate to a new implementation, or expanded use of an existing technology.