In what felt like a matter of minutes Shared Services teams shifted from daily routines and business as usual collaborations to unfamiliar work environments and a new sense of distance from colleagues.  

Moving to a work from home (WFH) environment was a greater shift for many organizations than one measured in kilometers.  Employees got comfortable with zero commute time, increased schedule flexibility and cozy attire.  As we emerge from mandated WFH situations, Shared Services leaders are assessing lessons learned and measures of success to develop a Remote Shared Services Workforce that is sustainable across time.   

Join industry peers to gain timely insights on developing a Remote Shared Services Workforce including topics focused on:  
  • Psychology of remote working
  • Technology considerations and requirements
  • Practices to keep remote teams connected and productive

22 - 23 July, 2020 | Digital Conference

Day One Wednesday, 22 July 2020

1230 - 1315 SGT
The Psychology of Remote Work: Keeping Employees engaged, empowered and efficient
Employees expect the same kind of service at work as they do with the brands they love: personalised, efficient and convenient. While most companies understand the business case for meeting customer expectations, creating a rich employee experience is just as important for a company’s long term success especially in these unique times. Afterall, happy employees equal happy customers - it’s that simple.

Join our expert Amy Foo, VP of Finance and Shared Services, to discuss best practices for delivering an employee experience that ultimately drive success in a distributed world, including how to:
  • Empower your teams with technology to enable cross-functional collaboration
  • Optimize operations through data analytics to enhance productivity
  • Foster and sustain a thriving team culture
Presenter: Amy Foo, VP of Finance and Shared Services, Zendesk 
                    Matt Daley, Director, Finance Optimisation, Zendesk
                    Sunny Achantani, Deputy GM - Global HR Shared Services, Tata Communications

0900 – 0945 US ET  / 3:00 PM - 3:45 PM CET
Developing an Empowered and Productive Remote Workforce Through The Digital Workplace 
SSON took a pulse check of Shared Services organizations in the early stages of the COVID crisis with 93% of the respondents indicating they had lost less than 25% of their service capacity.  Less than two weeks later, the result was dramatically different.  It became increasing evident that the effectiveness of remote working decreased as operational implications became more widespread and productivity barriers began to emerge. Working on laptops rather than dual screen monitors was a simple example of technology changes that began to impact business performance.  In the short term, shared services team chose to prioritize the delivery of mission-critical work, elected to defer internal projects focused on process improvement and ceased transitioning new scope to centers to combat productivity loss.  What lessons can be applied to build an empowered remote workforce for the future?

 Amplify your remote workforce strategy for the long term by:
  • Aligning technology toolkits with the workspace and connectivity constraints in remote working environment
  • Implementing increased visibility into productivity and enable real time resource change capabilities
Presenter: Ramesh Ramakrishnan, VP Shared Services BPO Operations, HSBC 

1000 - 1045 US ET / 4:00 PM - 4:45 PM CET
Future of Work and Shared Services: Highlights from SSON Analytics 
According to SSON Analytics, leveraging future of work concepts in a Shared Services environment ranks top priority amongst global SSOs. The ability to navigate the future of work, workforce, workplace and workways, will enable enterprises and service providers to achieve rapid transformation. During this session, attendees will gain insights on how the pandemic is accelerating the adoption of future of work concepts; automation, skills, processes, shoring strategy and business model optimization.

Presenter: Barbara Hodge, Global Editor & Principal Analyst, SSON

1100 - 1145 US ET  / 5:00 PM - 5:45 PM CET
Future Of Work: Blurring Boundaries Across Work, Home, Learning And Community
This session will cover the following core topics:
  • Work efficiency: evolving from the assembly line to remote everywhere. Is it time for the four day work week to become part of the new normal?
  • Employee experience: As corporations reduce expense through smaller office footprints can experience at home be improved? e.g. home office subsidy, subsidized meals, exercise equipment, local community engagement?
  • Stakeholder empathy: the nature of shared services and associated technologies allows associates the luxury of remote everywhere. Meanwhile activities that cannot be centralized or done remotely remain in the field. How do we enhance user experience through a higher level of empathy for those working the front lines?
Presenter: Samir Bagri, GBS Professional & SSON columnist

Day Two, Thursday 23rd July

0900 – 0945 US ET / 3:00 PM - 3:45 PM CET
Empowering Employees to Become Ambassadors and High Performers in Today’s Remote Environment
We all want our employees to be the best performers, but how do you get there? In today’s environment which includes remote and on-premise employees, organizations need to consider the entire employee work lifecycle.

It all starts with hiring the right people - and that requires removing many of the biases attached to some of the current processes. Along with hiring and onboarding, it is crucial to consider consistent and timely training. However, to optimize the correct training mix is not easy. Organizations need to take into account how people ‘learn’ as well as their individual personalities. Additionally, managing your resources through accurate forecasting and optimized scheduling greatly reduces many inefficiencies that can come about in the operation. We will discuss how to utilize best practices and tools such as automation and artificial intelligence (AI), that most effectively embrace efficiency and guidance in order to create engaging and effective working environments.

Regardless of working location, the goal is for employees to excel and become ambassadors of the product or service they represent. Hear how you can enable a successful employee lifecycle which results in high performers.

Presenter: Richard Correia, Director of WFO Product Marketing, NICE

1000 – 1045 US ET / 4:00 PM – 4:45 PM CET
Don’t Go Backwards! Building Agility And Resilience With A Digital SSC
The old saying ‘never waste a good crisis’ still holds. Any processes that were sub-par or unable to flex have been exposed in all their glory and to go back to what you were doing before, just because the world has returned to ‘normal’ would be a ticking time-bomb. Enterprises will be increasingly looking to benefit from the operational agility of global Shared Services models while expecting them to morph in order to strengthen flexible delivery network capacity. This session looks at experiences distilled from the COVID crisis that should be taken into account and how to build a sustainable remote workforce:
    • Discussing the Increased need for IT support as a dedicated resource and integral partner
    • Intensifying cybersecurity planning and requirements
    • Building resilience in your processes and future shared service model
    • Finding technology that creates an agile shared service center

    Panelists: 
    Sanjay Patel, SVP & Global Head, Takeda Business Solutions
    Rob Van Den Wijngaard, Director of Finance an HR Shared Services, University of Leiden 
    Jana Vondran, SVP Global Business Services, Ingram Micro 

End of Conference

How do I join the online conference?

Register above using the form and your login will be emailed to you a week before the event. Your session access links and final agenda will be emailed to you one week prior to the conference.  

How much does it cost to attend?

The Remote Shared Services Digital Summit is completely free to attend.

Where is it located?

This is an online conference, which means that it can be accessed anywhere in the world through a desktop, laptop, mobile device or tablet.  Audio and presentation viewing is accessed through an internet connection.

Can I access the slides post-event?

All presentations will be available after the conference via the on-demand recording link.   When presenters have also approved for their slides to be available for download they will be made available in the Resource List folder inside the session and also in the digital gift bag post-event.