What is your greatest challenge with retaining and managing talent in the new ways of working?

Thank you. So, one of the things that we are doing at Adidas is really to create more and more training and development plans for our teams. We just reskilled and upskilled a third of the organization, and I think the teams are eager to get more and more from a development perspective but also the flexibility that we talk about nowadays. A lot of people talk about hybrid and working from home, but I think the flexibility is really important. How we give flexibility to people so that they are comfortable in their workplace. And I think the third topic would be diversity and inclusion. We are very strong in promoting diversity and inclusion, and here in our portal center, we have a lot of activities to make sure that everyone feels at home and is passionate about the brand and the centering portal.

What one strategy are you using to overcome this challenge and how are you driving it to maximise business impact?

When we talk about retaining talent, for me, and I'm very happy that this year in SSOW, we are talking more and more about leadership. For me, it's really around leadership, how do we train our leaders to develop their teams to the next stage? So, I think we have a strategy with our leaders' community without lead boost programs to make sure that we prepare our leaders so that they can prepare also their teams. And I feel that from a leadership perspective, that's the focus and the strategy for us here in the portal hub.

How do you see shared services and GBS evolving in the coming years?

So, we talk a lot about added value tasks and front office and evolving as a GBS organization. In Porto for Adidas, we already do procurement, finance, HR services, supply chain. We have a big tech community, and we are starting now in digital. Besides looking at added value tasks, we also need to look at customer centricity. Are our customers and business partners happy with what they are doing? And I think if that level of trust and performance is there, we will evolve in the future. But it needs to be a natural stage and not forced from an organizational perspective.

How would you summarise SSOW Europe 2023 and what have been your biggest highlights?

So, my favourite was when I saw more and more gatherings around leadership and talent, and how can we promote, engage, and retain our talents. I think in three words, it was inspirational, it was fun, and the networking for sure.

If you enjoyed this interview, don't miss the opportunity to explore the agenda for Shared Services & Outsourcing Week Europe 2024 here! This event promises exclusive insights unavailable elsewhere, guiding you towards success on your shared services and GBS journey.