SWOT Analysis: Commercializing GBS

The theme of this year's SSOW Europe was positioning GBS for value-adding success, and no concept better exemplifies this notion than transforming GBS into a profit-generating business unit.

This idea was discussed during a panel discussion at SSOW Europe that included Caroline Basyn, Chief Strategy & Transformation Officer - Europe for Pepsico, Sumit Mitra, CEO of Tesco Business Solutions, and Robert Weltevreden, who until recently lead the GBS at Novartis. Sumit, who heads Tesco GBS (Winners of SSON's Best GBS In The World 2023), feels that Tesco Business Solutions has maximized automation opportunities and reached many of its end-to-end (E2E) process goals. As a result, Tesco Business Solutions is considering continuing to prove its value by commercializing itself to serve external customers as well as internal ones.

On the other hand, Robert spoke about the threat to competitive advantage and risk such a move would put on an already successful model. This SWOT analysis provides a look at what it takes to commercialize a GBS. The strengths and weaknesses being what your GBS needs to look like before commercializing can happen and then the opportunities and potential threats of commercialization.