EMC Award Winner 2013: Proven Tips on Driving Value Creation

EMC recently was honored for the work done in its European operations when it won SSON's Excellence Award for delivering outstanding "Value Creation." In the spirit of encouraging higher standards and sharing best practices in order that you may evolve your own operations, we are pleased to publish the highlights of EMC’s application, which so impressed our judges this year (pictured: Ella O'Keefe, Senior Director of Global Finance, Global Business Services EMC). We’ll be posting all 5 winning Awards applications online, as well as a video interview with European "Thought Leader" Philip Whelan from BP – so keep a look out for our emails. What is the strategic growth or transition plan for Shared Services? EMC is a global leader in enabling businesses and service providers to transform their operations and deliver Information Technology as a service. Fundamental to this transformation is cloud computing. Through innovative products and services, EMC accelerates the journey to cloud computing, helping IT departments to store, manage and leverage big data in a more trusted way. EMC works with organizations around the world, in every industry, in the public and private sectors, and of every size, from start-ups to the Fortune Global 500. EMC also provides technology, products, and services to consumers in more than 100 countries. EMC ranks 139 in the Fortune 500 based on total consolidated revenue of $20+ billion in 2012, the largest revenue year in EMC's 30+ year history and up 17.6% from 2010. EMC employs approximately 60,000 people worldwide and is represented by approximately 400 sales offices and scores of partners in more than 100 countries around the world. It has the world's largest sales and service force focused on information infrastructure, working closely with a global network of technology, outsourcing, systems integration, service, and distribution partners. Global Business Services (GBS) is committed to supporting EMC’s cloud computing and big data management strategies through multi-functional capabilities in Finance, Professional Services, Presales, Human Resources, Marketing and Business Operations. The growth strategy for GBS is to increase the breadth (offering more services) and depth (continuously improving our services) of our functions and continue to expand our customer base. What Services do you provide in your SSC today? 1. Centralised Service Offering 2. Is this process Outsourced? 3. Fully Automated? (F) Accounts Payable X Accounts Receivable X Auditing Benefits and Rewards Administration Budgeting Business Performance Analysis X Business Performance Reporting X Call Centres: Employees, Suppliers, Customers X Call Centres: IT Help Desk Collections X Cost Accounting X Credit X Customer Billing X Employee Data Management X External Reporting Facilities and Real Estate Fixed Assets X Forecasting General Accounting (G/L, I/Co. Inventory) X Management Reporting Payroll Planning Purchase Order Processing X X Staffing Services Supplier Management Tax Services X Time & Attendance Travel Expense X X Treasury X Workforce Development Other: Recruitment administration X Other: Learning administration X Other: Talent administration X Other: Organizational Management Other: Mobile Employee Tax Compliance Strategy In 2008, EMC recognized the need to take a more strategic approach towards effectiveness and efficiency; driving global standardization by centralizing processes in Finance and Global Services, and creating consistent operations to recognize economies of scale. As a result, Global Business Services (GBS) was established. GBS’ strategy focused on transaction processing in common systems and business activities where savings could be gained via industrialization, which are best governed by service levels and cross-enterprise service activities. GBS operates under the following guiding principles: focus on delivering service excellence Develop customer relationships built on mutual respect and loyalty Remain skilled and dedicated in what we do Utilize leading edge technology that provides a competitive advantage Deliver value creating, innovative and cost effective multifunctional processes Since establishment, GBS has grown considerably in size and as a result added numerous new customers with a new set of needs. Our employees are dedicated to providing value to our customers through their focus and determination to meet and exceed their goals. In January 2013, GBS transitioned its alignment from the finance sector of EMC to Global Enterprise Services (GES); joining the likes of Corporate Indirect Procurement, IT, and the Global Centers of Excellence. GES’ key goals are to simplify to scale, become even more responsive and effective, provide services at world class efficiency levels, and better demonstrate value to customers and partners. Where GBS once focused a majority of its efforts on cost savings, it is now positioned to exceed customer expectations and provide value through cost savings, revenue enablement and scalability. GBS services (see image): This application asks for an explanation of the value, methodology and objectives our SSC delivers. A summary of four value-add initiatives and their respective definitions of value are outlined below. Within GBS’ EMEA theatre, the strongest representations of this value add were in the areas of: Global Contracts Data Management(GCDM) – Corrected the process deficiencies and inefficiencies meeting regulatory requirements within customer sales contracts Refresh to Renew – Introduction of organized and efficient processes, end-to-end management and communication with field and renewal sales teams Presales – Enable System Engineers (SEs) more time to spend on client-facing and opportunity-generating activities through process efficiencies Mergers and Acquisition (M&A) Integration – Streamline processes with new EMC acquisitions creating an integrated and simplified engagement with customers Global Contracts Data Management Refresh to Renew Presales Mergers and Acquisition Integration Implement controls with higher quality global consistency Improve order processing turn-around-time Achieve compliance with Government regulations Drive incremental revenue by increasing technology refresh bookings Streamline communication between sales reps and customers Increase SEs customer facing time Support SEs with increased knowledge on EMC products Expedite acquisitions into GBS processes Drive revenue enablement through process efficiencies Improvement Methodology Over the past five years GBS has transitioned through a structured set of goals and the following development stages: Establishment, Growth, Multifunction, Transformation and Evolution. GBS is now focused on Optimization; striving to provide excellent service to customers by applying the following tactics: Dedication to cross functional end-to-end improvement Collaborate with customers to define, deliver and maintain value creating projects Optimize the new ERP platform to increase process throughput GBS originally offered six services, operated in two geographies, employed ~500 people and focused on cost savings by redistributing work to low cost regions. Over time, the organization has grown to ~1700 employees strategically located in 28 countries, offering 26 services and serving eight business units. GBS now provides additional value to customers by driving revenue enablement services through efficiencies and process improvements. Global Contracts and Data Management (GCDM): The need for GCDM was identified through internal and external audits. A global Kaizen event involving all relevant teams was conducted and led by GBS EMEA. GCDM was then entrusted to GBS by the Chief Accounting Officer and Chief Operating Officer of EMC. The project build and implementation took 12 months resulting in: Global Standardized Processes Global interpretation of terms and conditions Global submission and signatory policy Global regulatory controls The project consisted of approximately 20 team members with support from Directors, the Vice President and groups like controllership, legal and IT. In order to implement this project, cross functional stakeholder buy-in and support was needed from Global Revenue Operations (GRO), Global Revenue Assurance (GRA), Business Law Group, and Field Sales Operations. The GCDM team worked closely with customers to develop global Service Level Agreements (SLA), Operating Level Agreements (OLA), Key Performance Indicators (KPI), process changes and new service responsibilities. Implementation of a new system, CMC (Contract Management Compliance) which contains Optical Character Recognition (OCR) functionality provided a major impact in process solutions. The implementation of GCDM provides value by delivering rigorous compliance controls, which speed up the contract review process and in turn allow GRO to book revenue more quickly and accurately. Presales: Presales Shared Services joined GBS in 2011, centralized in Cairo, Egypt. The 6 month transition period culminated with a Kaizen event, led by GBS. The Presales transition was managed by the GBS Project Management Organization (PMO) team with consultant support to properly align all geographies and customers. GBS Presales now consists of 231 team members delivering within five services; Quoting, Request for Product Qualification (RPQ), Technical Drawing, Technical Helpdesk and Sizing (see image). Customers were involved in the Kaizen event developing deliverables such as: Service details and priorities SLA models Communications plans Salesforce.com (SFDC) global implementation Metrics measurement Unified processes Improved customer experience The services mentioned above are effective in freeing up time for the SE by alleviating some of their workload. The extra time SEs gain can then be utilized for customer facing opportunities. The fast paced, "follow the sun" work culture of Presales grew stronger with streamlined communication, a more organized and professional platform and centralized support system to enhance efficiency and generate greater value. Refresh to Renew: Refresh to Renew consolidated two processes in the Global Services area through an all encompassing strategy supporting both EMC field and renewal sales. The end-to-end sales process was re-engineered by implementing one seamless approach driving more strategic, proactive and value add activities. Each product account is now monitored from beginning to end aligning communication between technical refresh, maintenance renewals and termination. All customers are now accounted for and tracked in the same central system. This allows the account team to see the total cost of ownership for buying new or selling maintenance on old equipment. The transition period to develop this consolidated system took about 18 months to design and implement. The process began with identifying pain points and areas for improvement, which were summarized and addressed in a business case. SFDC was taught to the Maintenance Contract Operations (MCO) group and a communication strategy was developed. Of the near 100 team members, about two-thirds are in Ireland, with the other third in India. An additional 18 contractors were hired and trained in Ireland to better accommodate the project. The customer group saw benefits during rollout when they received more timely and accurate communications. By generating a proactive model for opportunity rather than the previous reactive model, additional value was created: Automated leads (Tech Refresh Quotes and Renewal Quotes) to SFDC Globally standardized processes which generated greater efficiency Enabled greater effectiveness towards Refresh and Maintenance contracts. Mergers & Acquisitions (M&A) Integration: Over the past three years, EMC has significantly expanded its international operations through organized growth and strategic acquisitions. EMC is quick to assimilate an acquired company into its consolidated results and demonstrate the growth delivered through integration. Acquisitions are an opportunity to restructure operations by gaining efficiency, cost savings and accelerating revenue growth. Restructuring and eliminating duplicate entities of new mergers and acquisitions decreases costs, simplifies operating structures and results in additional benefits to business. GBS is able to expedite a seamless acquisition without disrupting services being provided to the customer. Each integration is treated with a defined project methodology, engagement with key stakeholders, customer responsiveness, and phased approaches to integration, with well-defined steps. A team of core knowledge experts supports and manages these projects, delivering high quality results. Each project follows a globally standardized process which leverages offshore locations and delivery centers as well as models for SLAs, OLAs and KPIs. All integrations begin with a business case where additional resources, headcount and/or automations are added depending on the size or requirements of the integration. Systems utilized for integrations are Oracle, SAP, Getpaid, Portfolio Manager, and SFDC. Benefits to the acquisition are cost reduction and services support which result in more time to dedicate toward core competencies and enables further revenue growth. Complexity of Change GCDM GCDM called for a high complexity of change to processes, role responsibilities and compliance. Some challenge areas were achieving buy-in and support in our cross functional synergies from key stakeholders in Corporate Contract Management, such as country based sales. We overcame this by showing the ability to grow sales. Resistance was felt while working to achieve approval from groups like Legal and Business Operations to generate an effective, global solution. We overcame this by proving our SEC compliance. GBS launched this project in the EMEA hub of Cork, Ireland which successfully processed approximately 3,000 (30%) of the 9,500 global contracts throughout 2012. GCDM have directly benefitted GRO, General Accounting (GA), Legal, Sales Ops and additional groups like Credit and Collections and MCO by enabling greater revenue through process controls and efficiencies. Presales The main instance of resistance was encouraging seasoned SEs to adopt Presales Shared Services. The challenge was overcome by building communications and rapport with SEs and exceeding their expectations in delivery of services, which ultimately provided cost and time savings. The major challenge was implementing a voluntary change outside of SE’s already established processes. In an effort to overcome this obstacle and drive adoption, GBS’ Marketing department developed a marketing strategy and employed several tactical initiatives. The plan included working with Creative Services to produce a Presales commercial which has been advertised throughout the SE community. The plan also leveraged Twitter and blogs through the active Presales directors and established a presence at EMC’s SE conference by setting up a promotional booth. Globally, we have promoted the additional time GBS Presales delivers to SEs which as a result drives cost savings and grows revenue. Refresh to Renew Refresh to Renew was a business requirement with high value add but faced challenges generating cross functional stakeholder buy-in and support. For many of the groups involved, there was a significant change to processes. An area of resistance was the implementation and training needed for SFDC. Refresh to Renew went live immediately for Mid Market and was piloted in Enterprise Solutions. Improvements displayed to processes in the Renewal Sales Cycle will benefit all theatres in the future. The process transformation leveraged leadership to organize the transitional steps including process responsibilities, role definition, training, communication and implementation. The effects of this project has made direct impact on EMC and the speed, accuracy and number of contracts processed while reducing costs and enhancing efficiency. M&A Integration GBS has process methodology for each company acquired. Depending on each project there is a great deal of cross company and cross functional stakeholder buy-in and support needed from Tax, Legal, Finance Controllership, GBS and IT. Some projects take longer than others depending on the size of the acquisition, number of services being integrated, ease of collaboration, willingness to adapt or complications managing people and processes. GBS has been involved with the integration of 11 acquisitions, eight impacted by the EMEA theatre, two in North America and one globally. These integrations have benefitted thirty three EMEA EMC contracting entities throughout Europe. GBS is seen as trusted advisors in a well established integration planning team. The success demonstrated drives value to the organization and EMC. This adds value to the acquired company as well as greater EMC by quickly assimilating the new acquisition and integrating them with EMC models and infrastructure. This allows the acquired company to focus on their core competencies, which is the reason EMC originally sought their purchase. Benefits Achieved/Hard Improvements The perception of GBS is that we are EMC’s Shared Service "Provider of Choice" and many groups at EMC are eager to strategically partner with us to improve their operations. Over the past five years we have: Financial Organizational Customer Service Process Reduced operating cost by 33% leveraging low cost delivery centers Reduced cost/head by 36% Reduced cost/transaction metrics to industry leading levels Maintained industry leading DSO Collected more than $20 billion annually Booked more than 225,000 orders annually Averaged 3.5M transactions per quarter Grown the organization by more than 200% Become multifunctional Scored above EMC average on employee satisfaction survey Initiated a reorganizational shift from geo-based customer support to functional customer focus, allowing increased global synergies Retained 100% of our customers Added Presales, Human Resources and Business Operations as new customers Conducted second annual customer satisfaction survey Held over 10 customer focus groups Quadrupled number of services provided (26) Integrated 11 acquisitions globally Provided 3rd party support to EMC’s joint venture (VCE) Achieved 5% YoY Creation & Innovation (CI) savings Trained 1 Black Belt, 13 Green Belts, and 17 Yellow Belts Seamlessly Introduced new ERP in 2012 Dedicated 120 GBS resources to the effort The GCDM project Globally standardized process and improved cycle time for orders Established global controls with higher quality global consistency enabling greater revenue recognition Global KPIs, SLAs and OLAs were established in collaboration with customers Achieved of Back Capture goal of 50,000 summarization target GBS Presales Supports Field Presales by providing expert knowledge of EMC services, solutions and products Value added and success are directly measured by two KPIs, Turn-around time Quality Audit Refresh to Renew Executes on a proactive approach to the deployment of sales opportunities. Renewals Sales are up +15% in YOY growth SFDC allows unified and consistent communication with customers in a single location Greater ability to forecast workload and capacity planning M&A Integrations Consistent and reliable value seen through the GBS branded project plan from beginning to end GBS reduces administrative costs associated with legal entities Consolidating resources enables efficient operation of all international business Differentiators Global Business Services is different from other shared services organizations because we continue to grow rapidly, incorporate new and different functions, and expand our services to generate return on our customer’s investment. Our organization has mastered the ability to deliver exceptional results while dynamically changing and evolving. We do this by providing: Cross functional synergies within GBS services Innovative and effective solutions Deep collaboration with customers to provide consistent and value creating processes Customer communications to develop services, responsibilities, goals, SLAs, OLAs and KPIs Global consistency Global processes and systems Global delivery competency models Operational excellence methodology to jointly define and deliver value These projects all support the dedication to excellence and exceeding of customer expectations. Each of the above makes a significant contribution to generating revenue for the business. Worldwide, GBS has generated approximately $300M in incremental revenue. This success has taken place while our core teams have experienced an ERP transition to SAP. Throughout this process, our customers have felt minimal effects, which are a testament to the skill, dedication and value our employees both have and deliver to our customers. EMC Ireland COE was placed in the top 10 Great Places to Work for the third year in a row, and in 2011 won a special award in "Diversity". The GBS EMEA theatre consists of 28 nationalities and communicates in 25 different languages. Their work is impressive and demonstrated in their ability to exceed expectations. Each year, our customer base grows and consequently, our services are stretched as we are asked to do more. In addition to optimizing processes while reducing costs and enhancing efficiency, GBS has expanded its roles as a revenue enabler to the greater EMC organization. What ultimately sets us apart is the fact that we are known as a true solutions provider; when our customers have a choice on their shared services partner, they choose GBS. [eventpdf]

EMC Award Winner 2013: Proven Tips on Driving Value Creation

Upcoming Events

The Power of Thinking Differently: Why Process Mapping Falls Short in the Age of Agentic AI

From Cost Centre to Control Tower: How Platform-Driven GBS is Redefining Enterprise Value in the Age of AI

Why Your AI Costs More Than Your Workforce and How AI Employees Change the Equation

From Transactions to Trust: Transforming AP, AR, and Communications into Customer Experience Drivers

Through Trust and Governance: How AI Agents are Redefining Accounts Payable

Why Shared Services and GBS Transformation Stalls and How to Overcome Change Fatigue

Follow Us

Latest Webinars

Accelerating O2C Transformation: How AI Is Reshaping the Cash Conversion Cycle

Germany’s 1 January 2027 E-Invoicing Deadline: Timely Guidance for Time-Crunched Leaders

How AI-Native Accounts Payable Is Changing the Finance Function

Recommended

SSON Podcast with the Producer of Rainman, Batman and Easy Rider

Podcast with Credit Suisse's Gary Carter: Rethinking offshoring's value proposit...

Winter is Coming…

Why is the Nordics region so "special"?

Nearshore plays well to Trinidad & Tobago's strengths

Successful SSO 'Micro-Learnings' from Monsanto and PepsiCo

Change leaves National Grid at a Pivot Point with regards to emerging services

Navigating the transition from low-cost labour to analytics and robotics service...

CEE Market Report: The Perfect Storm of Automation + Millennials = A New Deliver...

SSON Report: Understanding and Implementing Shared Services in Africa

Malaysia: Robotics and the New World View of Shared Services

Malaysia's Talent Challenge – Why it's Becoming Less Worrisome

FIND CONTENT BY TYPE

SSON COMMUNITY

ADVERTISE WITH US

JOIN THE SSON COMMUNITY

EMC Award Winner 2013: Proven Tips on Driving Value Creation

Upcoming Events

Follow Us

Subscribe to our Free Newsletter

Latest Webinars

Recommended

FIND CONTENT BY TYPE

SSON COMMUNITY

ADVERTISE WITH US

JOIN THE SSON COMMUNITY