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Clara Durodié, AI technology strategist, discusses major technological trends taking place within the corporate landscape. Durodié was able to spot the importance of AI when the technology was bleeding edge, way back in 2011, thanks in part to her background in economics and neuroscience. With the volume and velocity of data available today, AI is becoming necessary to operate a successful and profitable business, but how can this technology be utilized responsibly? Are humans really going to be replaced by machines? Durodié touches on these points and more, concluding, “My hope rests on one crucial assumption, which is there will be strong systems in place to ensure that ethical AI is deployed.”

In this episode, Chris Gunning discusses his personal history with shared services as well as its evolution over the nearly 20 years he’s been in the industry. “We're now seen as a strategic asset for the business; an enabler to help drive value for the business; to be an incubator for technology, for reporting, for analytics, for business insights, so a lot of the things that we were talking about back in the day—centralization, standardization, definitely table stakes, process improvement that have to be there—and we're still talking about some of those things. It's nice to see that we as a shared services organization [have] moved up the value chain to add value for the business.

Siemens’ Alexander Thielmann discusses the Fourth Industrial Revolution and its effect on the corporate landscape. The transformation Siemens has embarked on, aptly named Vision 2020 Plus, is a cultural one as much as it is a technology one. With a company as large as Siemens, Thielmann describes this sea change as navigating a fleet of ships. “...with this new change of these fleet of ships, the expectation of the board is also that the ships, or the companies, make more profit... Which also means now they are looking a bit more outside the box.”

Caroline Basyn, Global CIO and GBS Officer at Mondelēz International, discusses the importance of setting a solid foundation before planning and executing a digital transformation. With an influx of data comes new problems to be solved. Instilling a cloud and data strategy, setting up a consumer-centric framework, and building innovation teams out of siloed departments are some of the solutions Basyn touches on. Once the foundation is set, deploying corporate culture changes, Agile workplaces, and AI and ML technology gets done quicker, cheaper, and with more longevity than a quick-fix solution. “I used to say quality is not the enemy of speed, but in a certain sense, you need to be able to marry both.”

Fernando Nunes, senior process automation architect at Man Energy solutions, discusses his unique approach to IT and business. By leveraging RPA, AI, and BPA tools, Nunes works to empower the business line and decrease IT bottlenecks through process automation. He further explains the Center of Excellence concept using an apt airport metaphor. “Our philosophy was always about enabling our line of business to do large things themselves, and we of course, would have to provide an architecture, a governance, an infrastructure, and we see it more like we provide the airport. Then the line of business will make the flights; the planes to fly.”

In the second part of our discussion with Manik Patil, we pick back up on the discussion of enhancing the risk adjusted return on investment for an intelligent automation portfolio. Patil defines and details his “blitz scaling” tenants: having an exponential organization, time-to-value, running intelligent automation as a business, and think big; start small. To sum it all up, Patil quotes Zuckerberg: "Giving people the tools to be able to get that data without having to argue whether their ideas are good, through the layers of management before testing something, frees people up to move quicker. This will help you achieve your massively transformative purpose."

Manik Patil joins us and shares the theory behind Technology Business Management: " The connection of your financial data all the way up to your initiative data allows you to manage your portfolio really well. So think of it as a management mechanism or a management science and art in order to have your technology portfolio in a very efficient way and a transparent manner because of which your whole company can drum to the same beat and make sure everything is coherent."

Deborah kops joins us and shares her views on GBS: "It's a dynamic business model. It is not one rigid business model. To be very honest, to some extent we've promulgated that through the consultancy class in this industry, some of those guys are some of my best friends. But a business services platform is whatever you can do at any given time, given your leadership, given a range of external and internal factors. So GBS as a concept I don't buy."

Manny Korakis joins us and shares the importance of potentially applying different strategies to different companies: "I've learned over the course of this journey that every company is in a different spot in their own journey, and I have to react to that. What's important in one organization at any given point in time, isn't necessarily a top priority in another company at their point in time."