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Alexander von Thielmann joins us from SSOW in Manchester where he shares that he’s running two lines of business- Business shared services which is CRM and sales related and business administration shared services which is more related to cash collection, tech services, etc. Both are non-mandatory to the client so- whereas others can go to the customer and say it’s mandatory- how are we going to do it- Alexander and his team must go to the customer, they listen and then jointly define the portfolio. When Alexander started in shared services- customers told him not to come and simply claim- don’t bring a slide show- just come and listen. And so he learned to jointly define the painpoints, the targets, how you can contribute, where you really bring a value add and ultimately affect costs, savings, reduce complexity and support topline growth.

Recorded at CX Retail Exchange, Jennifer MacMenamin joins us and shares that she and her team have been engaged in customer experience and caring for the fracture points in the digital experience- but they had always taken an operational lens to it as opposed to the guest lens through which now they see. The goal is to have the organization understand how the guest goes through the guest experience as opposed to simply focusing on operational metrics. For example, Jennifer and her team had been trying to understand an issue that they were having with what they called data flow. However, when they simply utilized guest-centric terminology- the problem was easily solved. And Jennifer and her team of course continue to use data that speaks to departmental KPI’s.

John Hopkins joins us and discusses global services process ownership. He’s decidedly from the centralized point of view. John notes that if he were starting a multi-national, global entity today, he would start by defining and assigning global services process roles and make it universally unilateral across all countries, business segments, etc. He would execute that way based on his thought that as long as you have a centralized approach to a services process you can design it and adapt to the marketplace quickly and deliver efficiencies quickly as the market or environment changes. He notes that those that aren’t with his line of thinking are seeing centralized services models going after the quick wins- which is great, but not his complete view of what should happen in centralized services.

Recorded at the Nordic RPA & AI Summit in Stockholm, Jorgen Lislerud joins us and takes us through the Circle K rebrand making them a global organization representing convenience delivering great customer experience. The goal is for folks to understand that the Circle K logo means great people, great products, great fuel and fantastic coffee. Jorge runs shared services for Circle K out of Riga, Latvia and Warsaw, Poland. IT is big including infrastructure, development, and IT service desk is out of Warsaw. Riga has financial services, accounting, HR, fuel distribution planning and customer service. Jorgen is working with RPA with a program up and running in customer service, finance, fuel and HR operations. The program began under the radar but after experiencing key wins, the program was rolled out in multiple functions.

Kathryn Moore joins us and discusses the difference between omnichannel vs interconnected retail. She’s got one foot in today and one foot in tomorrow each day. An Atlanta native and originally a thespian she learned how to try things on stage, something which she brings to the office. She shares that you can only fail quickly and cheaply if you actually commit. Kathryn got her masters and initially went into quantitative retail research where she learned that you must have the right context for your quantitative data. She taught herself to avoid the tunnel vision that allows you to show that you’re right…when you might not be.  We take the opportunity to discuss generational similarities and differences and the fact that some differences might simply be the stage that you’re at in your life experience.

Stig Pedersen joins us and shares what he’s doing with automation. He notes that he started as most do- with a proof of concept. He took the initiative to do it and tested technology to understand how it could work in Topdanmark’s environment. Stig quickly saw  success, so much so that he established a team which is now working permanently with RPA. The first bot rollout was a year-and-a-half before this interview was recorded at the Nordic RPA & AI Summit in Stockholm. And there was a fair amount of preparation that needed to happen prior to getting a decision from the Board to actually move forward and then secure funding. Stig notes that it’s difficult to move fast in process excellence and RPA was a fast track to cost reduction.

Ricardo Badillo joins us from SSOW US where he was dubbed by Episode 4 guest and CFO of S&P Dow Jones Indices, Manny Korakis, as best dressed individual. Ricardo is based in Costa Rica which is a bit of a Shared Services hub. He notes that the country actually been ranked as happiest in the world. Over the years work in the country has evolved from manufacturing to call center to transactional and more value added work. There are roughly 200 companies that have shared services operations in Costa Rica which means roughly 30,000 employees in the space in the country. The basis of how Ricardo operates in shared services comes from his father where he learned the importance of education, discipline, being on time, delivering what you promise, telling the truth and being transparent.

Jerry Roberts joins us and discusses his history in retail which is really the recent history of the retail industry. He spent time at Radio Shack and Walden Books and Borders going from specialty retail to big box retail in it’s early heyday. Radio Shack was his first real P&L giving him great business training. There was a tremendous amount of change at Walden Books teaching him change management which now comes second nature to him. As the merger with Borders was going through, he moved to an ultimate big box at the time- Circuit City...and then just as quickly moved back to specialty retail with Sunglass Hut. Eventually he moved to Apple retail working under Ron Johnson and eventually to his current post with Microsoft where he’s focused on truly experiential retail.

Jean Francois Gagne joins us and shares what AI is doing for Fortune 500 companies, start-ups and everyone in between. He says that no matter the size of the team, you need to involve multiple groups in the process of understanding what AI can do for you in continuous improvement.  We draw a parallel to the ERP implementations of the 90’s, but where ERP was simply streamlining the business, JF points out that AI redefines how processes are conducted and redefines business models on the whole. He says that we should be passed AI being an add-on for big data or data analytics, predictive analytics or even prescriptive analytics- it should be about understanding the capabilities and constraints of AI so it’s not the human supported by AI but AI supported by the human.