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Andrew Parris joins us from SSOW and discusses improving shared services, removing waste and automating activities. The corner has been turned in terms of automation. Andrew and the team did a feasibility study and determined that it was in fact viable in the organization. While yes, RPA is on the map, the focus is also on leveraging the systems they have in place. Andrew shares that getting commitment from senior management is key. He also mentions at a few points, that it’s important to understand what automation means to your particular shared services organization. It’s certainly not one size fits all. Andrew answers questions on managing up as well as managing the team and ensuring in each case, each person understands that automation is in fact a software initiative.

Recorded at CX Retail Exchange, Paul Stone joins us and discusses how his participating in the grand slam of turkey’s helps him get into the mind of the Cabela’s customer. The core customer either loves to hunt, fish, camp or shoot and loves the outdoors. There is no daylight between the brand and the customer for lack of a better phrase. Paul shares the organic growth of the brand and how his job as Chief Retail Officer is to create a great experience for the customer. He says that in today’s world you’re competition is the ease of shop. In his words, knowledge is power so the goal is to ensure that the customer knows that the most knowledge about an outdoor experience lives in-store at his brand.

Recorded at OPEX Life Sciences, Kala Patel joins us and discusses her history growing up in Africa and eventually moving to England. One of her very first jobs was mapping processes to understand and automate workload for that first employer. Kala enjoyed understanding what the customer needed through understanding the interaction with the customer. That’s remained a focus for Kala throughout her career. She's always focused on automating processes, eventually defining frameworks. Kala feels that company strategy shapes culture and she was eventually was given the opportunity to create a group to drive effectiveness while increasing customer engagement and satisfaction.

Recorded at CX Retail Exchange Gene Lunger joins us and shares how important it is to not only sell furniture but manufacture furniture in the United States of America. Noting that the US is overstored, Gene shares that while there is no certainty, furniture is a bit insulated from the greater in-store retail narrative and notes that Amazon itself is investing in specific physical retail. Amazon is a partner along with other digital players where Gene sees a seamless and frictionless customer experience. He says success leaves clues so if you’re at the top of your own industry- look outside of your industry at those who are extremely talented at what they do. Gene’s mantra for lack of a better word is Network, Learn and Replicate.

Frank Kuehnel joins us and recalls his move from Germany to the US. His only knowledge of the US was from movies and television- In his words- Kojak for the east coast, John Wayne for everything in between and Streets of San Francisco for the west. He excelled in science and mathematics early on in his life which made his path very clear to him. But his take was that there was a deeper mystery to the universe and the the language with which to discover that deeper mystery was mathematics. And so he landed at NASA just after school and helped land a rover on Mars through computer vision AI. Which eventually led Frank to Google. He discusses the fact society needs understand how to educate youth to be prepared with curiosity and give them tools to learn and be curious forever.

Recorded at SSOW Kathleen Bienkowski joins us and shares that she feels that her psych background has done her a world of good in simply relating to people in shared services. To that end, Kathleen says that in leadership, having a high EQ is one of the most important things. And that high EQ serves any leader well in the first moment of managing an employee- the hiring process. Obviously, there’s an advantage in knowing what you’re getting. Kathleen began her career in staffing so she provides her thoughts on what to look for, her thoughts on red flags and the entire hiring process in general. This all led of course  to Kathleen being identified as a perfect shared services executive.

Ted Graham, Head of Open Innovation, GM joins us from C2 to discuss doing new and different things as it relates to the company, the industry, the brand and general society. Regarding self driving- hands off the wheel or assisted driving experiences are on the table for 2017. Full automation will be here sooner than you think in Ted’s words. He’s interested in Explainable AI which ensures that the work of any machine or deep learning is shown- or is explainable to humans.  Ted is focused on creating a more immersive and complete experience for the consumer- which includes his automotive company being a part of your human experience beyond the car. It begs the question, how does your internal automation redefine what your brand does and who your brand serves?

Maria Rapetskaya joins us from C2 Montreal where she takes us through her unique and personal background. She was born and raised initially in Leningrad in the former Soviet Union. Her daring mother who was an entrepreneur in the USSR- something nearly impossible to do, brought her to the United States before the Berlin Wall fell meaning that when she was an early teenager in Brooklyn, NY- she had different fish to fry. She notes that arriving in America had her realize that being smart wasn’t cool anymore. Coming out of a communist country it was a big adjustment to figure out what to wear to school. Which is what led to Maria having a propensity to communicate a brand message. She simply looks at branding or re-branding from the outside in- giving her a truly unique perspective.