Revolutionizing Business Operations with Tony Saldanha

In this episode of Revolutionizing Business Operations, host Tony Saldanha sits down with Jay Desai, VP of IT Infrastructure and Operations at Japan Tobacco International (JTI).

Jay shares unique insights from managing the intersection of CTO, CISO, and GBS transformation responsibilities.

Together, they explore how the rapid rise of AI is breaking traditional functional silos, why cybersecurity strategy must move at "AI speed," and how leaders can balance employee productivity with enterprise security risk.

Key Topics Covered:

Breaking Functional Silos: Why rigid organizational boundaries hinder modern enterprise growth and how to align CTO and CISO objectives.

Lessons from Corporate Carve-Outs: What Abbott Labs and JTI taught Jay about drive clarity, structure, and winning hearts and minds.

Return on Employee (ROE) vs. Return on Enterprise (ROE): Upskilling talent, creating AI "walled gardens," and prioritizing high-impact AI bets.

Security at AI Speed: Transitioning from human-driven anomaly detection to AI-powered continuous patching and threat response.

Simplifying Complex Tech Leadership: Why leaders must learn to communicate complex topics without using jargon.

Follow along to keep revolutionizing your operations!

In this episode of Revolutionizing Business Operations, Tony sits down with Dr. Frank Schüler , Managing Director of the Global Service Center at DHL Global Forwarding. Together, they unpack the growing complexities and rising costs of automation portfolios in Global Business Services (GBS)Dr. Schüler shares his breakthrough, capability-based framework that treats automation as reusable, product-agnostic building blocks, an approach he pioneered years ahead of the current AI hype. From clarifying accountability between IT and business layers to optimizing token costs when deploying AI, this discussion provides a masterclass in driving true enterprise-wide scale.Whether you are navigating deterministic RPA bots or exploring the cutting edge of agentic AI, Dr. Schüler's practical, experience-based advice serves as a vital blueprint for the future of work consolidation.Key Takeaways:Process over Product: Why you must always start with the process you want to automate rather than the technology you want to apply.Modular Architecture: How decoupling your processes from specific IT products enables components (like email classification or data extraction) to scale across multiple functions.Controlling AI Costs: The strategy behind breaking down complex tasks to address 80% with deterministic tools, reserving expensive LLMs only for the remaining 20%.The Future of GBS: A look at how human resources, virtual resources (RPA), and agentic AI will complement each other to lead business operations forward.If you find value in this episode, please subscribe, rate, and share it with your network!

What does Global Business Services (GBS) look like when viewed from the CFO's chair? Join host Tony Saldanha as he talks with David Davies, Finance Director and Deputy CFO at the Boots Group with deep experience at Walmart, Asda, and IVC Evidensia.In this episode, they explore how GBS is evolving from a cost-optimization tool into a strategic asset powered by data and AI. David shares "war stories" from his career, including how GBS and automation solved critical hiring challenges during COVID, and offers a roadmap for leaders to earn credibility through operational excellence and proactive data orchestration. Whether you are a seasoned executive or just starting your journey, learn why data is no longer just an IT problem, but a CFO imperative

In this episode of Revolutionizing Business Operations, Tony Saldanha interviews Phil Priest, Head of Global Business Services (GBS) at Rolls-Royce, to discuss six unconventional leadership lessons for building world-class GBS organizations.

Moving beyond the hype of AI, Priest emphasizes that mastering operational basics is essential before digital tools can be effectively leveraged.

Key Points:

Labor Arbitrage is Not Dead: While AI improves performance, significant value still exists in sourcing high-quality talent in lower-cost locations like Poland to build expert centers of excellence.

People are the Engine: Success relies on hiring "nines and tens," top tier leaders who attract other great talent, and providing clear career paths to maintain high retention and engagement.

The Three Es of Success: GBS leaders often fail not due to lack of efficiency (the "price of entry"), but because of organizational "noise". Long-term success requires a focus on Efficiency, Effectiveness, and Experience.

Process Influencers vs. Owners: It is impossible to truly "own" end-to-end global processes. Leaders should instead act as "influencers" and expert change managers who co-design processes with those who operate them.

Service Management as a Wrapper: GBS is more than a collection of shared services; it requires a service management layer based on ITIL principles to handle demand, supply, and data-driven continuous improvement.

Evolution or Death: GBS must constantly seek new sources of value, evolving from basic shared services into Global Capability Centers (GCCs) that contribute to the corporation's overall value chain.

In this episode of "Revolutionizing Business Operations," host Tony Saldanha sits down with Pascal Jenny, SVP of Business Services and Projects at Coty, to explore the powerful intersection of Global Business Services (GBS) and enterprise transformation.

Key discussion points include:

• The "Conductor" Role: How leading a GBS function is akin to conducting an orchestra, requiring cross-functional orchestration and management by influence to deliver enterprise value.

• Earning the Right to Lead: Why successful GBS leaders must move beyond "order taking" by consistently delivering results and building the credibility necessary to be entrusted with strategic transformation.

• The Power of Governance: Jenny shares why disciplined, simplified governance is the "make or break" factor in complex initiatives like business process outsourcing.

• The Future of GBS: A look at the next three to five years, highlighting the critical need for GBS to take ownership of global data strategy to provide a robust foundation for the coming AI revolution.

• Advice for New Leaders: Insights on managing expectations, navigating functional resistance, and positioning GBS as a supportive enabler rather than a threat to established functions.

In this episode of Revolutionizing Business Operations with Tony Saldanha, we are joined by Ajit Kumar Kunji, Vice President and Head of Global Business Services at Salesforce, who shares his deep expertise in enterprise technology and business transformation.

Ajit, formerly a Senior Director of Enterprise Business Services at Walmart, brings over 20 years of leadership experience from the world’s biggest BPOs.

Key Topics Discussed:The Disruptive Power of Agentic AI: Ajit and Tony dive into how Agentic AI is truly disruptive, going beyond traditional RPA or AI, which merely automate existing processes. Agentic AI is focused on totally reimagining work processes and connecting not just at the task level, but across the enterprise end-to-end and the company ecosystem.

The Journey to Agentic AI: Ajit describes his "aha moment" in August 2023 at Salesforce when looking at CRM software capabilities and the ability of Mulesoft to bring data from multiple applications into one custom object. His team began with eight proofs of concept (POCs) focused on real-time data, eliminating "swivel chair motion" (using Excels and macros), and using Generative AI for prediction building (Einstein) and strong workflow (omnichannel capabilities).

Eliminating Hallucination: After noticing a 7-8% hallucination rate with Einstein, Ajit's team shifted to Agentic AI, which is powered by the Atlas reasoning engine. They saw hallucinations "completely went off," and accuracy levels were closer to 100%.

Ajit explains this is achieved by defining topics, setting guardrails, and exposing the data through Agent Force's agent interface, which uses 15-16 different LLMs to synthesize queries and refine responses.

Proven Agentic AI Use Cases: Ajit shares three deployed use cases for shared services:

Agentic AI Engagement Layer (Territory Operations): This layer handles request deflection by using three synchronized agents to perform real-time translation, determine the intent of the query (including detecting frustration), and validate data to ensure all required input is present. This filter has reduced the number of use cases that go through the process by 34%.

Quote Special Terms (Order-to-Cash): To accelerate the approval process for non-standard quote edits made by account executives, Salesforce uses Data Cloud to look at historical information and an agent to create a recommendation with strong guardrails and approval reasons. This process, which typically took 12–15 minutes, is now completed in 3–4 minutes.

Touchless Accounts Payable (AP): Facing the challenge of having to manually validate 100% of invoice data extracts from a popular AP application due to unknown field-level accuracy, Ajit’s team created a three-layer validation process.

Agentic AI vs. RPA and LLMs: Ajit demystifies the differences.

Advice for GBS Leaders and Employees: Ajit urges GBS leaders to get ready to reset benchmarks as customer experience expectations rise to instant and immediate results. He anticipates a shift in focus: contact centers will move from solving problems to building relationships, and back-office functions will move from transactional solving to leakage avoidance and materially impacting organizational benefit.

For employees, the advice is to embrace the technology, become an expert in working with Agentic AI, understand the end-to-end domain, and become "technofunctional".

The Clear Message: Agentic AI is not a future concept; it is available now, and early adopters are seeing significant benefits.

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