EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ABOUT THE STRATEGIES AND OPERATIONS The Business Services Sector globally has proven its sustainability; the model of virtual teams and standardised processes remained stable during the COVID-19 pandemic, and Business Services Centres had a great opportunity to strengthen their position within their organisations. Global Business Services core strengths are cost efficiency, process ownership, talent, continuous improvement and a centre of expertise approach. Leading organisations also operate as automation centres and manage end-to-end process ownership; however, only a very few of them report digitalisation data analytics and scaling automation as core strengths. Traditionally, Business Services were measured on cost efficiency, which of course still holds, but today their value-add depends on the breadth of quality and efficiency of services and how far up the value chain they can progress. Business Services go beyond the service delivery BPO organisation model; their talents’ ownership of the process and engagement to further optimise it is at the heart of their value. Enterprises that initiate transformation are needed now more than ever before, and Global Business Services have a key role in executing business transformation. Digital Business Services are essentially to drive touchless process transformation, improve data accuracy and create customer satisfaction. The more the end-to-end process is digital, the more touchless the process, and the more value-add is created. Digitalisation also creates the potential for Business Services to create a more strategic role, and gain a seat at the executive table. The ownership of intelligent automation strategy/budget, enterprise people skills and capabilities, centre of expertise and enterprise data hub,
along with a place on the business transformation board, would help Business Services to gain the mandate for enterprise digital transformation. Apart from technology gaps (often budget related), a lack of relevant skillsets is preventing Business Service organisations from excelling on the digitisation journey. Although the problem of this lack of relevant skillset remains consistent, actions should certainly be taken to fix it. Another factor is the lack of process standardisation, which is proven to be well addressed with the global process ownership created within Global Business Services organisations. Despite the benefits automation can deliver, a lot of people are reluctant to change, or prefer human interaction. Optimising digitalisation needs strong educational and cultural initiatives to build trust. Without this trust, automation will never deliver on its full promise. Maintaining people needs to be handled at the heart of the transition. Team resiliency should be in focus, and people should be encouraged to be in the driving seat of the change. Virtual methods for creating employee engagement should also be in focus. Business Services leaders have a key role in shifting from a service attitude towards problem solving. It is important to gain a seat at the top table and explain how they can truly support the business by delivering added value to become an integral part of the end-to-end services provided to customers. To the extent the recent pandemic has impacted the evolution of Business Services, there is a recognised need for increased digitalisation; however, so far there is little evidence of the steps indicating the required commitment to this direction. Hungarian GBS Report | Hungary, 2020 43
