Transcript from Gianni Giacomelli’s video interview June 2009
Designing the retained organization from a technology perspective
Gianni Giacomelli’s Biography
Gianni Giacomelli,
Head of Strategy and Marketing, SAP BPO Gianni Giacomelli is Head of Strategy in the BPO business unit of SAP. He joined SAP in late 2004, and has more than 16 years of experience in organizational development, transformation strategy and related services. He has served in companies such as Boston Consulting Group, Danone and Datamonitor, and in US-based consulting firm Everest prior to joining SAP. He is a widely published thought leader in the outsourcing/offshoring/G&A transformation space. He holds a degree in Economics and Business from the University of Florence, Italy and EME Business School of Strasbourg, France, and a Masters in Organizational Behavior from London Business School. He can be reached at: contact@globalhrstudio.com
Transcript from Gianni Giacomelli’s video interview Watch the video
Breaking up the silos [12s - 1mn45s] The goal of an outsourcing agreement is not to create an efficient outsourced organization. It is to create an efficient extended enterprise that leverages the specialization, and hence the effectiveness, of the newly re-configured outsourced and retained organizations. The organizations must run as if there were no boundaries, no fracture points.
This means that the outsourced and the retained organizations are integrated, not just interfaced. Think about the human brain: There are two hemispheres, but what is processed in each hemisphere and the interconnections between the two are so harmonious and deep that the brain works as one.
01
Interaction between processes and technology [1mn46s - 2mn10s] Technology can automate and facilitate processes, meaning fewer resources are required and output quality is improved. But technology cannot and should not be designed without end-to-end processes in mind. The same can be said for processes: they should not be worked out before what technology can do is understood.
As a consequence, the design of the retained organization’s technology is more holistic than is often thought. Process and technology are designed together as are the retained and the outsourced organizations.
Designing technology and business logic [2mn11s - 3mn45s] Designing the data and configuring the platform must be done according to the required business logic. For example, what is meant by “absence”, “dependent children” and “overtime”? To guarantee integration, consistent vocabulary must be used. A sufficiently large exchange of data sets is also required. For example, in the case of payroll, there can be a number of items related to time, taxes, employee data and so forth. Working out your master data design and related business logic is the key to a successful extended organization. In practical terms, three types of design decisions need to be made when opting
for the technology to be implemented: • Whose technology is it – the provider’s or the customer’s? Who owns it? • Whose configuration of that technology is used for the retained organization and the outsourced organization? • How can what is on one side be integrated with what is on the other? The best answers are situational, but there are best practices that a provider can re-use from one customer to another, thereby ensuring process optimization and economies of scale.
The right people for successful design [3mn46s - 5mn11s] In the past ten years, we have consistently noticed that successful design depends heavily on the decision-making process, and in particular the engagement and empowerment of the right people – the client, the provider, and when appropriate, the technology vendor.
02
Ideally, process and technology experts and key stakeholders should discuss the pros and cons of choices. The outcome of not doing this is unsustainable organizations – a recurring pattern in the examples of troubled outsourcing relationships.
03
www.globalHRstudio.com