INTERVIEW OF THE MONTH
INTERVIEW WITH Mr. Chris Gunning,
Global Functional Owner – CoE (Accounts & Commercial)
Apollo Tyres
A successful Global Shared Services SSC/GBS leader and talent/people manager, with significant Finance and Business Transformation experience, Designing, Building and Running operational Global Transaction Processing Centres, Regional Front Desk Service Delivery Centres Centres of Expertise and BPO oversight – leveraging the latest enabling Digital Finance Technologies and Automation within our ever evolving industry.
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- Shared Services experience in Technology, Telecommunications and Manufacturing/Automotive industries and companies, working with Unisys, VEON (formerly Vimpelcom); and Apollo Tyres / Vredestein respectively.
- Have led delivery centres and teams in India, Brazil, US, Australia, Hungary, Netherlands, Ukraine & Pakistan.
- A qualified Chartered Accountant (ICAI), with BSc Accounting from Queen’s University, Belfast in Ireland, with a very strong background in Controls and Compliance from Internal Audit roles and SOX experience in Industry.
- A certified GBS professional, having in 2018 successfully completed the Advanced Diploma in Global Business Services (ADGBS) awarded by The Hackett Institute, the professional development arm of The Hackett Group.
- Recently conferred with the Community Impact Award at Shared Services Outsourcing Week 2019 in Lisbon for Lifetime Achievement for 20+ years of contributions to the Shared Services industry.
- Lives in Amsterdam, Netherlands
- Regular music ‘’gig’’ goer and avid Heavy Metal Fan!
How do you believe shared services of the future will look like? What will they deliver beyond providing a fixed portfolio of scale services?
I definitely feel that the landscape is ripe for the continued and further evolution of shared services. We will continue to see functions move way beyond traditional shared services of transactional and processing, into being a catalyst and engine for driving wider transformational change across the organization. Being able to harness the power of the huge amount of data that the SSCs and GBS organizations are sitting on today, they can position themselves to drive real insights, reporting, and analytics for a business that they support. The hope is that we are no longer just seen as the ”Back Office” for administrative activities, but can be leveraged as a strategic asset of the company going forward, to really help drive innovation and automation. In fact, I think we will see more convergence of traditional back and front offices, moving into connected ecosystems end to end, that will embrace digital, automation and data at the forefront, including in non traditional SSC areas beyond Finance, IT, HR and Procurement, into supporting the likes of Customer Services or Sales & Marketing I also foresee that more and small to medium enterprises will also begin to embrace the embodiment of the shared services methodologies and mentality. For every successful GBS out there who has been in the game for 20+ years, there also exist a vast number of companies, yet to take their first footsteps in this direction, which makes it a super exciting time for the industry.
What are shared service organizations doing to deliver game changing performance from their shared services? Is there any change in terms of preparedness that you’re seeing now versus say five years back?
In my eyes Shared Services organizations need to continually challenge themselves and evolve. In the past it may have been simply OK to have an SSC work smoothly in the background with minimum noise levels and escalations bubbling up, but I think there is an expectations today from the C Suite around the world, that SSCs and GBS have much more to offer and add. They want bigger bang for the buck on their investment; It is no longer just enough to have good quality service delivery – that is table and almost a given – leaders are also turning to us to drive Transformation; connect end to end processes into ecosystems; take the reins on Technology and Automation Journeys; manage the data and drive insights for the business. A word of caution though perhaps – whilst the learnings are there that in some areas we can certainly ‘leapfrog’ maturity cycles, it is still very essential to get those fundamental basics in place, and build a solid foundational layer before charging too far down that path!
How do you believe digital has enabled shared service organizations to deliver improved business impact? Could you please detail with some examples?
Absolutely. We have seen huge advances in automation and digital over recent years. But I also think we have a long way to go. Many organizations who have dabbled in RPA and bots, are still learning from their initial experiences, and some struggling to really make the ROI work. I think many organizations still clearly need to focus on Continuous Improvement, before getting panicky and having “bot envy”, just because their peers in other organizations have dozens or hundreds of bots in place. The classic old SSC adage and acronym of ESSA – Eliminate, Simplify, Standardise before AUTOMATING, still very much holds true. There is so much we can do with looking classic Lean techniques as well. I also think Digital has huge opportunity when it comes to both the Customer Experience (CX) and User Experience (UX). If as consumers in our daily lives, we can avail of super friendly apps and experiences such as Uber or Amazon, then we also need to be seriously considering how we make the entire GBS experience better for our customers and stakeholders. We are moving beyond just Efficiency and Effectiveness, into needing Shared Services to lead on the Experience front as well.
How do people within shared services need to be reskilled to get ready for the future? What should enterprises be doing about it?
Even after 20 years in the industry, when it comes to PEOPLE, PROCESS, TECHNOLOGY, I am still a very firm believer that your PEOPLE are your biggest asset in your shared services organizations. It is so important to focus on your Talent. A wise man recently reminded me – “Don’t forget – bots don’t transform processes – people do”! I think though what we are seeing today, is that we no longer expect our teams to be only masters with technical expertise within a function such as finance. But also to be able to be Change Agents; be Innovative Design Thinkers; show empathy and display Customer Services traits; be knowledgeable about the latest and greatest technologies. These are skills that we need to future develop our talent with. Additionally, I think we are also seeing the rise of Data Scientists in Reporting and Analytics areas, as well as the importance of building Centres of Excellence and Expertise focused on automation and RPA implementation, and as a shared services teams will need to learn to co-exist and collaborate closely with these new roles, as well as live in harmony with our digital workers and bots!
Can you please detail some key innovation initiatives within Apollo Tyres Global Business services? What kind of business impact has this delivered?
We are still very early on in our journey here at Apollo Tyres, and one which I am extremely excited and passionate about. However I strongly believe that everything we have spoken already, is at the heart of what we need to do and achieve – harmonisation and standardisation of processes; continuous improvement focus ingrained within the DNA of our organization; focus on Talent and People development; harnessing data, both master (MDM) and Transactional Data; driving Insights with Reporting & Analytics; moving up that value chain; tying together end to end processes into an ecosystem; being agents of change when it comes to Technology and Digital Enablement, and ultimately driving Customer and user Experience – and would love to come back to speak to you when we have successfully achieved all of the above if you will have me!