Global Business Services

Global Business Services (GBS) is the evolution of Shared Services and Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) – both focused on process efficiency improvement and cost reduction. It’s a key pillar of a digital strategy that helps companies navigate the Transformative Age. 

What EY can do for you

Organizations of all sizes, in all sectors, are experiencing disruptive change caused by exponential advances in technology and volatile, uncertain market conditions. New business models are being driven by new players that seem to rewrite the rules almost overnight.

Disruption requires transformation

Digitalization means that companies need to transform their business model in the very near future. Such transformation requires conceptual knowledge for digital planning and implementation. CEOs today need to ask themselves what digital strategy is to be applied and how to reach the right operating model to maximize the opportunities of the digital age.

Global Business Services has a critical role to play

Global Business Services (GBS) focuses on creating customer-centric, digitized process flows across functions and geographies. It includes agile operating units that are steered globally and independently of traditional business units. Innovation is in the DNA of modern GBS, and emerging technology managed by GBS can support exceptional performance across the organization; at the same time, GBS units remain lean, cost-competitive and efficient.

EY clients have found that implementing or enhancing GBS operations can help to:

  • Reach lean, cost-efficient operations: GBS results in streamlined processes, consistent data and an optimized cost structure based on scale, automation and labor arbitrage effects.
  • Establish an agile operating platform: GBS drives an agile service delivery model for support functions that leads to both operational and strategic benefits, for example when it comes to the integration of new units in the context of mergers and acquisitions.
  • Drive a company's digitalization: GBS has the potential to be the digital transformation engine for the wider organization, and with good reason: GBS knows more about processes, owns more data and leverages more technology than any single function. It can thus help companies to adopt emerging technology such as intelligent automation, natural language processing, blockchain and data analytics to create fully automated, transparent end-to-end process chains. GBS is a strategic bet toward digital business models that can ensure sustainable growth in the digital age.
  • Enable a superior customer journey: GBS, being rooted in deep service understanding, responsiveness and availability and being owners of key client data, can help companies get closer to their customers and reinvent themselves to craft exceptional customer experiences.

How can GBS address today’s and tomorrow’s challenges?

Business leaders are grappling with a world that is more volatile and more complex than ever before. The digital age demands greater agility, better speed, and a completely different skill set for talent. When old jobs become obsolete and business models disrupted, your agile, customer-centric, fully digitized and intelligent Global Business Services organization can help you thrive in the digital age.

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