Our second Digital network meeting was kindly hosted by Yorkshire Water, in Leeds, on Wednesday June the 12th. Host and Digital Network co-Chair Simon Appleyard introduced an interesting and topical agenda focused on utilising data and analytics in a Shared Services/GBS environment in order to create value for the overall business. Together with Lisa Hooley, SSF-UK Board Director and Digital Network co-Chair, they facilitated and led a meeting characterised by the sharing of critical insights and also by lively debate, where members participated actively and were engaged throughout. All attendees rated the meeting as having been valuable time spent out of the office.
Following introductions, the meeting began with a member sharing from James Holden of Yorkshire Water, who talked through the Shared Services journey so far, shared the current scope of services and the future plans for their centre. This prompted a number of questions and a lively discussion about the experience, lessons learned and thinking behind the direction Yorkshire Water are taking. James did an awesome job, touching on topics including the importance of master data, team training and development requirements and the importance of stakeholder engagement and buy-in for the scope of your change - proving just how valuable it is to gain insight from the Operational Team perspective when engaging in change, data/analytics and automation initiatives.
The spirit of sharing continued with a fantastic data-led contribution from Phil King - Senior Director, GBS and Finance Advisory at The Hackett Group, which drove brilliant discussions about the impacts to Shared Services/GBS of the digital agenda and where Hackett’s data predicts we are heading as an industry, the importance of Shared Services being ‘at the table’ during target operating model initiatives – and the 3 E’s of value; now including ‘experience’ alongside the traditional factors of ‘efficiency’ and ‘effectiveness’.
Following lunch, our host Simon shared his ‘8 steps to effective insight’, during which he shared his experience and perspective on how to get started on creating insights from data, and how that, in turn, creates valuable deliverables that Shared Services centres can contribute to the wider business. This prompted fantastic discussions within the group on topics as wide-ranging as making sure Shared Services benefits are being tracked and continuously shared in the same way across the business – to ensuring that the right SMEs are engaged to support the quality and credibility of insight generated. This also formed a great take-away deck that members can use when they get back to the office.
The meeting was rounded off with a round table discussion covering responses and reactions to the topics of the day, including gaining insights and experience from the other members in attendance – and live sli.do polling which captured key take-aways from the meeting and proposed discussion and sharing topics for future meetings.
Key resources from the meeting will be shared to the Digital Network resources section of our website.
Do join us at the next Digital Network meeting, which will be held on September 10th at the Co-op in Manchester, for what will undoubtedly be another fantastic exercise in collaboration and best-practice sharing.
