As countries are slowly exiting from total lockdowns, the road to recovery seems steep and rugged, leaving many companies with a sense of foreboding. According to Christine Lagarde, former head of the IMF and current President of the European Central Bank: “given the nature of the crisis, all hands should be on deck, all available tools should be used.”
Global Business Services organisations can also take concrete steps in response to this crisis. For example, the COVID-19 pandemic laid bare the necessity of new relationships between the workforce, workplace, suppliers and customers. For GBS organisations, this will invariably affect how work is delivered, partnerships configured and technology stacks setup.
Responding to the global lockdowns, Global Business Services were quick to enable their own workforce and maintain service, whilst also successfully supporting the wider business in establishing work-from-home (WFH) infrastructure.
Nevertheless, GBS leaders will need to revamp their Business Continuity Planning (BCP) and associated capabilities in light of COVID-19, namely:
This will allow organisations to be better poised to deliver future work with minimal disruption.
All our existing business continuity plans that were built on the premise of a single location being disrupted had to be swiftly redesigned.
Natarajan Gopalan, Head of Integrated Business Services and Finance
Transformation at Philip Morris International
COVID-19 has propelled many GBS organisations into the future of work within a fortnight. It has amplified the need to rethink how work is delivered, the composition and management of the workforce and that of the workplace itself.
To emerge stronger from COVID-19 we believe that workforce strategies in the recovery phase will be best orchestrated through five critical actions: reflect, recommit, re-engage, rethink, and reboot. These actions can help organisations to bridge the crisis response to the new normal by laying the foundation to thrive in the aftermath of the crisis. The “next normal” requires thoughtful consideration of the work, workforce and workplace.
Natarajan Gopalan, Head of Integrated Business Services and Finance Transformation at Philip Morris International envisions that, fundamentally, GBS strategies will not be changed by COVID-19. Instead, the crisis has shown the imperative of a cross-organisational mindset that is intensely curious, open to learning, flexible in approach and intensely customer focused.
The key consideration to this being:
Read the full report for Gopalan’s contribution “Winning in the new normal”.
The lockdowns around the world and subsequent unique working conditions highlighted the need for advanced and cooperative vendor management governance. Strong partnerships with third parties and/or business customers allow for the delivery of best-in-class services and foster a resilient environment.
The COVID-19 crisis has shown the benefit of well-developed networks and partnerships to ascertain successful service delivery.
The recovery from this crisis and ability for GBS organisations to thrive going forward will be directly linked to the ability to increase the level of digital maturity. Those already extensively leveraging digital solutions were better prepared.
GBS leaders will need to continue to invest in:
Overall, GBS organisations are well positioned to overcome the foreboding challenges. GBS leaders must move quickly to enable their processes and people, implementing flexible workplace models (incl. WFH setups), leveraging digital interventions and forging of stronger partnerships to deliver best-in-class services. This will cement the position of GBS position as the one stop shop for all business users in such difficult times.