Tag: Global Business Services

«First of a kind Global Business Program designed to teach applied Shared Services expertise»

Posted on | by Beatrice Grillo | Leave a Comment on «First of a kind Global Business Program designed to teach applied Shared Services expertise»

Starting in September 2020, a new set of online courses will focus on Shared Services, processes and capabilities that can be shared among the various business units of a company — including finance, purchasing, supply chain, human resources, and information technology. These courses are offered for the first time.

With the aim to professionally certify executives in Shared Services, a critical corporate operations area, the Professional Global Business Services (P-GBS) Certification will be a transformational learning experience for participants. These courses are from MIP Politecnico di Milano, in partnership with renowned advisory services firm Inixia.

Inixia will bring their practical executive leadership expertise, drawing upon years of practical operational experience in leading best-in-class Fortune 20 Global Business Services (GBS) organizations. Inixia’s distinctiveness lies in its unique capabilities of having created an industry standard certification, called Professional GBS.

Made up of several modules, all will encompass the best of the global business community, taught by an international faculty composed of industry founders and experts, including world-class shared services and digital technology strategist, Filippo Passerini.

With over 30 years of business-building career with Procter & Gamble, Passerini will be one of the key industry leaders giving insights, guidance, and testimonials throughout the program. He said:

“Global Business Services is a proven model and a fast-growth industry. In addition to helping businesses increase efficiency and reduce costs, it’s a strategic enabler for innovation and innovative business models. However, up until now, there was no structured training to provide professionals in this area with the required knowledge, competency, and skills. It’s an honor and privilege to make my experience available to such a mission, together with my distinguished colleagues and the top-notch MIP School.”  

Taught entirely in English, the unique set of online executive courses will allow participants to develop new skills, essential for the enhancement of their managerial professionalism within the Global Business Services market. As well as this, the courses are flexible and can be adapted to suit client’s specific needs.

“We can work with clients on an à la carte basis, creating different tailor-made streams of in-person courses leveraging modules from across pillars to suit the different types of roles their people may occupy across their organizations” said Sergio Terzi, Associate Dean for Executive Education at MIP Politecnico di Milano.

Participants who complete all three pillars of GBS Training Modules and the GBS Strategic Leadership Modules will be certified in the P-GBS discipline by Inixia and MIP Politecnico di Milano, a widely recognized and highly sought-after industry accolade.

Global Business Services: the GBS Certification Program comes to MIP

Posted on | by Simona Strepparola | Leave a Comment on Global Business Services: the GBS Certification Program comes to MIP

Filippo Passerini, considered one of the world’s top experts in Global Business Services, illustrates the advantages of a GBS strategy.

A strategy aimed at large companies, thanks to which it’s possible to reduce costs by exploiting economies of scale, freeing up resources from the most repetitive tasks and transforming their business model: «It basically is a matter of aggregating services within a company, when these are dispersed or duplicated in different organizations. This is the essence of GBS (Global business services)», explains Filippo Passerini, director of the GBS Certification Program for MIP Politecnico di Milano.

GBS explained by professionals in the sector

«I had the fortune to build and manage GBS in Procter & Gamble (P&G) for over 12 years. Our business benefited enormously, both in terms of cost reduction and innovation. I would now like to create value for other companies and for individuals, sharing knowledge and skills», explains Passerini. «I’m very satisfied to be able to work with MIP for this programme: it offers an infrastructure that allows you to effectively go to the market and certifies the educational rigor of contents. The latter will be developed by Inixia».
Inixia is a consulting service whose advisors all have concrete experience with GBS and shared services: «They are people who, like me, had worked for P&G, whose GBS model is considered to be a real benchmark. Inixia was created with the aim of setting up a certification programme that allows people to obtain a qualification in this area».
Indeed, GBS can’t be improvised, warns Passerini: «There is a specific sequence of steps to follow, that leads to better results more quickly. There’s a strategy to follow and this is also why it’s important to gain specific skills».
At the same time, the numbers speak clearly: in 2018 the value of the global shared services market amounted to 56 billion dollars, a figure that is expected to double by 2025.
Equally tangible are the advantages for companies: a cost reduction of up to 50%, together with a tripling in value creation. The areas of application involve almost all of a company’s operational services and processes, in any sector: finance, human resources, supply chain, purchasing, IT, marketing and sales processes, customer and consumer service centres.

GBS and the digital transformation

It would be wrong, however, to think that GBS, by now with a twenty-year history behind it, is a static strategy. Just think of the impact the digital transformation has had on the organizational structure of companies. «Digital is a great resource», explains Passerini. «The current organization of companies forces us to use resources, human and material, in low value-added but necessary operational processes. For example, the billing cycle, payments to suppliers, or salaries for employees and many other internal processes: they’re essential activities, but consist of repetitive steps that don’t add value to the core business. GBS is an excellent platform for the digital transformation: these processes can be automated and further optimized by applying new technologies. In this way, efficiency and effectiveness are increased, resources are freed up for more strategic tasks. The benefits can vary widely, from “simple” cost reduction to an engine for innovation of the operational model. And that’s where expertise becomes important».

How the GBS Certification Program is structured

It is for this reason, then, that the GBS Certification programme was created for MIP. «These are short online classes lasting from six to 12 hours», explains Passerini. «The course is structured in five levels. It starts with the Foundation level, which addresses the basic principles of GBS. This is followed by what we have called pillars: Service Management, Operations Management, Transformation. At the end, there’s the Leadership level, after which you obtain certification. We conceived it a little bit like a path that follows a sort of managerial seniority, aimed both at those are at the beginning of their experience or in more operational roles, both senior managers and GBS leaders. It’s a real process of professionalization, to use an English term that I find very appropriate in this case. The goal is to train highly competent people».