Shared Services & Outsourcing Week Conference

Finance at SSOW

SSON’s Shared Services & Outsourcing Week is a one-stop-shop for finance content. We’ve compiled 4 days of the best speakers and sessions for you to share with other finance professionals from around the globe. Register today for your opportunity to join the largest and longest running shared services conference.

Why Attend?

Finance and accounting have seen a shift in the past decade towards the GBS model with technology accelerating the pace of change. And after the pandemic, the need to digitize and automate financial processes is clear with hybrid and remote working becoming commonplace. Accounts Payable Automation, Modern Order-to-Cash, Digitized Procure-to-Pay, and more are priorities for organizations during their technology transformation. We understand the most pressing challenges finance leaders and workers are facing this year, and we’ve designed our program to meet your needs. At SSOW, you can design your agenda around what matters most to you. 

Key Topics and Themes

• Cost Savings Optimization

• Process Ownership for Efficiency

• Predictive Analytics in Finance

• Cash Flow Acceleration

• Strategic Finance Leadership

• P2P Standardization

• O2C Transformation with AI

• Data-Driven Decision Making

 Featured Sessions

All Finance Sessions

• Generative AI for Finance & Accounting Bootcamp

Cut through the noise and get all the answers to the questions keeping you up at night on generative AI at this dedicated bootcamp. This was designed with Finance leaders in mind to help navigate the benefits and intricacies of this technology to better support your business goals in a competitive landscape.

- Unlock the Potential to Streamline Transactional Finance Activities by Harnessing Unlabeled Data: Learn how Generative AI can help automate report generation, billing, payments, collections and more to boost productivity and efficiency for the business through capacity creation.

- Maximize Insight Generation and Strategic Decision-Making for Better Outcomes: Leverage the power of interpretation to create value from your data and make meaningful decisions for long-term profitability and growth at scale.

- Redefine Time for Your Workforce to Cultivate Strategic Value with the Support of Augmentation: It’s not about replacing workers, it is about optimizing their time and leveraging strategic thinking to better benefit the business. Hear ways to motivate your workforce, leverage change management tools and create a plan to upskill your workforce to complement and maximize automation.

- Advance Digital Leadership, Build Your Tech Roadmap and Plan for Scalability to Support Your Enterprise Goals: Learn how to become an advocate for transformation initiatives, hear best practices to partner with C-suite and tech teams to bring your use cases to fruition and consider factors that impact bringing your technology to scale.

- Access Innovative Technologies Leading the Market for Optimal Adoption: Learn how gpt powered tools can support your business goals and effective strategies to maximize capabilities with the right technology partner. will gather CFOs, CAOs, Controllers and Finance leaders to take a deep dive into the opportunities and successful use cases of how generative AI can advance business and strategic tips on how to scale this technology enterprise-wide.

• IT Financial Management Bootcamp

Unlock the keys to effective IT Financial Management at our dedicated bootcamp. This program is meticulously designed with finance leaders in mind, equipping you with the knowledge and strategies needed to excel in the realm of IT financial management. Throughout the bootcamp, you'll delve deep into the world of IT finances, gaining a comprehensive understanding of the tools, techniques, and best practices that will empower you to better support your business goals in a highly competitive environment. Our seasoned experts will guide you through the essentials of financial management in IT, ensuring you have the skills and insights necessary to make informed decisions and drive financial success for your organization.

- Optimize IT Financial Operations: Discover how to streamline transactional finance activities by leveraging IT Financial Management strategies. Learn to harness data effectively, automate financial processes, and enhance productivity across functions such as reporting, billing, payments, and collections.

- Drive Informed Decision-Making: Unlock the power of data interpretation and analysis to maximize insight generation. Gain the skills to make strategic decisions that contribute to long-term profitability and scalable growth for your organization.

- Enhance Workforce Productivity: Explore how IT Financial Management isn't about replacing workers but optimizing their time and skills. Learn strategies to motivate your workforce, implement change management tools, and create upskilling plans that complement automation and maximize the strategic value your team brings to the business.

- Become a Digital Leader: Elevate your digital leadership skills by building a robust technology roadmap and scalability plan. Discover how to advocate for transformation initiatives, collaborate effectively with C-suite executives and tech teams, and successfully bring your IT Financial Management use cases to fruition.

- Embrace Innovative Technologies: Stay ahead in the market by embracing cutting-edge technologies. Understand how AI-powered tools, including Generative AI, can support your financial goals and learn effective strategies for maximizing their capabilities through partnerships with the right technology providers.

• Creating a World Class O2C Function through Finance Transformation Initiatives and Technology

In times of disruption, cash flow is top of mind. Take a deeper look at finance automation and how to maximize efficiencies in O2C processes to offset uncertainty and become a dynamic function of the business. Join this workshop to dive into the key drivers for finance modernization to transform the business for competitive advantage.

- Understand what transformation means within your organization and align your goals with business initiatives
- Identify gaps in O2C processes for improvement
- Outline the function of the GPO to create optimal process efficiency and streamline controls across the business to save time, effort and resources
- Explore advanced automation and AI technologies to drive transformation and scalable growth
- Hear best practices on how to revamp your O2C process for improved efficiency, productivity and outcomes

• Leverage AP & Automation to Achieve Measurable Value for the Enterprise

Utilizing AP automation tools appropriately can greatly affect speed and productivity for the business. Leveraging AP can lead to greater accuracy and efficiency across functions, leading to elevated enterprise excellence and cost savings.

- Uncover key benefits of AP and the ability to close gaps in skillsets & timeline

- Consider innovative applications of AP automation across the business

- Explore ways to quantify value to the business to justify technology to leadership

- Assess scalability of AP automation programs to deliver favorable outcomes

- Hear use cases of successful implementation and lessons learned along the way from leading companies

• Panel: The Future of Cost Savings and Where to Optimize to Support the Margins

This session will focus on the future of cost savings optimization to support profit margins. Discover how to optimize cost savings without sacrificing speed and accuracy Explore how to optimize end to end processes across the enterprise Break the functional silos to drive efficiency and collaboration and reduce cost where it matters.

• Process Ownership - the Underutilized Supercharger for End-to-End Optimization

Understand the steps it takes to launch a successful process ownership role in your SSC. Why is splitting the finance part from the customer service part important? How to push outside E2E when it sits within functional areas Setting common targets, incentives and transparent communication to drive your process

• How GBS Impacts Margin, Revenue and Cash

Explore the top drivers for delivering value-based improvements on core business results and hear. How GBS organizations are quantifying the impact.

• Interactive Discussion Groups (IDGs): 

- Using Predictive Analytics to Improve Decision Support

- Accelerate and Secure Cash Flow in the Order-To-Cash Process

- Achieving Record-to-Report Excellence

- End-to-End Source-To- Pay Excellence

- Choosing the Right Location to Drive Cost Savings

• Think Tank: Pioneering Procurement and Financial Transformation for Future-Ready Enterprises

Join us to uncover how to implement cutting-edge solutions to reshape traditional processes, elevate operational efficiency, and propel businesses toward a future of sustainable growth. Streamline processes and optimize resource utilization. Drive cost savings, enhance supplier collaboration, and mitigate risks seamlessly integrate data-driven decision making.

• Think Tank: Driving Strategic Value through Transformational Finance Leadership

Discover the power of transformational finance leadership in delivering strategic value within GBS. Gain insights into driving operational excellence, fostering collaboration, and developing a high-performance, customer-centric finance team to achieve tangible results and enhance overall business performance.

- Unlock the potential of business process transformation to optimize financial operations and align with broader organizational goals

- Learn effective strategies for cultivating a high-performance and engaged finance team, elevating productivity and job satisfaction

• Drive Transparency through Efficient P2P Systems and Process Standardization

- Unpack the right balance between processes that conform to standardization measures vs. more complex and individualized processes
- Outline the steps involved to achieve an effective alignment of standardization across the business
- Explore achievable and measurable KPIs and other performance measures to drive efficiency

• Accelerate your O2C Transformation Journey through AI & Automation

With all of the technologies that can be applied to O2C Transformation including RPA, AI, Machine Learning, Natural Language Processing and Intelligent Document Processing, it is critical to understand how to best optimize each investment. Work with your peers to demystify these tools and how to apply them in your O2C processes.

- Breakdown key differences between each tool and goals for each technology
- Examine use cases for RPA & AI Order to Cash processes
- Hear tips and tricks to find the right balance when combining tools to help deliver the best results

• How Generative AI is Transforming Order to Cash

- Understand how generative AI is transforming the customer to cash process
- Standardization processes while layering on enabling technology
- Improving customer experience and creating employee capacity to focus on high value tasks

• Driving Insightful Decision Making with Data-Driven Discovery

In a time where automation strives to keep up with demands, this session will scrutinize the pressure to excel and encourage a fresh perspective on data analysis. Discover how strategic insights can pinpoint areas for improvement.

- Leverage data-driven strategies to accelerate your shared services and outsourcing journey and navigate the path to sustainable success.

- Explore the evolving landscape of business automation and the pressing need for accelerated performance amidst rising expectations

• Transforming Record to Report for Frictionless Finance

- Defining the role of R2R process owners in the transformation journey
- Identifying the technologies available to design and enhance R2R process
- Rethinking R2R function to drive value and business insights to the organization

Speaker Spotlight

Additional Finance Resources

Leading Order-to-Cash Amid COVID-19

While the fears of economic uncertainty and global recession are grappling every business amid the COVID-19 pandemic, focus on cash flow - managing risk, maximizing liquidity from receivables, and optimizing worker capital - has become paramount for every business - big or small.

Transforming AP Operations: More Than Adding Automation, It Requires Content Intelligence

The pandemic put a spotlight on manual invoice processing and paper plagued workflows. Shared Services teams found themselves thrust into remote work with operations that still relied on paper-based processes executed with manual workflows and handoffs. The future of work includes remote work as a key component to renewed organizational design and workflows. How has work been redesigned as a result of what accounting teams learned from the pandemic?

How Establishing a Governance Model Helps Outsourcing Accounts Receivable

The accounts receivable landscape has been changing at a rapid pace over the last several years. AR teams are currently seeing deductions and chargebacks go through the roof, and many are noticing difficulties with the order-to-cash process. In response, organizations are increasing their investment in automation to benefit these teams.

State of Order-to-Cash in Shared Services

The lagging health of the O2C process is reflected across key metrics, which tell a somber story: DSO is up, deductions are up, money is being left on the table. However, not all is lost. Service delivery and sourcing models are being reevaluated with a preference for captives; and automation-driven technology is proving effective at recouping lost cash.