Robert Weltevreden is a GBS expert. A former Member of the Novartis Executive Committee, Head of Novartis Business Services and Head Customer & Technology Solutions, he led the digital transformation journey and GBS for Novartis and before that Syngenta. During his time heading Novartis Business Services (a 13,000 strong operation), he achieved enterprise-wide business process re-engineering, democratization of AI, introduction of extensive data analytics and the creation of an in-house consulting team. In this monthly series Robert will be sharing his expertise on what he sees as the factors that lead to GBS Innovation.
The way GBS has traditionally designed its services has been text book waterfall, however there are more and more examples of design thinking taking a hold within GBS organizations as the narrow back-office scope of GBS widens across areas such as Sales, Marketing, R&D, etc., & as GBS teams start to appreciate that you can have a dramatic positive impact on user experience also within the Finance-, HR- and IT scope of GBS.
The most recent SSON State of the Industry Report, showed that service excellence was the 2nd highest ranked on strategic targets for 2024, with 71% of the organizations saying it was a top priority. Design Thinking could be the answer to getting to Service Excellence…
Let me try to share some of my own learnings in applying design thinking within GBS.
However, none of this is meant to be the ultimate guide on how to do it.
The essence of design thinking is that you start (and finish) with the user experience. Which is already where many GBS professionals are struggling, as they like to think they know what the user needs because they are the expert in their respective field.
For example a S2P professional, who is steeped in thinking across the diverse aspects of supplier portals, accounts payable, product master data, vendor catalogues, etc., will look at this complexity and will be able to design logical and rational processes, systems and data structures which are in his or her mind the most efficient and effective way of delivering the S2P process. And, given this complexity, the S2P professional will find it hard to see the benefit of needing to explain all these aspects to an average user of the S2P process, „who would typically not be that interested anyways...“
However, what has been proven time and time again is that involving the user in your design decisions will dramatically improve the chance that you sustainably deliver an truly effective and efficient process, with built-in continuous improvement mechanisms, precisely because you co-create the design together with the user.
This is why I am such a believer in Design Thinking for GBS.
Here are some of the key learnings I have picked up along the way in applying Design Thinking for GBS, which I hope will be beneficial as you consider going this route for some of your own GBS services or solutions.
First, always be clear about the true business purpose (the Why) of the solution which you are designing, and explain this to the user group you are involving. When you are designing to solve a compliance issue, you will most probably get a different result than when you are designing for maximum revenue growth.
Second, do not design in isolation, always work across the entire design stack of process, technology, data and organization. Do not fall into the trap that all you need is a fancy new system, as without clean data to feed this system and an end-to-end process which seamlessly integrates with it, you will not get the desired results. Same goes for organizational impact, as more often than not a new service or solution design leads to changes in role profiles and/or number of roles you need.
Third, use the power of iteration which is an essential element of Design Thinking, don‘t wait to long to launch your Minimum Viable Product (MVP), but get it out there early for a select group of users, get their feedback and improve the MVP, etc.
Fourth, Design Thinking doesn‘t work in traditional project funding approaches. Writing a detailed Capex, with corresponding business case will dramatically limit the creativity and space you need to experiment. Better is to give a annual budget to the team in charge of designing, delivering & running the service or solution, so that they can make the trade-off decisions as if they are a „CEO of their own business“.
Fifth, as a GBS leader you need to visibly show support for the team who is applying Design Thinking to their business. They will need this as their way of working will typically rub against traditional approaches in the enterprise.This means you will need to be a role model in cross-functional collaboration, be permissive for risk taking and remind the team of the Why, whilst emphasizing the importance of excellent user experience.
Sixth, cross-functional teams are essential for success of this venture. A team needs at minimum include Process Owners, Technology experts, Service/Solution Delivery managers & users.
Seventh and last, Design Thinking is not something you learn from a course or a text book, it requires practice, plenty practice. Hence, don‘t try to start dozens of Design Thinking projects at the same time. Get an initial team to learn, apply and practice, so that they can become the ambassadors and trainers for the next groups and so that they can develop a Design Thinking methodology which works within your company‘s structures and practices.
I predict that the prevalence of Design Thinking will only increase, as one of the traditional hurdles, the cost of technology development, is coming down on the back of Cloud, AI, low/no code, etc.
Where 5 to 10 years ago, any change in design for a service or solution would mean expensive interventions in ERP systems, most organizations have now advanced their tech architecture to such an extent that the ERP has increasingly moved to be a system of record, with a more adaptable layer around it.
However, whilst the technology hurdle has been lowered, it‘s important to note that designing a service or solution also entails changes to process, data and organization, which is where the hurdles can be quite steep.
Design Thinking is a powerful tool, and when applied correctly, can turn GBS into an even more appreciated and influential transformation engine for the enterprise, and I am encouraged to see more and more GBS teams embrace and apply this concept in their business.