The US Summit for Leaders in Finance Shared Services

23rd-25th April 2013, Chicago

The question facing shared services professionals is: how are you adding value to the business?

Transitioning from a cost saving operation to a value adding business partner is a journey. Once you've standardized and automated, what can you do to become a trusted and respected partner to the business?

This event is designed to help finance shared services professionals cross the chasm from transactional to true value adding finance.

Our annual summit brings together shared services leaders and P2P experts to share their lessons learned on toning up their processes, and taking their organizations to the next level. Attend this event to:

• Develop the talent and leadership you make your organization a trusted business partner.
• Improve your competitive advantage by having aligned and streamlined finance and procurement departments.
• Build your brand and learn how to transform your organization's image to help you bring in more business.
• Leverage key data to drive performance and mitigate risk in your supply chain

See the full agenda here.

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Here’s what delegates said about our 2012 Summit:

“Not only informative, but information I can take away and use immediately” – AP Director, Bell Canada

“This has been the best conference I have ever attended!” – Shared Services Director, Cash America International

“This was a very informative event with many essential topics being discussed & lessons learned shared. Also a great networking opportunity” – Head of Supply Chain Management, Siemens

The US Summit for Leaders in Finance Shared Services

23rd-25th April 2013, Chicago

The Future of Shared Services

8:30 How will your existing talent pool support your 2014 goals and beyond?
Shared services organizations are evolving. Transactional processes have been largely automated and SSO’s service offerings are changing on a major scale. Furthermore, SSO frameworks are becoming more complex as scopes increase and outsourcing relationships develop. All this means the talent that you had in your service center a few years ago may not be the right talent for today or the future. This session will ask some questions that will provoke thought and action to ensure that:

• When you hire, your job descriptions fulfil objectives that tie in with your SSO goals
• HR is educated and onside
• Your leadership team is aligned in its hiring, developing and management of talent

Susie West
CEO
Sharedserviceslink.com

9:30 Faced with a yawn when you start talking shared services? How to completely change your SSO’s image from dry to exciting and why this is important
How is your shared services perceived by the wider business? Do they trust you? Do they know what you do? Do they ‘get’ you? Are they satisfied with your service? Do they actually know what the service is? If you aren’t well understood and trusted by the business, how can you expect to secure a broader scope and more ‘value-adding’ activities? And if your SSO is perceived as ‘dry’, how can you expect to attract the top talent? Your reputation is important, and building a brand can help you establish credibility, improve your visibility and ultimately help your financial bottom line. This session will:

• Educate you on the ‘power of brand’ and why it’s vital to an SSO’s success
• Help you learn how to build brand and messaging without throwing dollars at a massive marketing effort
• Illustrate the change that educating the business has on your SSO’s performance

Paul Bartley
Deputy Assistant Secretary for Program Support
Department of Health and Human Services

10:15 Morning refreshments with demo sponsored by Ariba

10:45 Winning hearts and minds in shared services
One of the most common lessons learned from shared services professionals who have undergone transformation projects, is not anticipating how difficult managing change can be. Dealing with people who don’t want to change their ways is difficult. The challenge of getting everyone on-board and changing the way they work is often not fully understood until after the change has taken place. This session will provide expert insight into how to become a successful change-maker.
This essential session will examine:

• Understanding the kind of change the organization can handle
• How to understand and win over senior management to promote your vision

Jennifer Moline, Director, International Accounting/Finance, VERIZON

11:30 Driving Process Excellence in Shared Services
The range of available cost efficiency benchmarks are as wide for organisations using a Shared Services model as for those that do not.  There is a major focus on performance measures and continuous improvement, but these have still not delivered the goods. Dan French shares an approach and experiences for driving process performance gains through understanding the nature of exceptions in business, recognising them in the continuous improvement cycle and using smart analytics to manage the Key Exception Indicators.

Dan French
CEO
Consider Solutions

12:15 Speaker clinic

12:30 Lunch

1:30 Why collaboration is so hard and how to make it happen elegantly between finance and procurement
The lucky few SSOs that have seen real union between finance and procurement are basking in the results. This session will examine what needs to happen throughout the organization to see real alignment, rather than casual alignment, between these two very different functions. This educational session will guide you through the milestones that need addressing to arrive at real collaboration. This session will address:

• The tricks and techniques that work well to align the functions
• The tangible results of a true partnership

James McDonald, Director of Procurement Operations, ING

2:15  On a scale of 1-5 how mature is your Shared Services Organization? And how do you take it to the  next level?

Shared services are evolving. They have been maturing and globalizing alongside the enterprises they support. Where are you on your shared services journey, and what are the enablers to take you to the next level? In this session, be expertly guided through the various stages of shared services organisation from captive, centralized functions to Global Business Services. This interactive session will have you meet your peers and discuss enablers to raise the bar and improve and advance your services.

Jodi Keppler, Director, Finance Shared Services, Hospira

3:30 Afternoon refreshments

4:00 How do you rank against your industry peers?
We all know that key performance indicators are what we should be relying on to drive our business in the right direction. Continually evaluating the performance of a particular project in quantitative terms can help the stakeholders understand how they are progressing. But what KPIs should we be relying on for accurate information? And how do industries stack up against each other? Mary Driscoll will share KPIs from APQC’s Open Standards Benchmarking Research database and show the vast gaps between top and bottom performers, and what separates the leading from the lagging. This session will help you:

• Gain insight on the best practices used by top performing organizations.
• Understand the key KPIs around process efficiency, productivity, cycle times, and error rates across a number of core financial management areas.
• See which industries come out “on top”

Mary Driscoll
Senior Research Fellow Financial Management
APQC

4:45 How to take ambitious ideas and make them a reality
An essential element of leadership is growing the organization’s capability to deliver more value – be it decision support or consulting. While most leaders have a good idea of what they want the organization to do, they struggle to translate their vision into focused and effective action. As their strategies move across and down the organization they become distorted, resulting in diluted business impact and wasted resources. Leaders need a well-defined process to manage the transition of their vision into reality – a strategy-to-execution process. When leaders follow this process, organizational performance increases exponentially. This session will provide a framework to make this happen.

Key takeaways include:

• Why strategies die early deaths
• How to focus your organization on the work that matters most
• A framework for strategy-to-execution management

Jeff Scott
VP Business and Technology Strategy
Accelare

4:45 Closing remarks 

5:00 Speaker clinic

5:15 Drinks reception

 

Day Two, Thursday April 24th 2013

8:30 Opening remarks from Susie West
Top ten tips learned from day one.

Make way for change

9:15 Exciting senior management about your vision – how to sell your dream to get what you want
Making significant, organizational changes requires all of the key stakeholders to be on board. If you are in the finance shared services, and the CXOs sit outside the shared service center, how do you influence someone who doesn’t sit in your organization? Learn how this organization gained the buy in of all the key stakeholders and senior managers to make the changes stick.

Eric Fullilove
CFO
Worldvision

10:00    Technology is instrumental to crossing the chasm
Technology is the piece that enables shared services to move away from the transactional. Without technology, your SSO is stuck. But technology itself is not the silver bullet. This session looks at how to leverage technology and workflow tools to capture efficiency savings, how to get your staff engaged with your technology and how it can enable you to move towards value adding activity.
Tara Semb, Director of Shared Services, AMSTED RAIL

10:45 Morning refreshments  

11:15  What kind of shared service leader are you?
sharedserviceslink.com and Deborah Kops of Sourcing Change conducted an industry-first study that examines the different career pathways that characterize the development of today’s shared services leaders. Are you a “lifer”, a “loyalist”, a “moonlighter” or an “expert”? This session will explore the results of the survey and help you understand how the industry you work in influences your career path and how your career progression influences your leadership style.
Deborah Kops Managing Prinicipal Sourcing Change

12:00 Speaker Clinic

12:15 Lunch

1:15 Interactive session: Improve customer satisfaction through standardized, end-to-end financial processes
What is the one thing that causes the most complaints about your service? Odds are it is caused by a broken or inefficient process. Bad processes mean slow service, redundant effort, frustrated employees and upset customers. Slick processes can make your efficiency and customer service go through the roof. So what is holding you back? This session will explore the strategies to understand, consolidate and standardise your processes globally. This session will help you:

• Convince process stakeholders the benefits of a harmonized process
• Develop a single source of the truth that aligns business with IT, collaborative improvement of process
• Learn how to fix broken processes so you can move them into a shared services model
• Overcome resistance to change and deal with sites and people that insist on maintaining their own processes

Nigel Kilpatrick, Chief Sales Officer, TIBCO NIMBUS

2:30 Afternoon Refreshments

3:00 Walking through fire: navigating through culture, complexity, and change
Change is the essential element for long term success, and most of us are exceptionally adept at managing the day-to-day incremental alterations that move our organizations forward. But when significant transformation is needed there is often organizational break down. This presentation is the story of one organization’s journey of transformation from a declining internal services provider to a growing entrepreneurial powerhouse. Key takeaways include:

• How to successfully change culture
• How to create a model for radical change
• How and why leaders need to change themselves

Jeff Scott
VP Business and Technology Strategy
ACCELARE

3:45 Speaker Clinic

4:00 Closing remarks & prize draws

4:15 Close of conference

 

The US Summit for Leaders in Finance Shared Services

Tuesday 23rd April 2013, Chicago

Learning Lab A 9:00am – 11:30am Learn How to kickstart your entire e-invoicing implementation in just three hours. Today’s leading enterprises are turning to Tradeshift not only for it’s world class e-invoicing and onboarding capabilities, but for all the additional power and functionality the platform delivers. Tradeshift has pioneered advanced technologies like Tradeshift CloudScan® and the Network Engagement Tool. And now Tradeshift is pleased to be partnering with companies like Intuit, KashFlow, and Sage - all of whom are building apps and integrating their products with Tradeshift. Today the cloud-based solution offers functionality to help streamline all areas of your shared services center, not just AP. Tradeshift is a platform for all your business interactions. Learn How: Tradeshift CloudScan® guarantees your enterprise receives e-invoices from day one. To provide your largest and smallest suppliers with the suite of tools they need to engage with your organization. Automating supplier onboarding ensures you reach your entire supply chain, including the long tail Advancements in mobile technology are impacting the industry. Implementing a Business Firewall will save your company resources by reducing invoice errors and disputes. Leading companies around the globe develop apps on the Tradeshift platform easily and cost effectively to further customize and add functionality. Attend the Learning Lab and see a complete, live demonstration. Learning Lab Faciliators: Ed Van Hooydonk and Kevin Burney, Tradeshift	OR	Learning Lab B 9:00am – 11:30am Discover Profits Through Invoice Automation and Data Analytics   In Shared Service Centers, an on-going challenge is to focus resources on value-add activities.  Without being able to add headcount, time must be saved in non-value areas (manual invoice entry) to be able to be applied in more valuable areas (advanced data capture, data analysis).  Invoice automation is an effective strategy in freeing up this resource time, but how do you know what  type of invoice automation is best for your organization?  And  how do you  make sure everyone gets on board with the new way of working? When the invoice and data management process becomes standardized and automated,  all stakeholders from Finance, Procurement and Business Operations will benefit.  See how the integration of invoice automation and advanced data capture can enable spend data analytics.  The benefits of which include: Improved process efficiency and productivity, Enhanced internal controls and compliance, Faster visibility into liabilities and expenditures, and More effective sourcing of goods and services, Join us to explore how to lower operating cost, increase process management effectiveness, and improve value for your spend dollar.    PRGX
Learning Lab C 11:30am-2:30pm Measure for Measure: Key Metrics to Achieve World-Class Payables Performance for Shared Services Organizations How do you benchmark your accounts payable operations? Without proper attention to the right metrics, your efforts to improve invoice processing efficiency and expand capture of early payment discounts will fall short of expectations. In this session, you will learn how you can effectively benchmark your accounts payable operations against your industry and peer groups. The presentation will show you how you can: Define a strategy for capturing all invoices—paper and electronic, PO and non-PO--that reduces operational costs by 60 to 80 percent   Increase adoption of e-invoicing across your supply chain Improve compliance to preferred vendors and contracted prices Achieve touchless processing rates of 98% or higher Develop a cash management strategy that expands early payment discounts while maintaining or extending your Days Payable Outstanding (DPO) Create a business case with strategic drivers including process efficiency, cost savings, compliance, and working capital optimization James Tucker, Global Director, Network & Finance Solutions Marketing, Ariba	OR	Learning Lab D 11:30am-2:30pm Driving Value in your Shared Service Organization Shared services has delivered on its promise to streamline support functions and contribute to their company’s competitive advantage. Once you’ve stardardized and automated, what next? How do you achieve the next layer of benefits? This learning lab leverages five guiding principles that are common traits with successful organizations that service broad diverse customer bases.  This session will enable you to: • Learn concepts that will enable scale in your Shared Service operation • Recognize how SSO’s are infusing innovation into their operations • Discuss process optimization techniques • Learn how others are becoming more responsive to their customers • Obtain best practices in coordination with corporate offices, SSO’s and Business Unit customers Brad DeMent and Trey Robinson, Scott Madden
Learning Lab E 2:30pm – 5:00pm Intelligent invoicing: Going beyond paperless to accurate Electronic invoices are a good first step towards streamlining and automating financial processes, how do you know you are harnessing and realizing the savings to their full extent? Has your organization implemented eInvoicing but continue to see high error rates? Are you reconciling and approving invoices in time to leverage discount terms? In this session, we will discuss how to harness savings from e-invoicing, and how to successfully implement and enforce business rules at every step. This session will address how you can streamline your accounts payable process, and we will share our experience in how we have seen companies automate PO processes, leverage efficiencies and capture savings in the millions. Hubwoo	OR	Learning Lab F 2:30pm – 5:00pm Engaging Your Supply Chain to Strengthen Working Capital and Trading Relationships Do you ever feel like there is an inefficiency in your financial supply chain? Do you ever wish there was a way to gain significantly better returns on excess liquidity all while helping suppliers in need of cash? Imagine a world where you pay your supplier less and for this they thank you... Innovative organizations realize that they need to monitor the health of their supply chain and have found a solution that allows them to strengthen their financial supply chain while unlocking hidden savings opportunities. Attend this session to learn how Fortune 500 companies are automating and maximizing supplier discounts to create a lean invoicing and payables process trimming millions annually off their bottom line. This learning lab will show you how to transform your finance function and become a critical element of your working capital management strategy. •  Understand the relationship between e-invoicing and your working capital management •  Learn how to engage with and onboard your suppliers from the outset •  Understand which variables impact supplier enrollment and how this impacts your working capital management •  Transition to the new Financial Supply Chain model to save millions annually, transforming traditional cost centers  into profit centers Joe Hyland, Taulia

The US Summit for Leaders in Finance Shared Services

23rd-25th April 2013, Chicago

Package	Really Really early bird Registered and paid by 1 Feb 13	Really early bird Registered and paid by 22 Feb 13	Early bird Registered and paid by  15 Mar 13	Standard prices
Premium Plus conference + 3 Learning Labs	50% off $1649.50	Save $500 $2,799	Save $300 $2,999	$3,299
Premium conference + 2 Learning Labs	50% off $1449.50	Save $400 $2,499	Save $200 $2,699	$2,899
Standard Plus conference + 1 Learning Labs	50% off $1224.50	Save $300 $2,149	Save $150 $2,299	$2,449
Standard conference only	50% off $999.50	Save $200 $1,799	Save $100 $1,899	$1,999
Vendor pass*				$2500

Please note - prices in the registration process are converted to GBP using the ratio 1GBP=1.5302USD.
* Limited vendor places are available to non end-user delegates.

Bring your team! sharedserviceslink.com understands the value of team knowledge sharing. Groups booking at the same time from the same company receive the following discounts (discounts apply to the full price only and cannot be applied retrospectively). Only one discount is applicable per non-member. In order to qualify for the early bird discounts, bookings must be received with payment before stated date. We do not combine discounts but we will honour the discount that is better for you. To make a group booking call +1-646-845-7349

Bring your team! Teams of 2 10% discount Teams of 3 15% discount Teams of 4 20% discount Teams of 5 25% discount Teams of 6 30% discount Teams of 7 35% discount Teams of 8 40% discount

Satisfaction guarantee at sharedserviceslink.com We are absolutely confident that you will receive value for money. To give this belief credence we are offering a money-back guarantee if you feel you have not experienced value for money from attending our events. There is no catch. To qualify for this you need to ensure you liaise with Susie West directly before the end of the conference, and that you attend all conference sessions over the two days. Learning Labs are not included in this guarantee. All refunds will deduct a 10% administration fee.