Resources AI and Sustainability: A Shared Path for Shared Services
Reflections on SSOW Europe 2024: Matt Clarke, Managing Director of Global Workforce Solutions at ADEC
I recently had the pleasure of attending SSON’s Shared Services and Outsourcing Week – Europe.
It was a well organised, high-quality event featuring many excellent speakers, attended by hundreds of Global Business Services (GBS) leaders from some of the most impressive companies on the planet. Spending the week in beautiful Cascais, Lisbon only improved the experience.
It won’t surprise you to learn that almost every conversation was about AI.
But even though AI got most of the attention, I came home with a real sense of optimism about GBS’ opportunity to drive sustainability.
I’d like to tell you why.
Over the course of the three days of the event, a brilliant artist drew doodles based on the topics covered at the various talks. Naturally, with AI dominating most discussions, there were a lot of robots in the resulting mural. But, as observed by Richard Williams, by the end of the event, the mural featured more people than robots.
This is a small point, but I think it demonstrates the maturity with which most GBS leaders think about AI. As exciting as these new technologies are, the focus is still – rightly – on people, and the commitment from leading organisations to retain people on their AI journey is laudable.
What I found interesting about the discussion of AI at the event – and why, on balance, I felt it deserved the limelight – is that organizations are sharing concrete and sophisticated use cases now. The value of these technologies is starting to become real. Leading organisations that are several years into their journey are clearly maturing their AI implementations and are seeing tangible benefits from the insights it is providing.
However, while there was no shortage of examples of how organisations are experimenting with generative AI implementations, it was clear there’s still a big gap between the perception of this budding technology and the reality.
It is still a minority of companies that have implemented AI in production environments. Indeed, the SSON Analytics survey highlights, excellently presented by Tom Bangermann, showed how most of the GBS community isn’t as far along the automation journey as the select few on the Most Admired list.
I think it’s safe to say we’re still in the very early stages of this trend, but I have no doubt that adoption and maturity will continue to increase.
As an aside, and as provider of outsourced services, I was encouraged that SSON’s research shows that 41% of GBS organizations expect to increase their use of outsourcing and only 16% to decrease in 2024.
Seeing the progress organizations have been making with AI gave me a real sense of optimism about how much more GBS can be doing to spearhead sustainability.
As with AI adoption, we’re still very much in the early stages of GBS taking on responsibility for Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) practices. Currently there is a small but significant percentage who have ownership for these initiatives, either directly or indirectly. There is a real opportunity for GBS organisations to provide strategic value on this front.
And again, like with AI, there is real maturity in the way leading firms were thinking about the subject – even if there was only one panel discussion dedicated to ESG at this event.
Just as GBS is moving from a cost-saving mindset to one about adding strategic value, I was pleased to see a similar interest in moving from a compliance mindset about ESG to one about impact and value creation.
The impressive panel speakers, Susanne Dreyer, Rolf Lux, Ionna Botezatu and Leigh Nicholson, spoke generously about their experiences leading the charge for ESG and driving materiality assessments to make the best possible decisions. (Incidentally, if you’d like to learn a bit more about how GBS can lead the ESG charge, read ADEC’s latest guide.)
Notably, they highlighted the need to understand jurisdictions, start small and have a defined roadmap. Again, not dissimilar to AI where the emphasis is on starting with small experiments, failing\learning fast, and scaling success fast.
I also thought it was interesting that they pointed out how treating ESG like a compliance checkbox doesn’t really serve your stakeholders.
Just ticking boxes doesn’t meet shareholders’ expectations, it certainly doesn’t impress customers and crucially, purpose matters more than ever to employees.
It’s why I’d have loved to have seen more than a single discussion on these crucial topics. In particular, I’d have loved for more discussion around how Impact Sourcing can help GBS make a bigger strategic impact.
Not least because of the intense discussion that broke out during the G6 debate (moderated brilliantly by Deborah Kops who didn’t pull any punches) on the vital subject of why more women aren’t represented in senior BPO leadership roles.
But also, because ultimately, GBS is a human-centric effort that’s proving it can take on novel, strategic challenges and own complex initiatives like sustainability and AI.
I came away from the event with real confidence that in the coming years, we’ll see GBS successfully driving the sustainability agenda.
And if that gets even half the attention AI currently does, I think the world will be a better place for it.
—
This article was originally published on LinkedIn by Matt Clarke, MD of Global Workforce Solutions for ADEC.
A highly experienced Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) professional and business leader, Matt is responsible for driving strategic, value-driven customer offers for ADEC’s Workforce Solutions. Aligned with a special interest in sustainability, Matt is an advocate of purpose-driven BPO and integrating Impact Sourcing into outsourcing models.
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影响购买大宗化学品的主要因素往往是成本和即时性。因此,买家经常更换这些化学品的供应商是很常见的现象。
ZDHC对大宗化学品的定义是,具有已知化学结构和单一CAS(Chemical Abstracts Service)编号的单一物质或化合物。这些化学品通常用于制造过程中创造条件或作为辅助剂。不同厂家生产的两种大宗化学品具有相同性和互换性。它们通常不会留在最终产品上,而是在加工过程中被清洗掉了。
虽然大宗化学品包含在ZDHC MRSL(制造限制物质清单)中,但由于在ZDHC网关中参与大宗化学品行业并将这些物质纳入符合ZDHC MRSL的ZDHC网关产品数据库仍有一定挑战,所以大宗化学品被排除在Performance InCheck报告之外。
大宗化学品制造商服务于多个行业,不限于纺织、服装、皮革和鞋类,这使得在可追溯性和地图绘制方面具有挑战性。影响购买大宗化学品的主要因素往往是成本和即时性。因此,买家经常更换这些化学品的供应商是很常见的现象。
为了保证清单数据的准确性和及时性,有如下建议:
检查和更新您的化学品清单
定期检查和更新您的化学品清单,以反映任何变化或新增数据。核实所有化学品,包括大宗化学品,是否准确记录。
每月清单更新
确保化学品清单每月更新,包括期间使用的所有化学品,以确保数据的准确和即时性。
熟悉ZDHC更新指南
供应商应熟悉ZDHC大宗化学品指南ZDHC Commodity Chemical Guide。本指南概述了管理大宗化学品的最佳做法,确保它们得到负责任的评估和储存。
有关大宗化学品的更多信息,请点击这里click here
随着环境问题成为人们关注的焦点,品牌、监管机构和消费者都要求供应商提高透明度,承担更大的责任。但这对服装和纺织行业的供应商意味着什么?
数据表明:
70%的品牌更喜欢拥有透明的可持续发展数据的供应商。品牌正在优先考虑那些能够提供可验证数据的供应商。如果没有透明度,供应商就有可能把业务输给已经准备好的竞争对手。
时尚供应链占全球碳排放量的10%。服装业是造成气候变化的最大因素之一。减少碳排放不再仅仅是合规性的问题,而是关于在一个可持续性是品牌和消费者的关键决策因素的市场中保持相关性。。
纺织生产占全球工业水污染的20%。纺织制造中的化学密集型工艺造成了严重的水污染。品牌越来越多地执行更严格的环境要求,这使得供应商必须改善废水管理和化学品合规性。
CleanChain如何赋能供应商?
供应商需要合适的工具来应对这些挑战并实现可持续发展目标。CleanChain简化了环境合规和可持续发展报告,帮助供应商
✅自动化合规性追踪,并确保符合ZDHC MRSL和其他法规。
✅通过实时数据洞察和性能监控减少碳和水足迹。
✅改善化学品管理,确保更安全、更可持续的生产过程。
✅通过提供经过验证的、透明的可持续发展数据,与品牌建立信任。
可持续供应链的未来
可持续性不仅仅是满足法规要求——它还关乎提高竞争优势,加强品牌关系,以及企业的未来发展。随着对可持续发展的期望不断提高,主动适应的供应商将最有利于长期成功。
cleanchain.cn@adec-innovations.com
东丽酒伊织染 (南通) 有限公司 (公司简称 TSD), 成立于1994年, 是东丽集团 (Toray) 在中国投资规模最大的制造型公司, 是一家以化学合成纤维为主的坯布织造、功能性面料加工·染色、成衣制造销售及水处理 为核心事业的公司。公司拥有从新技术研 发、织造/染色/后整理/检测及成衣制 造的一条龙生产流程。作为东丽海外的标 杆工厂, TSD拥有一流的安全、环境和职业 卫生、能源管理体系, 践行着TSD对于社会 责任感的承诺。公司秉承“通过创造新的 价值为社会做贡献”的企业理念, 以不懈的 创新精神和科技实力为客户不断开发品质 上乘、性能卓越的面料, 谋求与每一位顾客 的共同发展。
客户面临的挑战
在采用CleanChain这款在线化学品管理系统之前, 我们在执行ZDHC的过程中, 由于化学品使用类别多且量大, 很难实现实时追踪现有化学品的MRSL合规性。同时, 针对没有合规性的化学品以及证书到期的产品, 我们需要人工核实和整理相关列表, 并一一和化学品制剂商进行沟通。整个过程需要花费大量的时间,极大地影响我们的工作效率。另外, 如何提高MRLS的整体符合性,也是我们的一大挑战。最后, 在采用系统前, 我们不明确我司客户对于我们进入CleanChain平台持何种态度及其认可程度如何。
CleanChain解决方案
我司化学品管理工作者每月在系统里按时上传化学品清单,并下载InCheck报告。为了避免用户错过上传的时间截点, CleanChain还会有自动化的邮件提醒用户及时上传化学品数据。除了定期上传化学品数据外, 我们日常工作中,也会利用系统的Dashboard来查看到期的产品以及没有合规性的产品列表。根据这份列表, 我们有针对性地和化学品供应商开展高效的沟通, 鼓励并帮助他们对未合规的产品进行检测并上传至ZDHC Gateway网关。同时, 在数据的分享上, 通过CleanChain的connect功能, 与客户取得关联, 系统可自动帮助用户将CIL数据和InCheck报告分享给我们的合作品牌。CleanChain在数据的管理上, 帮助我们节省了手动分享报告和清单的时间, 大大地提高了工作效率 。
CleanChain带给我们的价值
The implementation of the CleanChain platform has significantly reduced our exposure to chemical risk substances while greatly enhancing the efficiency of our chemical management efforts. Additionally, adopting CleanChain has strengthened customer recognition and trust, particularly among those familiar with or already utilizing the platform. Ultimately, CleanChain plays a key role in advancing our sustainability initiatives.
采用CleanChain系统,在很大程度上帮助我司规避了化学品的风险物质, 也大大提高了我司化学品管理方向的工作效率。同时, CleanChain系统的采用提升了客户对于我司的认可度及信任度, 尤其是对于了解或者已经使用CleanChain平台的客户而言。最后, CleanChain促进了我司可持续发展进程。
联系我们 cleanchain.cn@adec-innovations.com
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