{"id":883,"date":"2016-04-15T09:05:00","date_gmt":"2016-04-15T09:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/projects\/horsesforsources\/shantanu-ghosh_041516\/"},"modified":"2016-04-15T09:05:00","modified_gmt":"2016-04-15T09:05:00","slug":"shantanu-ghosh_041516","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/shantanu-ghosh_041516\/","title":{"rendered":"Let’s get lean digital with Shantanu"},"content":{"rendered":"
Shantanu Ghosh, SVP CFO Services and Consulting, Genpact (Click for bio)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Digital, digital everywhere, but what about the finance function? It took a decade for accountants to make the seismic shift from Lotus 1-2-3 to MS Excel… so how much focus is our favorite business function putting on today’s advances in analytics tools, interactive and collaborative solutions, mobility and automation?<\/p>\n
Can finance executives really embrace digital to break away from some of the legacy mindsets, processes and technologies that have plagued the function for decades?<\/p>\n
Not too many people have been driving the digital agenda as aggressively with the CFO’s office than Genpact’s Shantanu Ghosh, with his firm’s own methodology “lean digital<\/a>,” so we thought it high-time we caught up with him to get his viewpoint on the impact of digital o the finance function.<\/p>\n Phil Fersht, CEO and Industry Analyst, HfS:\u00a0<\/strong>Shantanu, it’s been a couple of years since we’ve had you on here. Can you tell us a bit about what you’re up to in Genpact today?<\/span><\/p>\n Shantanu Ghosh, Senior VP & Business Leader – CFO Services and Consulting, Genpact:<\/strong>\u00a0 Actually, my remit remains pretty similar to what it was two years back. I lead the financial accounting, sourcing and procurement service lines, globally. I also lead consulting across Genpact.<\/p>\n But I’ll tell you, the complexities, the scale and the type of solutions involved in all three have changed pretty dramatically in the last two to three years. So it feels like I\u2019m doing a new job every day, even though broadly the remit remains the same.<\/p>\n Phil: <\/strong>I’ve seen Genpact has been on a real tear, particularly over the last 12 to 18 months. I\u2019ve seen a real uptick, especially in Europe, where you’re winning a lot of deals. What’s going on? What are you doing differently?<\/span><\/p>\n Shantanu:\u00a0<\/strong>I think there are four things at play, Phil. One, I think it’s a result of there or four years of sustained investment in our domain capability and our front-end capability. Obviously, in this business it takes a little bit of time for that to result in winnings in the marketplace, because you have to start engaging with clients at a different level. Then you get into a virtuous cycle, because as you get engaged with more and more clients they see the differentiated value that you’re bringing to the table\u2014and the advisors see that as well. You get involved in more dialog and, as a result, you get in on bigger deals.<\/p>\n Let me share a data point. Our big deals\u2014deals that are worth at least $50,000,000 in total contract value\u2014have gone up five to seven times over the last four or five years. Obviously, the growth, other than GE has been pretty robust.<\/p>\n We have really focused our attention on a few verticals and a subset of clients. So, in terms of mining our existing clients, we have focused on a few and we have gone deep with them. We’re spending far more quality time with them. And, therefore, we\u2019ve been far more proactive in terms of solutions and business opportunities, than just reacting to demand that is coming out from the market.<\/p>\n The last thing is that we’re combining much more technology, analytics, traditional strengths of Lean and Six Sigma into our process solutions. That’s creating a differentiated view in the market, which we’re branding as Lean Digital. Lean Digital wasn’t done over night. The branding is more recent but we have been on this journey for the last three to four years.<\/p>\n Phil:\u00a0<\/strong>What would you say is the secret sauce that you can share that differentiates Genpact? What do you think makes your culture unique compared to maybe some of your competitors in the market?<\/span><\/p>\n Shantanu:\u00a0<\/strong>\u00a0That’s an interesting question, Phil. I’m not so sure that it’s a really secret sauce. I think it boils down to three fundamental factors. One is the real focused investment and persistence in building deep domain expertise, in a few chosen verticals and a few chosen service lines. We’ve been extremely insistent and persistent on that for the last three to four years\u2014to the exclusion of everything else. We go very deep, and create differentiated capabilities.<\/p>\n The second thing is the bundling, which we talked about. Our focus on leveraging new digital technologies and what you can do to leverage data and analytics, has gone up 10 times over the last three to four years. That’s obviously resonating very well with clients, because the value equation has changed from just cost to many things outside cost. Third, we come back to the cultural point that you’re making. There are some pieces that have been consistent for the last 15 years, which is the maniacal focus on customers. Our Net Promoter scores have continued to go up. Last year we ended at 67%, which is our highest level ever. So that’s been consistent.<\/p>\n I think what has changed in the culture is the level of experimentation that we’re able to now do, both in terms of solutions as well as commercial constructs\u2014because of the confidence that we have built up in our vertical and service mind domain expertise, and in our capability to try really large fundamentally, transformational programs for our clients. I think it\u2019s about our interest in experimentation, our co-innovation mindset with customers. We go out and put a stake in the ground and continuously push the boundary and commercial constructs in terms of getting paid for results and performance, rather than just for effort. I think that’s been a big change over the last few years. If you look at us five years back and today, I think you\u2019ll see a pretty significant change.<\/p>\n