HOW-TO GUIDES
Introducing the FIRST Playbook in the How-To Series:
The Agentic AI Playbook for GBS
AI is arriving in GBS organizations whether they are ready or not. The question is how to do so without the hype-driven failures that stall most enterprise programs.
This is the first in the How-To Guide Series, and it covers the dimension of GBS where the stakes are highest right now. Nine practical guides and a capstone take you from readiness assessment through implementation, adoption, and scale.
Each guide answers one question, produces one primary output, and hands it directly to the next, so the program builds on itself rather than starting over at every stage.
Built around one conviction: value comes from discipline, not enthusiasm.
The APEX GBS Standards tell you what good Global Business Services looks like. The How-To Guide Series shows you how to build it.
Each guide goes deep on a specific dimension of GBS, written by practitioners and contributors who have done this work at scale in some of the world's most complex organizations. Step-by-step guidance for putting the Standards to work inside your own organization.
More How-To Guides Coming Soon
More How-To Guides Coming Soon
GBS Purpose and Approach
The How-To Guide for building or rechartering a GBS from first principles, defining your purpose and the why behind your GBS construct, establishing business process management frameworks, and assessing maturity to know exactly where you stand and where you're headed.
Service Delivery Operations
The How-To Guide for designing and running the full operational architecture of a high-performing GBS, from captive vs. BPO sourcing decisions and GCC setup to location strategy, operating model design, KPI management, vendor relationships, and building resilience against risk at global scale.
Service Management Model
The How-To Guide to running each service line like its own business: defining your service catalog, managing scope and costs, building a customer engagement model that earns trust, embedding business partnering, and driving continuous demand and innovation management.
Enabling Through Technology/Automation
THE PRACTITIONER'S GUIDE TO AGENTIC AI IN GLOBAL BUSINESS SERVICES
BY ROBERT WELTEVREDEN AND MOHAN THADANI
The first, and most urgent, How-To Guide of this series! A complete, practitioner-built guide to adopting agentic AI within GBS, from foundational concepts and governance to implementation across every major service line.
Nine sequential guides move from first principles to full deployment, with a capstone case study that follows one company through the entire end-to-end journey.
GBS Talent
The How-To Guide for building a workforce strategy that performs at every level of GBS, from recruitment and retention to learning and development, data-driven workforce management, and leading across global, virtual, and multifunctional teams in an era shaped by AI.
Data and Decision Capabilities
The How-To Guide for getting your GBS data infrastructure right, establishing clear data architecture and ownership, managing data quality and connectivity across the enterprise, navigating regulatory requirements, and turning data into a capability that actually supports better decisions.
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