HOW-TO GUIDES
The APEX GBS Standards set the mark for excellence in Global Business Services.
The How-To Guides are a series of Playbooks that show you exactly how to get there, with step-by-step guidance for putting each chapter of the Standards to work in your organization.
Each Chapter’s playbook digs even deeper into 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.
Introducing the FIRST Playbook in our NEW How-To Guide Series:
The Agentic AI Playbook for Global Business Services
AI is arriving in GBS organizations whether they are ready or not. The question is HOW to incorporate Agentic AI without the hype-driven failures that stall most enterprise programs.
This Inaugural Playbook covers ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE, the dimension of GBS where the stakes are highest right now. It contains nine practical guides that take you from readiness assessment through implementation, adoption, and scale, and finishes with a capstone Case Study.
Each guide answers the question, produces a primary output, and hands it directly to the next, so the program builds on itself rather than starting over at every stage.
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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.
[COMING SOON]
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.
[COMING SOON]
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.
[COMING SOON]
Enabling Through Technology/Automation
AVAILABLE NOW!
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.
How-To Guides (FREE PDF Version) Release Schedule: Check back weekly to Download!
(FREE DOWNLOAD): Guide 1: Readiness and Operating Environment Assessment
(FREE DOWNLOAD): Guide 2: Strategy and Leadership Alignment
(FREE DOWNLOAD): Guide 3: Use Case Identification and Prioritization
(FREE DOWNLOAD): Guide 4: The Credible Business Case
(FREE DOWNLOAD): Guide 5: Governance and Controls by Design
(FREE DOWNLOAD): Guide 6: Realized Value and Confidence Reporting
Nov 18, 2026 — Guide 7: Implementation, Adoption and Scaling
Dec 2, 2026 — Guide 8: Build, Buy, Partner and Vendor Independence
Dec 9, 2026 — Capstone: Apicentis's 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.
[COMING SOON]
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.
[COMING SOON]
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