Sally Beauty invests in hyperautomation, WEF accelerates government digital transformation, Klarna CEO fears tech talent “brain drain” – PEX Community News

USS Gerald R. Ford receives OPEX award, Asda launches sustainable supply chain finance scheme, The Digital Formula podcast continues process intelligence conversation

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Michael Hill
10/04/2024

PEX Network’s weekly news bulletin rounds up the latest from the process community including operational excellence (OPEX), digital transformation, business process management (BPM), process mining, artificial intelligence (AI) and much more.

This week includes:

Sally Beauty invests in hyperautomation to enhance IT efficiencies

American beauty brand Sally Beauty Holdings (SBH) revealed plans drive enterprise-scale IT transformation and efficiencies through the optimization of IT service delivery. Working alongside digital services and consulting firm Infosys, Sally Beauty aims to standardize and simplify its IT processes by implementing AI-driven hyperautomation, according to a press release. The transformation will enable the company to activate enhanced IT services with 24/7 predictive and proactive monitoring, consolidate numerous support services, drive process improvements and optimize costs over a five-year window, it added.

“We are excited to be collaborating with Infosys as we take SBH into the future by modernizing our IT service delivery and meeting the goals set by our ‘Fuel for Growth’ initiative,” said Scott Lindblom, CIO at Sally Beauty. “Embracing AI-amplified IT is a significant step forward for us in enabling us to, in turn, deliver exceptional experiences for our customers.”

The collaboration exemplifies the commitment Infosys has to empowering businesses to accelerate their AI-led transformation while amplifying customer delight and operational efficiency, commented Karmesh Vaswani, EVP and global head of consumer, retail and logistics at Infosys.

WEF accelerates global digital transformation of governments

The World Economic Forum (WEF) and GovTech Campus Deutschland opened the Global Government Technology Center (GGTC) to accelerate the global digital transformation of governments. The “pioneering initiative” is designed to connect the German GovTech innovation ecosystem with a global network of experts and practitioners, according to a press release. As a physical and digital space, the GGTC will bring together governments, technology leaders and policymakers to drive innovation and facilitate policy development, providing governments with actionable insights and tools for transformation, it added.

“Governments around the world are facing unprecedented challenges to leverage new technologies to build more inclusive societies at a time when public confidence is more critical than ever,” said Børge Brende, president of the WEF.

The GGTC Berlin will offer public sector organizations a powerful set of tools to modernize the way they work, enhance the quality and accessibility of public services and expand their reach, added Marc Reinhardt, public sector global industry leader at Capgemini.

Nao Anthony, Commonwealth Bank and Tariq Munir, PepsiCo discuss the complexities and challenges of digital transformation

Asda launches sustainable supply chain finance scheme

Asda launched a new sustainability-linked enhancement to its supply chain finance scheme that will see the UK supermarket giant use financial incentives to encourage better sustainability practices within its supply chain. Launching in January 2025 and created in partnership with HSBC UK, the voluntary scheme will offer over 250 Asda suppliers who currently use the existing scheme access to three tiers of enhanced rates of financing, according to a press release. Access to each tier will be based on suppliers disclosing their environmental, social and governance (ESG) performance data, setting targets and taking action on shared sustainability goals, it added.

“As we continue to drive progress towards our own decarbonization and ESG targets, supporting and engaging with suppliers forms a crucial step in this journey,” commented Michael Gleeson, CFO at Asda. “Working with HSBC, we’re not only encouraging greater transparency over sustainability data in our supply chain, but we are able to use competitive financing to incentivize a significant number of suppliers to become more sustainable.”

Sustainability is an increasingly significant factor of modern business, helping organizations not only align with global environmental goals but also benefit from reduced costs and enhanced efficiency. SAP recently launched Net Zero as a Service to help tackle climate change.

USS Gerald R. Ford receives OPEX award

USS Gerald R. Ford, an aircraft carrier of the United States Navy with a crew of 5,000 sailors, received the Battenberg Cup in recognition of its OPEX. Every year, the Battenberg Cup is awarded to the best ship or submarine in the Navy Atlantic Fleet. “My crew literally carries on the legacy that President Ford left us, which was, work hard, be kind and don’t brag,” said Capt. Rick Burgess, commanding officer of the USS Gerald R. Ford.

Admiral Daryl Caudle, commander of the U.S. Fleet Forces Command, added that “the ship just performed brilliantly, met all milestones on or ahead of time, and then gets over to the Mediterranean [Sea] and just simply crushes the deployment,” reported Aol.

Klarna CEO warns of tech talent “brain drain”

The CEO of Swedish payments company Klarna, Sebastian Siemiatkowski, warned that “technology talent brain drain” is the biggest risk factor facing his company. In an interview with CNBC, Siemiatkowski said that unfavorable rules in Europe on employee stock options, a common form of equity compensation tech firms offer to their staff, could lead to Klarna losing talent to technology giants in the US such as Google, Apple and Meta.

Klarna is preparing for its upcoming initial public offering (IPO), making shares of stock available to the public. “When we looked at the risks of the IPO, which is a number one risk in my opinion? Our compensation,” said Siemiatkowski, citing several hurdles blocking Klarna and its European tech peers from offering employees in the region more favorable employee stock option plans.

Siemiatkowski fears this could risk employees leaving the company for American tech firms, particularly as Klarna is expanding aggressively in the US. “The more prominent we become in the US market, the more people see us and recognize us – and the more their LinkedIn inbox is going to be pinged by offers from others,” Siemiatkowski told CNBC.

Blake Hill, AccentCare reflects on building high performance teams

The Digital Formula podcast continues process intelligence discussion

In the latest episode of The Digital Formula podcast, Roland Woldt and Michael Idengren continued their discussion of process intelligence. There are a lot of myths around what process mining can and cannot do and there is a need to follow a certain train of thought/process to run a successful process mining project, independent of which software you use, the pair said. They reflected on approaching process mining projects and outlined a six-step approach that has proven successful:

Define (process mining) strategy.
Extract system logs.
Create data model.
Create reference process.
Analyze process.
Identify improvement opportunities.

WIPM explores successful process mining

Women in Process Mining (WIPM) – a global community dedicated to promoting diversity and inclusion in the field of process mining – hosted a discussion with Leslie Goldstone, director of process mining at HARMAN International. Goldstone reflected upon the key elements of process mining success: governance, “why” and “where” and taking action.

Teams should clearly define not only their roles and responsibilities, but also the expected outcome from each role, she said. Three key roles to have are an executive sponsor, a global process owner and a point person for capturing value. Furthermore, people often jump to the conclusion of fixing a problem without properly uncovering why and where a problem is occurring along with process interdependencies, Goldstone added. She advised avoiding temporary solutions, slowing down and deploying a solution at the root cause level for sustained impact. Finally, one of the biggest challenges in process improvement is taking action, according to Goldsone. The purpose of process mining is not to analyze but to unlock value through action. Scope out the cost of change, pick the big impact items and be diligent in following through on the identified areas of action, Goldstone said.

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Topics: Automation Digital Transformation Process Mining