Manager’s Profile
Radka Bellissimo Director/Head of SSC Jarden Business Services Group Prague, Czech Republic Parent Company: Newell Brands - New Jersey, USA
Please provide a few sentences about what your company is doing in CEE? Jarden Business Services Group was established in Prague, Czech Republic in 2015. We are a fast growing Finance Shared Service Center, servicing entities of the former Jarden Corporation. Jarden Corporation combined with Newell Rubbermaid creating Newell Brands in April 2016. Newell Brands is a leading $16 billion global consumer goods company with a strong portfolio of well-known brands that make life better for the consumers (listed at New York Stock Exchange). Jarden BSG team started with 45 employees and grew to the team of 110 over the last 18 months. We provide Finance & Accounting and Customer Order services to more than 25+ Legal Entities across 15+ markets in the EMEA Region. We expect to continue to grow as we are in the Transition to onboard new process scope for existing customers as well as to add new customers from new markets in the region. Explain why your company set up operations in the specific city and any specific factors that influenced the company’s decision: Czech Republic was on the short list from the very start of the selection process for its convenient and centrally located position in the EMEA Region. City of Prague than offered an opportunity to expand on the existing presence of one of the Legal entities already established in the market (Camping Gaz CS s.r.o.) and therefore build Shared Service Center as an extension in the same location. Finally, one of the key decision factors was also availablility of skilled workforce and its foreign language capabilities. How will you develop in the next 2-3 years? Our Business Services Group has been established only couple of years ago and we are still in a constant change due to the new scope being on-boarded and more work being consolidated as part of our service delivery model. The SSC industry itself is also very dynamic, especially in the last two-three years. New technologies offering robotic processing and process automation create new opportunities for making changes to the way how we perform our work and how efficiencies can be delivered even without major ERP changes. For us it means to look for a different skill set to be able to work with these new automation tools when compared to the traditional
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F&A background of typical SSC candidate. The impact of these changes will be therefore reflected in the recruiting and creation of new job profiles to find different job candidates, mixing Finance/Accounting skills with capabilities in the process development, process optimization and technology areas. If you are a captive/SSC, which parts are possible to be outsourced, or taken over by BPO providers? Our Business Services Group has been established only couple of years ago, therefore we do not see any outsourcing opportunities in the immediate near future. However, as the processing volumes increase and we stabilize new scope, some processes and the non-core F&A tasks (e.g. document scanning) could become potential target for outsourcing. 3 specific bits of advice to other firms considering setting up SSC/BPO operations in CEE: Location, location, location – consider the infrustructure you need and co-locate close to the public transportation and services convenient to the staff (e.g. entertainment, sport, dining, shopping opportunities). Arrange for flexibility to potentially scale-up or scale down the office space as the scope of services could change over time; retain a good office planner to plan the office space sensibly, later changes to the office space can be very costly. Target locations with good supply of skilled workforce, i.e. do not be afraid to consider locations outside the capital cities. Employee Issues. How has this changed in the last 1-2 years, and what are the likely employment issues expected during the next few years. As mentioned earlier our team has grown to 110 employees over the last 2 years, out
of which we grew by 25 people in the last 6 months, and we are still expectected to continue our growth in the future. The ideal combination of the skills is in the foreign language capability together with experience/ background in the finance/accounting fields. However, we anticipate increasing need for knowledge and experience with process automation tools, as well as analytical and project skills and specific expertise in other, less transactional areas of finance such as reporting, compliance or VAT. Generally, the combination of foreign language knowledge and finance experience is suprisingly limited, so sometimes compromises need to be made on one of these two key requirements. Retention of good employees is key and becomes harder to maintain as the competition on the market is high due to low unemployment. Also the new generation and younger resource pool requires new recruitment strategies, more employer branding and company presence online and in social networks. We are aslo seeing need to reshape traditional benefits structure to be able to offer more individual approaches in managing the day to day work routines, including possibility to work from home, flexible working hours, part time jobs and more learning/interesting opportunities to facilitate development of new skills on the job. Biggest surprises about setting up or operating SSC centre in CEE: Positives: usually great infrastructure in the market, availability of suitable office space and supporting services and functions such as real estate, recruitment agencies, consulting/ advisory services, tax/legal services Negatives/Improvements needed: lack of foreign language knowledge in some candidates, competition on the market for talented resource pool than may put pressure on the labor cost and high expecations from candidates toward their employers that are not sometimes adequate to what they can offer in return. Specific cost savings that your firm has achieved? Information is not available due to the us still being in the Transition stage, however the cost was “only” one of the decision making factors, during the selection process. We were also looking for increased quality of service – which we are delivering. Radka Bellissimo, Director and Head of Jarden Business Services Group, leads Finance Shared Services Center of Newell Brands based in Prague, Czech Republic. Radka has worked in Management Consulting, Business Process Outsourcing, Shared Services, Transition & Change Management areas supporting variety of projects and clients from a number of different industries across EMEA and North America over the last 20 years. Radka previously worked for Johnson & Johnson Global Business Services, Accenture/Arthur Andersen.
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