MAKE YOUR LIFE EASIER! – DEVELOPMENT OF THE BUSINESS SERVICES BASED ON COMPETENCES - Interview with Krystian Bestry, CEO at Adaptive Solutions & Advisory Group

1. MAKE YOUR LIFE EASIER!
– DEVELOPMENT OF THE
BUSINESS SERVICES BASED
ON COMPETENCES
Interview with Krystian Bestry, CEO at Adaptive
Solutions & Advisory Group
Wiktor Doktór: To begin with, let’s
present your company to our read-
ers. Where did the idea for Adaptive
come from?
First, there was a need... To be more
precise, a demand for highly specialized
expert skills and managerial compe­
tences in the still relatively new industry
of business services.
The scale of growth of this sector in
­recent years – in Poland, the region and
globally – has substantially exceeded all
forecasts and estimates made by business
analysts a dozen or even a few years ago.
Strong development of IT system and IT
operations, programming or designing
applications, similar to all types of cus­
tomer service in the telecommunications
or banking sector has been observed for
more than 20 years now, and has been
associated with the growth of these in­
dustries and technological development
in the 21st
century, the centralization of
other business support processes and,
­recently also, basic operations in the
model of shared services centres has
been a surprise to many. The peculiar
popularity for outsourcing and off­shoring
of process operations to more attractive
locations in terms of costs emerged at
large international corporations some
10-12 years ago, that was also the time
when the biggest players in this market
entered Poland and other countries from
our region. At the same time, a large
number of projects have a very“delicate”
nature for parent companies, because
they are linked with employment reduc­
tion inWestern European countries or the
United States. Many initiatives are kept
secret, even within own organization’s
structures, until the very last moment.
Hence, this is not conducive to active
corporate communication regarding the
nature of established service centres, and
it generates a certain form of opposition
in relations between companies from the
sector, and also brings about questions
in local labour markets and misunder­
standing with reference to the role and
the scope of services offered by such
new units.
Even today, when the sector of modern
technology services, business services
and outsourcing is the third biggest in­
dustry in Poland, we still have to deal with
a high level of unawareness as regards
the actual business activity of the com­
panies from this industry; we encounter
many stereotypes, including – and this
may be considered significant – not ­only
from representatives of the world of busi­
ness, and administration science, but
also from representatives of consulting
companies or market analysts! Remarks
about the low complexity of operations
and absence of added value, about
a doubtful future of the sector or the risk
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3. of transferring an increasing number
of services to Asia, are just a few exam­
ples of complete ignorance and today’s
­approach presented by many internation­
al companies in this respect.
Despite a substantial contribution made
by BPO/ITO companies or an ­increasingly
greater number of organizations, which
through their actions improve the aware­
ness of the market with regard to the
characteristics of work and professional
career opportunities created by services
centres, the recognizability of the sector
and its attractiveness for potential em­
ployees are still not at the highest level.
as regards needs and opportunities have
led to noticeable shortages of quali­
fied process experts of the medium and
­higher level, and shortages of specific
managerial competences, skills in com­
plex change management and business
transformation or operational manage­
ment at services centres.
The idea to establish Adaptive Group
emerged from the scale of identified
needs, with the increasing importance of
services centres and, hence, the increa­
sing expectations of the parent organi­
zation in terms of the new services these
shared services centres already provide
Meanwhile, the market of shared services
is developing very dynamically, by at least
20% year to year, in each country from
our region, in Asia or in South America.
­Medium-sized or smaller regional com­
panies have started following in the foot­
steps of international corporations and
have begun to realize that without busi­
ness support centralization their compe­
titiveness, as well as ability to adopt
new solutions, drops drastically.
Hence, the growth scale of the sector,
the objectives concerning sharing know­
ledge between companies, and poor
communication with the labour market
Medium-sized or smaller regional companies
have started following in the footsteps of
international corporations and have begun
to realize that without business support
centralization their competitiveness, as well as
ability to adopt new solutions, drops drastically.
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4. • Speed of action;
• Flexible business model.
For us, consulting activity is not an end
in itself; the actual value comes from
the support in solving real problems,
taking over responsibility for running
transformation programmes or periodic
mana­gerial and operational support with
a contractual obligation to achieve set
aims, irrespective of our level of engage­
ment. This is what motivates us.
Our entire team is recruited from the
candidates we have cooperated with
before or who have been recommended
by our clients. All employees of Adaptive
S.A.G. have several to a dozen or so years
of experience working in the sector of
business and technological services –
often for the companies that pioneered
this model of operation on a global scale.
We have also worked out a list of compa­
nies – business partners and several hun­
dred of process experts – that we often
engage in our operations or recommend
to our clients.
Innovativeness of the solutions we pro­
vide is based on excellent knowledge of
the market of business services and pro­
cess transformations, monitoring of the
best operational practices and techno­
logical trends – we use our long-standing
experience in the sector of commercial
services for the BPO/ITO business sup­
ported by current cooperation with re­
cognized market analysts.
We are aware of the fact that time is the
greatest value in the contemporary world.
Time, which means speed of action and
adaptation to changing needs. It some­
times happens that we have to orga­nize
teams for our clients’ projects within
just a few hours in order to either sup­
port strategic discussions or responding
to on-going urgent operational needs.
Our flexible business model is based not
only on working at a given client’s head­
quarters but, most of all, on a detailed
identification of objectives, expectations
and challenges of every organization as
well as joint discussion regarding oppor­
tunities and risks of the solutions defined.
Depending on needs, we are able to en­
sure competence-related, specialist and
technological support as well as opera­
tional aid to help eliminate specific prob­
lems in our client’s organization.
or will begin providing in the near fu­
ture. ­Today’s innovativeness and ability
to adapt to changing market needs is di­
rectly proportional to the competences
a given organization has or can have at
its disposal.
Working for many years with leading
corporations on transforming business
processes, including transferring and
building large operational centres in
­Europe, the United Stated, India, ­China or
Africa, we came to the conclusion that it
was high time to open a competent con­
sulting company in this part of the world
that would guarantee help to shared
services centres in achieving success
at every stage of their development.
Companies often notice challenges but
do not know how to cope with them;
they ­often work out business plans with­
out ­being aware of the challenges they
may be facing.
So, what do you actually do? What ser-
vices do you provide?
The value we deliver is based on many
years of practical experience, a proven
methodology of building shared services
centres, including business transition be­
tween locations, process transformation,
managerial competences, and conti­
nuous monitoring of trends and the best
solutions in the market.
As part of our collaboration with ­clients,
we provide mostly services related
to building and implementing an ope­
ration strategy for shared services cen­
tres, standardization and centralization
of support departments (such as finance,
accounting, purchasing processes, HR or
IT), project realization, knowledge trans­
fer, optimization of processes, effective
monitoring and process improvements,
as well as creating and implementing
communication strategies or employer
branding initiatives. Furthermore, we
help to select suppliers of technological
solutions and, often, to make decisions
and seek outsourcing partners.
What distinguishes a competent con-
sulting company in the market?
The five most important elements
include:
• Responsibility for the results of con­
ducted projects;
• Managerial competences and
a broad range of process experts;
• Innovativeness of solutions;
The future of busi-
ness services is asso-
ciated with integrated
services, which means
deeper centralization,
combining indi­vidual
and highly frag-
mented service lines
with one another,
and the appli­cation
of ­technology
in ­their operation.
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5. When talking about characteristics
and trends another question comes
to mind. Where is the outsourcing and
business services sector heading?
The future of business services is asso­
ciated with integrated services, which
means deeper centralization, combining
individual and highly fragmented service
lines with one another, and the appli­
cation of technology in their operation.
The whole world is talking now about
robots and artificial intelligence; this di­
rection can also be clearly seen in the out­
sourcing sector. Many companies already
use cloud databases, analytical appli­
cations based on technological solutions,
automatic processing and reporting
modules, or robot-supported systems of
knowledge management. Certainly, this
trend will continue to reinforce, parti­
cularly due to the fact that with reference
to business support processes we have
been observing increased popularity
of the approach based on the so-called
design thinking, i.e. continuous con­
struction of prototypes of new solutions,
including technological, and testing them
in practice, improving and reinventing.
This favours innovation.
In response to expectations regarding an
increased effectiveness of business ope­
rations, an ability to implement new pro­
jects quickly, comprehensive support of
the parent organization, and enabling the
automation of services on a large scale,
further standardization of processes will
be a significant factor.
Surely, we can expect the continued
development of shared services or
BPO centres, because this business
model opens the path to the full inte­
gration of processes and the application
of techno­logy also in the environment
of services. The commercial outsourcing
market will still develop intensely based
on an increasingly greater scope of ser­
vices provided.
Where is Poland in all of this?
Poland is still the leader in our part
of Europe and the world in terms of the
number of operational units; for many
companies it is also the main country
where research and development cen­
tres with business transformation func­
tions are established. Several years ago,
we demonstrated our chief assets as an
attractive place to establish production
units; then, we became one of the top
places for business operation and logis­
tics centres; now it is time for expert and
R&D centres, analytical centres and, hope­
fully, for the designing of automated solu­
tions for business services.
Not only globally but also in centres
based in Poland will we observe auto­
mation of simple standardized processes
based on algorithms or repeatability of
actions. Especially due to the fact that
this is no longer secret knowledge but
“open source” solutions or “code free”
applications.
Will robots take away our jobs?
In countries like Poland robots can
even generate more work for ­people.
Please remember that many years
ago ERP systems provided companies
with a platform for data integration;
shared services centres also guarantee
a platform enabling integration and
coordi­nation of key elements of business
operations. Technological solutions have
been strongly affecting our industry in
recent years, e.g. optical character reco­
gnition (OCR) systems eliminate to a sig­
nificant extent the manual introduction
of data, the use of cloud-stored databases
have provided users with access to data in
real time, while mobile applications have
enabled personalized access to data and
information.
Just like the solutions mentioned above,
robotics will also guarantee labour cost
saving through the elimination and auto­
mation of successive operational areas
– thanks to the application of designed
algorithms and artificial intelligence
modules. Still, someone has to design
these algorithms. Just as a centralization
of processes provides access to better use
of resources, robotics provides business
services centres with, on the one hand,
a potential for greater effectiveness and,
on the other hand, new areas of business
support with the application of techno­
logies. It seems that robotics will rather
serve as a cure for manpower shortage,
which is noticeable in many countries,
or for unfavourable demography, rather
than an actual“thief”of jobs.
How to acquire competences of
the future?
Most importantly, it is necessary
to shorten the path of their acquisition.
We need to remember that most of the
challenges and problems an organi­zation
faces someone has already solved; hence,
getting the precise knowledge or infor­
mation about “how” these problems can
be solved is of crucial importance. In the
Everyone, without
exception, should
use the platforms for
knowledge exchange
that already exist
such as the “SSC
Lions” initiative –
a unique networking
project, which allows
smaller centres
to demonstrate
their presence on
the map of shared
services but also, and
perhaps most of all,
provides access to the
experience of other
organizations.
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6. Please remember that many years
ago ERP systems provided companies
with a platform for data integration;
shared services centres also guarantee
a platform enabling integration
and coordination of key elements
of business operations.
Everyone, without exception, should use
the platforms for knowledge exchange
that already exist such as the “SSC ­Lions”
initiative – a unique networking project,
which allows smaller centres to demon­
strate their presence on the map of
shared services but also, and perhaps
most of all, provides access to the ex­
perience of other organizations. There
is always room for that. Especially when
both knowledge and competen­ces are
right at your fingerprints nowadays and
you do not have to look for them in
the darkness.
In this context, making use of services
of professional consultants and their
resources is also advisable; this way,
you can not only save time, but also im­
plement a solution, ensure resources and
knowledge for your organization, and
eliminate a greater part of risk in the pro­
cess of implementing own ideas. Hence,
the title of today’s interview and, at the
same time, the motto of Adaptive Group:
MAKE YOUR LIFE EASIER!
Thank you very much. •
event of services centres, many challen­
ges repeat themselves, especially due
to the fact that these organizations are at
varied levels of advancement.
The companies that have been ope­ra­
ting the outsourcing model for a dozen
years, have an appropriate scale and an
established model of action, must look
for unique competences which enable
the combination of future technologies
with advanced analytical processes,
whereas smaller services centres, which
have been operational for a short time,
should draw from the experience of the
sector; they need to share knowledge,
not be afraid to ask for help, participate
in special events, like the BSS Tour, or
workshops, webcasts and other solutions
dedicated to that.
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