Founding Member of FormIGA – the global Industry for Good Alliance
The global strategic sourcing industry is positively thriving as organisations leverage innovation and collaboration to become more customer-centric, more dynamic and easier to do business with. Business transformation, emerging technologies and new disruptive business models are not only reshaping how we work, but also how we interact with both machine and each other, driving new behaviours and creating new skillsets.
Despite all this positive opportunity historical perceptions and mis-conceptions mean the strategic sourcing industry sometimes doesn’t have the best reputation. We need to come together as a global industry to change those mis perceptions, to prove outsourcing works and to build a strong foundation, not just for the outsourcing of today, but for the outsourcing of tomorrow which will be led by the next generation.
With so many operators in this globalised market, however, there has never been a greater need for clear guidelines on best practice that both customers and providers can adopt in their approaches to strategic sourcing in order to unlock optimal value from their partnerships.
Our congress of global industry thought leaders, influencers and subject matter experts will share their views and opinions - alongside specific case studies - on subjects ranging from digital transformation, AI, social media to customer experience, inclusion and diversity and the very latest in industry best practice with the launch of the Global Sourcing Standard.
Be a part of it.
Day One - GSA Global Sourcing Summit in Partnership with BPESA
1:00-1:10pm | Opening Ceremony - Kerry Hallard, President of the Global Sourcing Association and Gareth Pritchard, CEO of BPeSA. Together GSA and BPeSA will make their opening remarks ahead of the Official Welcome Speech. |
1.10-1.30pm | Official Welcome Speech - We are honoured to have The Executive Mayor of Cape Town formally open the inaugural GSA Global Sourcing Summit. Patricia de Lille is a highly popular individual and vibrant character who has been instrumental in South African Politics over the years. Starting her journey in the South African Chemical Workers Union during her first job as a laboratory technician, in 1988, she was elected as National Vice-President of The National Council of Trade Unions (NACTU), and the next year elected onto the National Executive Committee of the Pan Africanist Movement (PAM). In 1994, she led a delegation in the constitutional negotiations that preceded South Africa’s first democratic election in 1994. In 2003, de Lille founded the Independent Democrats (ID), a South African political party that gained 2% of the votes cast during the 2006 municipal elections. Under de Lille the ID merged with the country’s opposition party, the Democratic Alliance (DA) in 2010. In mid-2011, de Lille was appointed Mayor of the City of Cape Town. De Lille will share her vision for Cape Town as a burgeoning metropolis and significant region in South Africa’s fast-growing business services landscape. Speaker - Patricia De Lille, Executive Mayor of Cape Town |
1.30-2:00pm | Impact Sourcing, Leaving a Legacy - Bringing the Global Sourcing Summit to South Africa is as much about best practice as it is to leave a legacy and with an influx of international buyers the GSA in partnership with BPESA has declared an aim to leave a legacy from this conference with the creation of 1000 new jobs. As part of this pledge, Zondwa Mandela will speak on behalf of the Mandela Legacy Foundation, an organisation that has been on the frontline to empower young South Africans using education and employment in the burgeoning BPO sector. Zondwa will take questions from the floor. Speaker - Zondwa Mandela, Mandela Legacy Foundation |
2:00-2:40pm | Building South Africa’s Brand - Trevor Manuel was named as one of Cyril Ramaphosa's four investment envoys in April 2018. Manuel holds the distinction of being South Africa's longest-serving post-apartheid era finance minister. He served as finance minister in the Cabinets of Nelson Mandela, Thabo Mbeki and Kgalema Motlanthe. President Ramaphosa has asked Manuel to bring the gravitas the country’s team of investment envoys needs to convince investors that South Africa is an attractive investment destination. Investors and delegates will have the opportunity to pose questions. Speaker - Trevor Manuel, Special Investment Envoy and South African Finance Minister 1996 – 2009 |
2:40-3:00pm | Networking Break |
3:00-3:40pm | The Global Viewpoint - Sourcing is a truly global business and is the industry that has benefitted most from a shrinking world. As BPO and ITO are continually offshored to all corners of the globe our panel will look at how it is being done throughout the world and what each area can learn from each other. Chair: BPeSA Panellists:
|
3:40-2:40pm | The Art of the Buyer – Best practice approaches to achieving value beyond cost savings Chair and Introduction to the session - Jim Hemmington, Director of Procurement, BBC - With an annual spend of £1.5 billion (ZAR27 billion), Jim Hemmington has a major role to play in global sourcing. In this session, Jim will talk through how the BBC procures its contracts and vets its suppliers and what he looks for in an incumbent or challenger service provider, before moving on to chair the panel. Panel: An ever-expanding market and increasing pressures have forced procurement and outsourcing specialists to have to be more dynamic and strategic to add significant value. The complexities mean opportunities but also mean the stakes are much higher. Using presentations, conversations and questions from the audience our senior and experienced buyers will lead a session to help improve the returns from your sourcing and inform the service providers of what makes the buyer tick. Panellists:
|
4:30-5:00pm | Launch of The Global Strategic Sourcing Standard - Sourcing is a complex and fast moving industry and with $multi-millions of spend at stake, let alone consumer relationships and company reputations, companies can ill-afford to get it wrong. The Global Strategic Sourcing Standard is the only unified view of global sourcing best practice that both buyers and service providers can equally become accredited to. Jim will explain how aligning the BBC to the Global Strategic Sourcing Standard has improved the BBC’s approach to sourcing and saved the BBC $millions. Speaker - Jim Hemmington, Director of Procurement, BBC |
5:00-6:00pm | Welcome Drinks |
Day Two - Cape Town International Convention Centre
9:00-9:45
| Registration & Networking Breakfast |
9:45-9:50 | Welcome Back and Welcome to Day 2 - Kerry Hallard, President, GSA and Gareth Pritchard, CEO, BPeSA |
9:50-10:00 | The Welcome Address - Ms Malebo Mabitje-Thompson will begin the formal proceedings on Day Two and talk about the positivity that can come from hosting a conference of this nature in such a thriving BPO area. Speaker - Ms Malebo Mabitje-Thompson, Deputy Director-General: Industrial Development and Administrative Division, South Africa DTI |
10:00-10:50 | Can Intelligent Automation help Africa leapfrog other destinations for delivery of superior business services? - It may not yet be the biggest, but it can be the best – Africa is well placed to leapfrog other destinations in the delivery of cost effective yet excellent customer service, (among other business services) through the adoption of automation. Terry Walby, CEO of Thoughtonomy and Chair of the GSA’s Digital Workforce Steering Committee, will discuss how Intelligent Automation offers African organisations a rapid, agile and cost-effective means to set up or expand operations, before chairing the debate. Debate: AI and the future of the workforce? - The implementation of Artificial Intelligence and Robotics is the next great leap forward into a truly digitalised society, the potential is immeasurable, and the fourth industrial revolution is in progress. The effect on daily and business life is still to be determined but rumours and fears are starting to cloud the potential of these technologies. Our expert panel will discuss the future especially in terms of how it will affect the workforce in contact centres and other traditional sourcing environments and get to the bottom of what this will mean for all involved in the global sourcing eco-system. Chair - Terry Walby, CEO, Thoughtonomy Panellists:
|
10:50-11:20 | Artificial Intelligence, not an artificial experience - AI is no longer the realm of science fiction, it is increasingly being used by business as part of the customer experience. Often customers are sceptical or concerned about the role of AI and have an aversion to interacting with it where they would previously have interacted with a person. Chatbots are just the start, what is coming next and how can we ensure the customer experience it authentic and engaging when AI becomes involved? Speaker - Tom Castle, Director of Artificial Intelligence, Royal Bank of Scotland |
11:20-12:05 | Networking |
12:05-12:35 | A Different Approach to Sourcing – Champion/Challenger Case Study - Outsourcing and even more so, offshoring, can sometimes feel like a voyage into the unknown with myriad complications often over simplified in the midst of a tendering process. Guaranteeing a quality of customer experience with new or existent suppliers can be difficult without correct measures in place. That is where the champion/challenger model comes in. Ian Webber Rostron, Head of Outsourcing at retail giant N Brown Group will take you through how he managed to convince directors that outsourcing their customer experience can be done without ever feeling like the outsourced service is left at arms-length. Speaker - Ian Webber-Rostron, Head of Outsourcing and International, N Brown Group plc |
12:35-13:20 | A New Source of Customer Data, guiding Operations and Strategy - In 2016 BrandsEye made global headlines when they correctly predicted the outcomes of both Brexit and the US election using social media sentiment data.BrandsEye uses a proprietary mix of search algorithms, crowd-sourcing and machine learning to mine online conversation for sentiment and the topics driving that sentiment. Through this unique approach, they help organisations bridge the gap that exists between themselves and the expectations of their customers. Nic Ray, CMO of BrandsEye, will show the audience how accurate social data is being used to revolutionise the CX landscape, map the customer journey more effectively and generate a genuine ROI through customer acquisition and retention. Speaker - Nic Ray, Chief Marketing Officer, BrandsEye |
13:20-14:10 | Networking Lunch |
14:10-15:05 | Prepare for Turbulence! The Sourcing Industry needs to reinvent itself - The Global Sourcing industry is expanding, evolving and reforming. New models and new technologies are creating opportunities, but old protectionists habits are still creating barriers to advanced collaboration. Outsourcing is on a burning platform and we are all responsible for driving a degree of change to secure the industry’s future. Our expert panel will discuss what has gone wrong in global outsourcing practice and present their innovative ideas from the UK’s #ReshapingSourcing programme on how to charter the sourcing profession to a secured future. Chair - Kerry Hallard Panellists:
|
15:05-15:35 | Achieving value across a global supply chain - Tips for success, and pitfalls to avoid, for building and implementing global sourcing deals. Amy and Rob will share some of their experiences from more than (jointly) 40 years in the industry, looking at both buy-side and supplier imperatives Speakers - Rob Sumroy, Partner, Slaughter and May and Amy Wettenhall, Erriccson |
15:35-16:00 | Networking |
16:00-16:25 | Best practice surgery: how to best market and sell yourself to international buyers - GSA Chairman and CEO will be on hand to talk you through their recommendations on how you can put yourbest foot forward to engage with and sell to international buyers. Jim will lead you through how to align to best practice. Kerry will share her 20 years of insights on how service providers can best market themselves to international buyers. | Using ITO innovation to achieve rapid growth across country markets - Axactor had an aggressive growth plan and realised it needed a unique IT strategy to succeed. Did this strategy work? You bet it did...here's the story of how through a true strategic partnership with Miratech, and the use of Miratech’s Turn-Key IT solution, Axactor evolved from a start-up in December 2015 with quarterly GOR of €3.2 million in Q2 2016 to a pan-European company with GOR of €66.7million in Q2 2018 and cross-market operations in five countries. |
16:30-17:00 | Teching out the Possibilities - The future is in technology and the current rate of advancement means that really, anything is possible.We have handpicked three exciting tech start-ups from the local economy to give you a taste of just what is possible currently and just how advanced tools can be for your sourcing Chaired by BPeSA | Workshop: the business case for RPA - Fake news is not just an issue effecting President Trump, it’s also having its influence on the RPA industry. Some organisations report big cost savings, whilst others are more reserved in their estimations. Terry’s session will cover how to: • build a business case for automation • create sustainable efficiencies in your operations to improve the speed and quality of service offered to customers • design and deliver a digital workforce • automate a wide variety of processes across business without encountering technical barriers • how Intelligent automation can enable local businesses to expand their footprint, bringing greater investment and more jobs to emerging economies Speaker - Terry Walby, CEO, Thoughtonomy |
17:00 | GSA Global Summit Close |
Following the Global Sourcing Summit, the Global Awards were hosted. The Global Awards Winners can be seen here.
Photos from the Global Sourcing Summit and Global Awards can be found here
We conducted interviews with some key players, which can be found on SourcingTV.