Attendee Stories and Testimonials

We always appreciate the testimonials and kudos that our attendees and participants provide us - after all, their enthusiasm reflects the support they provide for our events. However, we're also interested in hearing where attendees are coming from, and why the Shared Services & Outsourcing events are important to them. Read on to see some of this year's attendee stories!

Testimonials from the 2010 Show

"In no other conference have I seen such extensive dialogue - real interaction - between the companies in need of services and solutions and those supplying the companies. Shared Services & Outsourcing Week drives true collaboration and partnership, something we need more of in these difficult economic times."

Rick Arpin
SVP & Corporate Controller
MGM Mirage

"It was great having so many companies and so much experience being Shared, all in the same place. Definitely a successful and productive week"

Ruben Lopez
Operations Manager, Shared Marketing Services
HP Global Business Services

"The March 2010 Shared Services conference was right on target! It met multiple needs, at multiple levels. I am speaking as a seasoned SSC veteran, with over 10 years experience at the executive level. I have been heavily involved with SSON in the SSC space, as a Faculty speaker, as a conference participant, and as a contributor of multiple SSON magazine articles. Over these years, I have witnessed and experienced the continued evolution of the conference content and offerings, which was clearly evidenced in the March conference. This includes the richness in flavor of the continued fantastic site tours they offer, the thoughtful SSC G8 Summit Forum, the excellent presentation by top SSC Leaders, and the highly interactive panel sessions. In addition, the March conference contained a robust number of critical vendors and software solutions that allowed convenient business meetings for SSC participants to explore new innovation opportunities. Congratulations and thanks to SSON for such a productive event."

Ed Martinez
VP Shared Services
Wendy's/Arby's Group, Inc
Former VP
AT&T
Head of BellSouth Shared Services

"The SSON team put together a thoughtful agenda which included all stages of shared services process and delivery. There was really something for everyone, whether a novice or veteran in the shared services arena. The improvements to Shared Services Week continue to be evident given the level of interest and participation this year. It was the largest and best represented conference to date. Congratulations on a job well done!"

Susan Danino
Project Director
TPI

In the Building Stages of Shared Services

My shared services group is still building. So you might ask me why this conference is important. It's important to me because it starts to show me the road I need to take. It tells me what i shouldn't do, what to watch out for, to not jump the gun. Yes, so while everything may not be to my level, meaning that a lot of these companies are well past us, it shows me the road where I need to begin.

Penny Formella
Shared Services Leader
Actuant Corporation
Shared Services & Outsourcing Summit, Chicago, IL September 2009

Gaining from the Experience of Others

We're in the infancy stages of shared services at our company, so it's been very beneficial for me to hear the stories of the others who are a little bit more advanced along the path. I learned a lot yesterday in a session led by a gentleman from Intel about program structure, governance, balance scorecards, and quarterly business reviews with key stakeholders that I found to be very enlightening, and that I'm going to take back.

Then this morning, a roundtable discussion led by a gentlemen from GM as well as Lee Coulter from Kraft, really stressing the importance of contract management. I think that's something, as a company, we're going to really have to consider as we start to outsource or offshore is making sure that we're properly managing these relationships.

Those were two key takeaways and the great networking. I don't think I would have derived the same value from a webinar or sitting at my desk. (I'm a notorious multi-tasker when doing things like that.) Overall, it's been great and I look forward to future sessions.

Tom Perkins
Purchasing Director
Schneider Electric
Shared Services & Outsourcing Summit, Chicago, IL September 2009

A Speaker's Point of View: Attendees and New Formats

What do I think of the event overall? The key to me is the attendees. They're incredibly knowledgeable, experienced, and enthusiastic about shared services. They're open to ideas, they're anxious to learn and frankly, are dedicated to the success of the entity that they support. It's a good, wide group of attendees. There's a very knowledgeable and wide range of speakers, too. Even the range of where they are in the journey is wide as well: people who are just starting, people who are thinking about it, people who are in a mature shared services, you can get the whole thing. Whatever you're interested in learning, you can find it here.

In regards to the new formats you did this year, like the onstage interviews -- we did it! It was interesting, it was fun; we obviously still had a lot of preparation involved because otherwise you're kind of stumbling along up there. We saw the questions beforehand, chatted together and met with the interviewer. but I think it gave us a chance to be more informal, and not to have the usual batch of slides where it's "Here's the number we're pointing out" and you can also react to the audience and try to get questions answered and sort of gauge the sense of where they're going and what their interest might be.

It's different, it's informal; you can get the enthusiasm of the speaker that isn't always in the dry presentation. But you need a little bit of both, which you have, so that's great.

Terry Hartmann
Former Director, Financial Shared Services
Xerox Corporation
Shared Services & Outsourcing Summit, Chicago, IL September 2009

The Strength is in the Conversations

I believe this has been one of the best conferences that I have been to in the last 5 years.

I have met a lot of people with good experience and knowledge that they are willing to share and discuss. It's been quite enlightening. To meet and discuss new areas: things that organizations do, or what executives think when they are either are looking at outsourcing, or when they are setting up a shared service, how they are trying to transform what they have been doing for a while. You expect a certain amount of maturity and forward thinking in the relationship that you would like to benefit from, and most of the speakers are quite spot on. IQPC is doing a great job by getting experienced professionals together; this is the first time that I've seen a lot of people from the finance and accounting area sharing a lot more freely than I've seen and I think that's quite good and encouraging.

Milan Desai
Director North America - BPO
Zensar Technologies Inc
Shared Services & Outsourcing Summit, Chicago, IL September 2009