The Real GBS Bottleneck? Experience Design

Friction hides in places most teams do not measure. And it spreads fast.

Most GBS teams chase adoption rates while ignoring the friction baked into their workflows. The issue lies less in capability and more in how the system feels to use. Digital tools enable scale. Experience design determines whether people want to use them. But in most GBS organizations, experience is an afterthought. They optimize the process but ignore how it feels. They automate the steps but never test the path. They measure completion rates but miss the friction behind the numbers. A well-executed process can still frustrate the user. A portal can be fast and still feel like a dead end. This happens when services are built for function but not for experience.

Experience Design Turns Tools Into Outcomes

Design is not about making things look nice. It is about making them work for people.

When done right, experience design:

• Makes automation usable
• Turns systems into something intuitive
• Converts complaints into redesign
• Builds confidence, not just compliance

That is why top GBS organizations are treating experience as a core performance lever. Not because it is "nice to have," but because it is measurable, repeatable, and directly tied to business value.

You Can't Improve What You Don't Track

SSON Research & Analytics' Metric Benchmarker shows how experience design becomes visible in the right metrics, particularly in organizations that treat user experience as a measurable dimension of operational performance. Their Metric Benchmarker platform provides tangible KPIs to surface experience-related friction:

• Exceptions per T&E report
• Manual invoice ratio
• Employee Net Promoter Score (eNPS)

These are not soft indicators. They expose friction. They surface workarounds. They reflect trust. If your systems generate a high volume of manual invoices, or your T&E process creates constant exceptions, the message is clear: your design is failing your users.

According to SSON Research & Analytics Research Insight Report, "GBS as the Engine of Digital Transformation", top-performing GBS organizations embed experience design into service workflows as a core capability, not a finishing touch. The report highlights that experience-led design is a critical enabler of both digital adoption and business value.

Experience Design Is Structural, Not Cosmetic

Many GBS teams fall into the trap of treating experience as a one-time UX sprint or a UI facelift. That misses the point. Real experience design is woven into how services are built and managed. It is:

• How you route work
• How you prioritize user signals
• How you integrate feedback loops into workflows

Experience design is not the final layer, but the foundation. 

Stop Treating Experience Like a Bonus

Every time your automation confuses users, every time your workflow leaves a team in the dark, you are burning trust. And trust, once broken, is expensive to repair.

Treat experience as the performance lever it actually is. Because it works.

Prioritize experience.

Resources:
📌 SSON Research & Analytics Insight Report: GBS As The Engine of Digital Transformation

📌 SSON Research & Analytics Metric Benchmarker