April Newsletter

Editor's Note

By April, the tone changes. 

The early conversations about AI and transformation are still there, but they are getting sharper. Leaders are no longer asking what is possible. They are asking what is working. 

And more importantly, what is not. 

Across everything we are seeing this month, one idea stands out. 

Progress is no longer defined by what has been implemented. It is defined by what has actually changed in the work.  

Where Execution is Still Breaking

For years, finance teams believed they were automating the close. 

Most organizations have digitized how the close is tracked. They have not fundamentally changed how it is executed. 

• 92% still carry significant manual effort. 

• Only 2% report a fully automated close. 

• 86% still rely on spreadsheets despite having close management tools. 

The work did not disappear. It just became more visible. 

The friction sits in the same place it always has. Journal entries. Reconciliations. Accruals. Intercompany adjustments. 

This is where execution either holds or breaks. 

Read the Report: The R2R Efficiency Mirage 

Where Money is Still Slipping Through

But not all execution gaps show up as inefficiency.  

Some show up as loss.  

Accounts Payable is one of them. 

Across the market, organizations are losing an estimated $53 billion annually. On average, that is 0.35% of total spend. Duplicate payments, missed credits, invoice errors, fraud. 

None of it dramatic. All of it cumulative. 

Most organizations still lack visibility at the transaction level before the pay run. 

And by the time it is visible, the money is already gone. 

Join the Webinar: The $53bn AP Opportunity: Preventing Financial Leakage 

If you want to go deeper into how teams are addressing this structurally, our latest report explores how AI is shifting the model away from recovery and toward prevention. 

Read the Report: Financial Leakage: How AI Has Made the Recovery Audit Redundant 

Where the Model Starts to Move

A different kind of change is starting to show up.  

Agentic AI is no longer just a concept. It is starting to move into real environments, but not in the way many expected. 

Three quarters of the market believe service delivery models will change significantly as a result.  

Nearly half of organizations are still piloting. Only about 10% have agentic AI in production. Most are seeing productivity gains in the 10 to 20 percent range so far, well below what many initially expected. 

The technology is moving faster than the operating model. 

And until the model catches up, the impact will remain uneven.  

Read the Report: The Post FTE-Based Service Delivery Model  

What the Best Actually Do Differently

This is where the difference shows up.  

Each year, we look at the organizations that are consistently outperforming the rest of the market. Not just on cost, but on how they turn capability into impact. 

The 2026 World's Best GBS shortlist included 3M, ArcelorMittal, Bosch, Siemens, and Welspun. 

Siemens Global Business Services has been named the World's Best GBS 2026. 
Congratulations also to Bosch Global Business Services and 3M Global Business Services for taking home the Silver and Bronze awards. 

What separates these organizations is not technology alone. 

It is clarity. 

Clarity in what GBS owns. 
Clarity in how work flows. 
Clarity in how value is measured. 

That clarity shows up in execution. 

Join the Webinar: World's Best GBS 2026 – An Analysis of High Performance (April 23) 

And then go deeper during our spotlight interview on May 28, where Eckard Eberle, CEO, Siemens GBS, will share how his team is evolving the model to support the next phase of enterprise transformation. 

How The Model is Being Rewritten

There is a bigger shift underneath all of this.  

The question is no longer how to optimize shared services. It is how to redesign it. 

The Alliance for Professional Excellence in Global Business Services has released Version 2 of its standards, expanding beyond structure into how GBS supports data, decision making, and enterprise-wide value creation. 

This is not about adopting a framework. 

It is about understanding how leading organizations are rethinking the role of GBS.  

Join the Webinar: GBS Industry Standards Leapfrogging Maturity in a Changing Context  

Where to Start

For many leaders, the fastest way to move forward is not another transformation program. 

It is understanding where they actually stand. 

The R&A Report Wizard allows you to upload your own data and benchmark performance in minutes against peers, global data sets, and top-performing organizations. 

For more complex challenges, our advisory sessions connect you directly with experts who have solved similar problems in real environments.  

The Real Shift

The industry does not lack ideas. 

It does not lack technology. 

What it has lacked is alignment between how work is designed and how it is executed. 

That is starting to shift.  

Not everywhere. Not all at once. 

But in the organizations that are moving fastest, the difference is becoming harder to ignore. 

They are not doing more. 

They are doing it differently. 

Until next time, 
Naomi Secor 
Global Managing Director 
SSON Research & Analytics