Oya Gur: Shared services are transforming into integrated business services

The BSO & Shared Services Transition Director of Coca-Cola Hellenic in an interview for Forbes Magazine Bulgaria on the eve of BSO’s 10^th anniversary

1.       You’re leading the Coca-Cola Hellenic BSO, can you tell us more about its impact on the overall global business of the company?

This year we are celebrating our 10^th anniversary and over these ten years BSO has grown to be an integral part of the Coca-Cola Hellenic organization expanding its scope of services year over year. We add value to the business by standardizing, simplifying and where possible automating processes. Especially in the past two years some of the new scope we are taking on is in the areas of analysis, forecasting and reporting which gets us even closer to our markets as business partners.

2.       Coca-Cola Hellenic BSO delivers services for so many markets around the world – how do you manage to be successful in each market?

Although the core bottling business is the same, each of the 25 markets we serve have their own specifics driven by the trade and customer structure and legal environment.  We always do an extensive work shadowing before we take over any process to learn from our local colleagues and then we have service managers responsible for each market to maintain a continuous dialogue with our internal customers. We set joint targets together with the markets and have monthly routines to review progress against these targets and any other topics.

3.       What are the advantages for BSO to be based in Bulgaria? Which are the most common characteristics specifics of Bulgarian specialists?

When we chose our Shared Services location we wanted to make sure that it was a Coca-Cola Hellenic market and a market that has potential for developing talented professionals. Bulgaria is also nicely located in terms of travel to the countries we serve. Availability of talent has also been a critical factor and unfortunately this is the only area we are struggling lately as Bulgaria very successfully managed to attract more investment in our industry the demand for talent has increased materially over the years.

4.       What is it like to be part of the Coca-Cola HBC family and the overall global Coca-Cola System?

I have been working in the Coca-Cola System for almost 24 years and 11 of those were with Coca-Cola Hellenic. The Coke System is full of opportunities for everyone who wants to build a career and there is continuous learning, development and change. I have to say that it never gets boring! Coca-Cola Hellenic is also a true multinational where one gets to work with people from all parts of the world which enables personal learning and development beyond the professional one. Nothing can replace learning about new cultures, food, traditions and values of a nation than interacting with people from those countries. So, the great people of Coca-Cola System and more importantly Coca-Cola Hellenic make this journey one to remember for all the great moments and achievements together and experiences shared.

5.       How do you see the future of shared services?

Shared Services is evolving into Integrated Business Services globally as scope expands in other areas of the business. Technology and automation is a key enabler to improve productivity and we invest those resources into new scope. Services provided also move from being only transactional and repetitive task to more value adding analysis, insights, reporting and business partnering.

6.       What motivates you most as a leader in the last very dynamic year?

Not specific to this past year but what motivates me the most is having the opportunity to work with teams. Nothing is more rewarding than being able to support and observe someone grow.