Daniela Vercellino, Societe Generale Global Solution Centre: “We are managing uncertainty, but we try to keep the pace with the change and keep people engaged”

“I think we are in another revolution in this moment. And I think we are changing an era, for sure.

If you look at anthropological studies, you had the Roman Empire and the Greek Empire. But now we are in the cross border of changing an era. And AI will do this for us. In which way? Still to be seen.

We are managing change, managing uncertainty. And under these two pillars, we try to keep the pace with the change and keep people engaged and motivated to do more, but also stay healthy,” Daniela Vercellino, COO, Societe Generale Global Solution Centre said at Romanian Business Services Forum organized by Outsourcing Today and The Diplomat-Bucharest.

“There is uncertainty across the world. First of all, we start with geopolitical. We see that conflicts are not decreasing or actually increasing across the world. So, it’s a global phenomenon.

Secondly, there is the uncertainty what will AI impact us and in which way. We hear that some jobs will disappear, let’s say bottom jobs. How will they disappear? Okay, they will disappear, but what will we do with the people? So, we are talking back about reskilling because I think with this AI, somebody will need to work, right? So not that they will work by themselves.

Thirdly, we are talking about managing all these changes that leaders have to do. And the changes are not only in technology or what we see globally at geopolitical level that is happening, but also managing the fact that the world is changing. And we see that in this moment, to some extent, we are also changing generations in the workforce. We see baby boomers starting to exit and we see Gen Z actually increasing.

And if you look historically, always, and always, the new generation is bringing and putting their values in the workplace.

This always happens and I don’t think it will be in a different way in this moment. We are managing diversity. But whenever we talk about diversity, we talk very much about diversity from very standard topics, gender, generations. What about diversity of ideas?

We need to start managing this because Gen Z is expecting this, actually, that you will do it in a different way. And yes, of course, you need to manage the wellbeing of the people in all these contexts that you are living, to ensure the necessary flexibility.

And on top of this, we need to ensure the strategy for the future, which strategy is much more on shorter term right now than we were looking at 20-30 years strategy.

Whenever I’m thinking of such disruptive environment that we need adapt to, actually, I’m also looking that just this month, Societe Generale Group actually has just turned 160 years of existence.

So, this company has seen two world wars, a Cold War, a lot of revolutions, and we are still here worldwide. So, it gives me hope that mankind, somehow, always tries to find its place in the world despite all these changes and manage to actually excel at what they do.”