Insights
Defining Global Business Services Excellence
Inixia contributes to the APEX GBS Standards, the practitioner-led global guide to how enterprises design, operate and evolve their GBS organizations, developed by the Alliance for Professional Excellence in Global Business Services (APEX GBS) Standards Committee.
Inixia’s founders, Filippo Passerini and Tony Saldanha, are among the primary authors. The Standards are a living document, refined by GBS leaders from organizations including Johnson & Johnson, Mars and Cardinal Health. Version 2 was published in autumn 2025.
About Version 2
Version 2 expands the original model to show how organizations can achieve agility, scale and innovation in an era of AI and digital disruption.
What the new edition introduces:
- Artificial Intelligence in GBS: Detailed guidance on how to integrate AI safely and effectively into service delivery and decision-making.
- Data and Decision Capabilities: A new chapter positioning GBS as the enterprise’s data-driven insight engine.
- Global Capability Centers (GCCs): Practical strategies for leveraging global hubs to deliver higher value creation.
- Empowered Service Leadership: Frameworks enabling service managers to operate as “CEOs” of their service lines.
- Career and Capability Development: Insights on how practitioners can navigate and grow in the rapidly evolving GBS profession.
A framework for transformation
The guide covers six dimensions of GBS excellence:
- Purpose and Strategy
- Service Delivery Operations
- Service Management and Governance
- Enabling Technologies and AI
- Data and Decision Capabilities
- Talent and Leadership
Who It’s For
For everyone who builds, scales or runs a GBS organization, including:
- Enterprise Leaders and GBS Executives responsible for setting vision, strategy, and delivering measurable value across shared services.
- Transformation and Change Leaders driving modernization, automation, and AI adoption.
- Operations and Service Managers striving to elevate efficiency, streamline processes, and enhance service quality and value creation.
- Technology and Data Leaders building the digital backbone of future-ready GBS enterprises.
- HR and Talent Managers: managing recruitment, development, and retention of specialized GBS talent.
- Business Partners and Functional Leaders: seeking to align shared services with broader business goals and customer needs.
- Advisors and Practitioners who want to apply proven, practitioner-developed frameworks that work in the real world.
A Benchmark for the Industry
As the only open, practitioner-led standards initiative of its kind, APEX GBS has become the global benchmark for excellence in Global Business Services.
Visit The GBS Standards Website To Find Out More
Read the Standards
The Standards and the How-To Guides
APEX GBS Standards, Version 2
The full Standards: six chapters covering every dimension of GBS, updated with AI and data management.
The Agentic AI Playbook
The first APEX How-To Guide: nine practical guides that take a GBS organization from readiness through implementation, adoption and scale, with a capstone case study.
Twenty minutes. One expert. Your problem.
Tell us where you are and leave with a clear view of your next step.