Somewhere in your company is a slide deck from a couple of years ago showing what your GBS would look like by now. It probably looks nothing like the operation you’re actually running today.
That gap is common. PwC’s 2025 GBS study found that only 18% of organisations have actually built the GBS they were aiming for, down from 25% in 2023. The other 82% are still trying.
Ola Stelmach-Gryszka has spent 16 years watching these programs stall from the inside, most recently as a Partner at PwC. When she looks at why that failure rate is so persistent, the reasons have almost nothing to do with technology.
In our latest P2Podcast episode, Ola covers the hard structural problems that stall these projects, like a lack of authority, weak change management, and no real end-to-end ownership. But she also points to a more hidden reason: different departments are often speaking completely different languages.
That lack of understanding between the business side and the technical side is something companies can work on today. You don’t need extra budget or corporate approval to address it. You probably don’t even need to hire someone new, because these people already exist on your floor.
Ola calls them the “translators.”
They speak the language of finance, with an awareness of technology. There are not that many people in the market who can actually do it.
Think of the person you automatically cc on an email chain when a cross-functional meeting goes completely sideways. They sit right between your finance team and your IT team, following both conversations well enough to know when the two sides are nodding along but actually agreeing on nothing. They can answer a chart of accounts question and still keep up with exactly what the SAP team is proposing on the fly.
Their job title almost never matches what they actually do, but they are the operational glue holding the project together. Is there a name coming to your mind right now?
Most transformation programs just assume this translation work will happen on its own. It doesn’t. Every effective program needs translators, and they quit fast when they don’t feel valued.
Empowering them won’t save a broken strategy, but it is a vital win for your daily operations.
In this episode, Ola pulls back the curtain on how these corporate designs live and die on the ground, offering a raw look at what it actually takes to make a transformation stick.
We will talk about:
- What makes finance transformation genuinely work, when so many others don’t
- Why your best people leave first during transformation
- What happens to centres that cut headcount on AI promises before the savings arrive
- How do you get real improvement ideas out of your team, fast
- How do you get the business to act on what your data is telling them
- How to tell if your GBS is as healthy as your dashboards say
Listen on Spotify
Watch on YouTube
About Ola Stelmach-Gryszka
Ola is a Partner at PwC with more than 16 years of experience in Global Business Services (GBS) and finance transformation. She works with organizations to redesign operating models, build GBS structures, and make large transformation programs actually deliver. Ola knows these journeys from the inside. She has seen how business cases are built, how leadership teams align, and exactly where ambition meets reality.
Ola Stelmach-Gryszka, Partner – GBS Consulting and Finance Transformation Consulting, PwC
