The Shared Services & Outsourcing Week (SSOW) 2025 welcomed leading voices from the global business services and supply chain communities to explore how organizations can meet growing demands for agility, resilience, and efficiency. In a dynamic fireside chat, Yash Chauhan, Global Head of Neo Tangent, joined SSOW’s Barbara Hodge to discuss how centralizing and transforming the “middle office” is key to unlocking true end-to-end supply chain excellence.

Opening the session, Yash Chauhan shared Neo Tangent’s journey from being the captive GBS unit of Li & Fung to becoming a standalone entity delivering supply chain services to global enterprises across retail, pharma, and manufacturing. “We served the middle and back-office functions at Li & Fung for almost two decades,” Yash Chauhan explained. “Three years ago, we decided to take our expertise to the broader market. Today, we’re focused on middle office supply chain solutions — the processes between the front-end and back-end that hold the enterprise together.”

In light of global disruptions — from the COVID-19 pandemic to geopolitical tensions in regions like the Red Sea — Yash Chauhan emphasized the increasing importance of visibility, agility, and resilience in modern supply chains. “Enterprises had the technology, but what they lacked was a consolidated structure that connected domain expertise with digital execution,” Yash Chauhan noted. “We’re still seeing fragmented operations where logistics, customs, and warehousing are handled by separate vendors without unified visibility.” He called for a structural shift: consolidating supply chain operations under a centralized middle office within the GBS ecosystem to enable real-time insights and proactive risk mitigation.

Recent research from both SSON and HFS shows growing interest in this integration. More than 60% of enterprises are considering centralizing supply chain functions. However, many still limit GBS to transactional work — order entry, data management — without connecting it to production or logistics planning. “There’s untapped value in bringing together the CFO-led back office and the COO-led middle office,” said Yash Chauhan. “Finance is an outcome of operations. To optimize the financials, we must start with the supply chain.” Yash also addressed the practical side of transformation. Neo Tangent supports its clients through phased implementation — starting with foundational capabilities like order management and progressing toward advanced areas like demand planning, procurement integration, and last-mile delivery. “We’re not boiling the ocean. We start small and scale through proven use cases.”

Yash Chauhan drew parallels between the evolution of shared services and what’s now unfolding in supply chain. “Just like regional shared services matured into global GBS, supply chain operations must move from regional silos to globally orchestrated ecosystems,” he said. “The impact of such a transformation is multifold — from better inventory control to enhanced supplier collaboration.”

No discussion on transformation is complete without technology. Yash Chauhan highlighted the role of AI — particularly Generative AI and Agentic AI — in redefining supply chain processes. “From generative product design to AI agents managing transactional workflows like document checks and order tracking, AI is making a material difference,” he explained. “But because supply chain is highly fragmented, a one-size-fits-all solution won’t work. You need a tailored, ecosystem-driven approach.” Neo Tangent is actively deploying AI use cases in areas like sourcing, compliance management, and logistics orchestration, with a view to turning middle-office complexity into competitive advantage.

As the session concluded, it became clear that Neo Tangent is not just redefining terminology — it's reshaping how enterprises think about operational transformation. Yash Chauhan’s message was simple yet bold: the middle office is the new frontier of enterprise efficiency, and those who integrate it seamlessly with their GBS strategy will lead the next wave of operational excellence. Watch the full fireside chat to explore Neo Tangent’s bold vision for middle-office transformation and how it’s redefining end-to-end supply chain success in the GBS era