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LiveOps Announces the Availability of Its Spring 08 On-Demand Call Center Platform
LiveOps, the virtual call center company, announced the availability of the Spring 08 LiveOps On-Demand Call Center Platform. The Spring 08 LiveOps On-Demand Call Center Platform provides significantly enhanced capabilities for call centers, including enhanced outbound dialing capability, improved call routing user interface for business users, CTI integration with external call delivery services, as well as integration with major call routing systems.

RightNow Technologies' On Demand CRM Release Empowers Contact Center Agents With Contextual Workspaces
RightNow Technologies has introduced RightNow February '08, the latest release of its enterprise-class, on demand customer relationship management (CRM) solution. With this latest version, RightNow delivers a new contextual workspace for maximum agent productivity, as well as new topic monitoring capabilities that enable companies to quickly understand customer sentiment. RightNow has enhanced the agent desktop with a new workspace that helps organizations immediately engage customers with relevant, personalized service. Using information from and about the customer and knowing what actions the agent must take, RightNow tailors content and functionality on the agent's desktop to address the issue at hand. Certain fields and tabs will be dynamically displayed or hidden in the workspace based on the context of the interaction.

Epicor Unveils Its Next-Generation Service-Oriented Architecture
Epicor Software Corporation, a provider of enterprise business software solutions for the midmarket and divisions of Global 1000 companies, unveiled Epicor Internet Component Environment (ICE) 2.0 at the Microsoft “Heroes Happen Here” launch in Los Angeles. Epicor ICE 2.0 is the Company’s next-generation industry-leading service-oriented architecture (SOA) for building dynamic business applications, and will exploit the capabilities of Microsoft Windows Server 2008, SQL Server 2008, and Visual Studio 2008. The backbone of Epicor’s next-generation resource planning (ERP) solutions, Epicor ICE 2.0 fuses Web 2.0 and Enterprise SOA concepts to deliver an adaptable framework for creating dynamic applications delivered via rich user experiences.

Visit the SupportIndustry.com Blog

The SupportIndustry.com Blog is another way stay on top of the service and support industry. Our blog, updated at least once a week, is dedicated to covering the latest topics related to service and support, call center management, customer experience management, web-based support, help desks, workforce optimization and more.

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A list of top customer service Ouch Points ranked as follows:

• Reps that are hard to understand because of a thick accent - 20%
• Length of time to reach a representative - 17%
• Reps that are not knowledgeable about their organizations products/ services/ process - 14%
• Being transferred to the wrong person or the wrong department - 13%
• Reps who promise to follow through and don’t - 9%
• Reps that are not empowered to handle a situation - 8%
• Reps who don’t understand your situation - 7%
• Reps who want to debate your situation - 3%

More...

Average Spending on SOA Software and Services Reached $1.4 Million in 2007
Companies adopting service-oriented architecture (SOA) spent $1.4 million on software and services in 2007, according to a report released today by AMR Research. Survey respondents represented a cross-section of companies with 500- 10,000+ employees in the process and discrete manufacturing, retail, wholesale/distribution, telecom, and financial services industries. According to the survey, SOA adoption and spending largely varied across vertical industry, location, and size of company.

Additional highlights of this report include:

• SOA adoption is broad based and growing rapidly -- China, Germany, and the United States all showed adoption growth rates of over 100%.
• SOA spending is significant -- 45% of SOA adopters reported spending over $500K on SOA software and services in 2007.

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Technology Populism Will Drive The Next Wave Of IT Adoption
The next wave of change within IT organizations will be fueled by the proliferation of consumer devices, social networking tools, and cloud-based collaboration services making their way into the enterprise, according to a new report by Forrester Research, Inc. What Forrester calls Technology Populism will force Information & Knowledge Management professionals to rethink how they currently evaluate, provision, and support collaborative software and services. This sea change will present IT departments with a number of opportunities and challenges that will upend the traditional way that technology is deployed.

Other drivers behind Technology Populism include:

Cheap broadband at home and work. Nearly 50 percent of North American households have a broadband connection, and the Web continues to develop into the preferred platform for two-way communication and collaboration. According to Forrester, 15 percent of North American adults use social networking sites on at least a monthly basis and 34 percent communicate via instant message as frequently.

A new generation of applications based on network interactions. Companies are learning how to exploit services such as LinkedIn, Facebook, and salesforce.com for business purposes to generate sales leads, recruit talent, and test and improve products.

IT views Web 2.0 favorably. Despite popular opinion, IT leaders support Web 2.0 technologies in the workplace: A recent Forrester study shows 72 percent of IT departments are using some form of Web 2.0 technology.

Among the challenges posed by Technology Populism are how to govern Web 2.0 technologies, ensuring information integrity and avoiding information silos, a real issue as these new tools could create volumes of information microsilos that make it next to impossible to find information. In addition, IT departments are faced with current collaboration and Social Computing technologies becoming obsolete as Technology Populism grows.

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Emerging Regions Will Be a Major Force of IT Growth by 2011
IT spending continues to rise in the emerging regions of Asia/Pacific, Latin America, the Middle East and Africa, and Eastern Europe at a pace far outstripping that of the industrialized world, according to Gartner, Inc. These emerging regions will generate IT spending of $1.1 trillion in 2008, and will grow to $1.3 trillion in 2011, becoming a major force of IT growth worldwide.

The compound annual growth rate (CAGR) for IT spending in emerging regions for 2006 through 2011 will be 8.5 percent versus 4.3 percent for mature markets. Gartner predicts that IT will become more of a catalyst for gross domestic product (GDP) increases in the years to come via more-efficient private organizations and competitiveness among countries.

Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRIC) will reinforce their role as the driving forces for other emerging IT countries. BRIC will represent about 39 percent of all emerging markets’ GDP in 2011.

Asia/Pacific
Gartner projects that IT spending for Asia/Pacific will reach $590 billion in 2011, up from $447 billion in 2007. This region continues along its strong IT adoption path, with China leading and India rapidly moving forward. China is substantially driving growth in other emerging IT markets such as Latin America and Africa, via imports and direct and portfolio investments. This creates increased opportunities for IT providers given the needs of local companies immersed in the supply chain with China.

Latin America
Latin America IT spending is forecast to reach $279 billion in 2011, up from $210 billion in 2007. Latin America is the second-largest emerging region in IT spending, with rapidly maturing IT segments, such as telecommunications. IT expansion is rapidly moving beyond Tier 1 cities in many Latin American countries, with consumer and professional market segments in high demand of IT products and services.

Africa and the Middle East
The forecast for 2011 IT spending in Africa and the Middle East is $259 billion, up from $182 billion in 2007. Africa and the Middle East are strongly advancing in all IT areas and are narrowing the gap in IT spending with Latin America. The large size of the region, with its relatively lower IT penetration and its engagement in major telecommunication deployments, is making a strong IT trend. This region shows a forecast CAGR from 2006 through 2011 of 77 percent, which is the strongest of all the emerging regions.

Eastern Europe
IT spending for Eastern Europe is forecast to reach $155 billion in 2011, up from $125 billion in 2007. Eastern Europe's growth and dollar transactions are lower than in other emerging regions, as the region is the lowest in population among the four emerging regions. Russia is the largest IT economy in this region, but shows the lowest real GDP among the largest emerging countries, partially because of existing infrastructure. It faces challenges in modernizing business practices, expanding its small business base and diversifying to beyond oil, gas and minerals, which present large IT opportunities for IT providers.

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IT Governance Global Status Report—2008
In 2007, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) was commissioned by the IT Governance Institute (ITGI) to conduct the third global survey on IT governance, resulting in this IT Governance Global Status Report—2008. The IT governance survey was conducted from July 2007 until October 2007 and focuses on specific topics such as IT risks and value delivery. The purpose of the research was to reach members of the C-suite to determine their sense of priority and actions taken relative to IT governance, as well as their need for tools and services to help ensure effective IT governance.

The 13 key messages that have been identified during the analysis of the survey reflect important findings from the results of the survey:

1. Although championship for IT governance within the enterprise comes from the C-level, in daily practice IT governance is still very much a CIO/IT director issue. The few non-IT people in the sample have a much more positive view of IT than do the IT professionals themselves.

2. The importance of IT continues to increase.

3. Self-assessment regarding IT governance has increased and is quite positive.

4. Communication between IT and users is improving, but slowly.

5. There is still substantial room for improvement in alignment between IT governance and corporate governance -- as well as for IT strategy and business strategy.

6. IT-related problems persist. While security/compliance is an issue, people are the most critical problem.

7. Good IT governance practices are known and applied, but not universally.

8. Organizations know who can help them implement IT governance, but appreciation for the available expertise and delivery capability is only average.

9. Action is being taken or plans are underway to implement IT governance activities. A large increase is evident when compared to the 2006 report.

10.Organizations use the well-known frameworks and solutions.

11.COBIT awareness has exceeded 50 percent, and adoption and use remain around 30 percent.
a. Twenty-five to 35 percent of respondents apply COBIT to the letter or are very strict.
b. Fifty percent of respondents indicate that COBIT is ‘one of the reference sources’.
c. In general, there is high appreciation of COBIT, as has been seen in prior reports.

12. More than half of the respondents apply or plan to apply Val IT principles, but are not familiar with the Val IT brand itself.

13. Major obstacles to adoption and use of Val IT principles include uncertainty regarding the return on investment (ROI) and lack of knowledge/expertise.

More...

Customer Service's Gap Between Intention and Reality
Creating business and profit-enhancing relations with customers requires the right environment, ethos, culture and philosophy. You cannot achieve it by simply telling other people to do it. You can train them in the techniques for turning "difficult" phone calls around, but if they do not feel like doing it, then they will not do it. If you and your whole organization do not believe in developing good relations with all of your customers -- it will not happen.
Full Article...

Rolling the Dice
Risk assessment is a huge part of IT. It's also a huge part of an IT professional's career. Risk can stop you in your tracks or propel you forward, but no matter how things work out, taking a risk can be the wise thing to do. ComputerWorld asked IT professionals to tell them about the biggest career risks they ever took. Their stories show that taking risks, even those that don't pan out, can have big payoffs -- and that risk-taking can be habit-forming.
Full Article...

ITIL 101: Understanding the Basics
In the world of IT management, ITIL is the buzzword being heard around the globe. So what is ITIL and how does it affect your organization? Let’s take a closer look! Today’s IT management has become more and more complex causing organizations worldwide to seek a standards based approach to IT management. The “IT Infrastructure Library,” commonly referred to as ITIL, has become the most popular framework for best practices standardization worldwide.
Full Article...

Running an Effective Teleconference or Virtual Meeting
Virtual teams are becoming commonplace, but the old rules for running a meeting don't necessarily apply. Managers need to learn new skills to keep people engaged and to use the time (and technology) effectively. These tips will make your next remote meeting a success.
Full Article...

'Talent on Demand': Applying Supply Chain Management to People
Failing to manage your company's talent needs, says Wharton management professor Peter Cappelli, "is the equivalent of failing to manage your supply chain." And yet the majority of employers have abysmal track records when it comes to the age-old problem of finding and retaining talent. Supply chain managers "ask questions like, 'Do we have the right parts in stock?' 'Do we know where to get these parts when we need them?' and 'Does it cost a lot of money to carry inventory?' These questions are just as relevant to companies that are trying to manage their talent needs," he says. In other words, the principles of supply chain management, with its emphasis on just-in-time manufacturing, can be applied to talent management.
Full Article...

Strategic Intuition: The Creative Spark in Human Achievement
by William Duggan

When do you get your best ideas? You probably answer "At night," or "In the shower," or "Stuck in traffic." You get a flash of insight. Things come together in your mind. You connect the dots. You say to yourself, "Aha! I see what to do." Brain science now reveals how these flashes of insight happen. It's a special form of intuition. We call it strategic intuition, because it gives you an idea for action-a strategy.

Brain science tells us there are three kinds of intuition: ordinary, expert, and strategic. Ordinary intuition is just a feeling, a gut instinct. Expert intuition is snap judgments, when you instantly recognize something familiar, the way a tennis pro knows where the ball will go from the arc and speed of the opponent's racket. The third kind, strategic intuition, is not a vague feeling, like ordinary intuition. Strategic intuition is a clear thought. And it's not fast, like expert intuition. It's slow. That flash of insight you had last night might solve a problem that's been on your mind for a month. And it doesn't happen in familiar situations, like a tennis match. Strategic intuition works in new situations. That's when you need it most.

More Info...

Research Results: 2008 Trends in Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
The majority of respondents (81%) in CRMindustry.com's "2008 Trends in Customer Relationship Management (CRM)" survey are happy with the overall performance of their CRM technology vendor. The research, conducted in November - December 2007, surveyed high-level CRM executives representing a range of industries. The data gathered provides valuable insight into the issues and challenges important to those responsible for CRM in their organization.

To get a complimentary copy of the executive summary, as well as view the graphs, click here.

White Paper: Using Web-based Support Tools to Improve Customer Service
This informative white paper examines the latest trends and technologies in using Web-based support tools to improve customer service. Get your copy today!

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Carolyn Healey, Editor - chealey@supportindustry.com

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