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Thursday, July 17, 2008, 11:00am PT/2:00pm ET
Many organizations recognize the benefits of ITIL, but struggle with how to effectively and practically implement it within their service organization. Following an ITSM Roadmap can help. This SupportIndustry.com webinar, conducted by Pete McGarahan and FrontRange Solutions, will examine the business case and business value for implementing an IT Service Catalog, in conjunction with the CMDB, as a core part of your service management implementation.
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Court protects privacy of work emails, texts
A federal appeals court in San Francisco has made it more difficult for employers to legally access emails and text messages sent by their workers on company accounts. Under last Wednesday's ruling by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, employers that contract an outside business to transmit text messages can't read them unless the worker agrees. The ruling also lets employers access employee emails only if they are kept on an internal server. The case originated from a lawsuit by Ontario police Sgt. Jeff Quon and three other officers. They sued after wireless provider Arch Wireless turned over to the police department transcripts of Quon's text messages to them in 2002. Police officials read them to determine whether department-issued pagers were being used solely for work purposes.
Source: USA Today
Demand for Data Puts Engineers in Spotlight
In Silicon Valley, the stars have long been charismatic marketing visionaries
and cool-nerd software wizards. By contrast, mechanical engineers who
design and run computer data centers were traditionally regarded as little
more than blue-collar workers in the high-tech world. Today, data center
experts are no longer taken for granted. The torrid growth in data centers
to keep pace with the demands of Internet-era computing, their immense
need for electricity and their inefficient use of that energy pose environmental,
energy and economic challenges, experts say. That means people with the
skills to design, build and run a data center that does not endanger the
power grid are suddenly in demand. Their status is growing, as are their
salaries -- climbing more than 20 percent in the last two years into six
figures for experienced engineers.
Adobe Expands LiveCycle Enterprise Suite
Adobe Systems Incorporated announced Adobe LiveCycle Enterprise Suite
(ES) Update 1, a significant enhancement to the LiveCycle ES technology
platform that helps businesses and governments more effectively engage
with customers, citizens, and partners inside and outside the organization.
LiveCycle ES Update 1 adds new components for rapid development of content-rich
applications, automated conversion of two- and three-dimensional CAD design
data to PDF and new Adobe Solution Accelerators to help customers expedite
deployment of enterprise applications.
Amdocs and IBM Introduce Unified Customer
Relationship and Data Management Solution
Amdocs, a provider of customer experience systems, and IBM have entered
into an alliance and original equipment manufacturer agreement under which
Amdocs will embed the IBM DB2 Data Server and the IBM Optim Data Growth
solutions with Amdocs' customer management solutions. This new solution
will help companies improve the customer experience and reduce total cost
of ownership (TCO) by maximizing overall application performance and availability,
while significantly reducing storage and other hardware costs.
Discover
an Expert's Secrets to Generating More Profitable Customer Relationships
Support is no longer an afterthought but an extension of your business
and a key factor in driving its success. So how do you use every support
call to build thriving customer relationships -- while also driving profits
and increasing technician productivity?
Join us for this free webcast: Translating Customer Loyalty into Sustainable Profits on June 25, 2008, 2-3 p.m. EDT.
Contact
center pricing and attrition levels worrying outsourcing providers globally
The proliferation of new contact center delivery locations globally has
done little to allay fears of wide-spread price and attrition increases
for outsourcing vendors. In its most recent strategic focus report, “Trends
in Global Contact Center Outsourcing Pricing and Attrition”, independent
market analyst Datamonitor illustrates some of the key challenges facing
outsourcers in key onshore / offshore delivery markets and highlights
strategies that may be deployed to counter these problems.
UK, Netherlands among the most expensive onshore delivery
locations; pricing pressure seen across domestic markets
Among the key domestic markets from where contact center outsourcing services
are delivered, Datamonitor estimates that the UK, the Netherlands and
France rank among the most expensive in terms of fully-loaded price per
agent per hour (including wages, benefits, telephony / technology, property,
mark-up and other expenses). However, Peter Ryan, head of contact center
outsourcing analysis at Datamonitor and author of the report, also notes
that while these markets are among the most expensive in which to deal,
there are several trends that vendors may face when dealing across established
onshore markets.
“It is clear that no matter whether in Western Europe or the USA,
contact center vendors are facing problems in terms of recruiting well-qualified
contact center agents. Many cite an inability to find contact center agents
of a high calibre and are frustrated at their unwillingness to stay in
their role over an extended period of time. The result is an erosion of
margin or higher costs being passed back to the client. Either way, the
vendor’s competitive positioning is compromised.”
Among
offshore markets, Canada remains the most expensive, while Colombia, Philippines
and India remain low-cost
While most offshore markets have been positioned at a lower level than
most domestic delivery locations, the same cannot be said for Canada.
Ryan notes that with an ever-high Canadian dollar pushing up prices, US
outsourcers, long the mainstay of Canada’s contact center industry,
have decided to seek new delivery locations. These include traditional
countries such as Mexico and the Philippines, as well as emerging locations,
including Egypt, Malaysia and Colombia.
Attrition a global problem with local flavors
While contact center agent churn has been characteristic in all regions
of the world, Datamonitor has noted several examples in which local issues
have been pronounced. In India and Mexico, the presence of opportunities
in other industries has been paramount in prospective contact center agents
choosing non-contact center careers. However, in other markets, such as
the Philippines, the presence of multiple contact center vendors has led
to bidding wars for contact center agents, and has resulted in their switching
vendors at a rapid rate.
Small and Medium-Sized Business Enterprise Applications Market to Grow
to $80.3 Billion by 2012
IDC forecasts that the small and medium-sized business (SMB) enterprise
applications market will grow to $80.3 billion by the end of 2012, representing
a 10.6% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) for the 2008–2012 period.
Additionally, IDC finds that there will be increased spending by small
and midsize businesses across the entire spectrum of enterprise application
segments over the forecast period.
Additional key findings examined in this IDC report include:
- The growing needs of SMBs to automate their business processes and meet regulatory compliance means that opportunities will abound in this market. Enterprise applications providers that lead their selling efforts with their solutions' capabilities for managing these challenges will profit most.
- The SMB markets are extremely competitive and vendors looking to claim a significant share of the expanding opportunity will need to differentiate themselves through delivery of industry-specific functionality for micro-verticals and localized products to appeal to the global needs and support concerns of fast-growing SMBs.
- Vendors will need to ensure more rapid delivery of their applications for time and budget-constrained SMBs by offering fixed scope in-house installations at predictable costs and on-demand subscription programs.
- When searching for new packaged solutions to run their businesses, small firms will seek those that have the non-technical user in mind, require no training, and provide immediate value.
Fewer Outsourcing 'Megadeals' Were Signed in 2007 as Companies Look to
Multisourcing
As companies continue to move to using multiple providers for their outsourcing
services, the number of reported "megadeals" awarded to a single
service provider has declined, according to Gartner, Inc. Megadeals are
characterized as being worth more than $1 billion. In 2007, 10 outsourcing
megadeals were awarded, a decline from 12 in 2006.
In terms of megadeal total contact value (TCV), the total for the 10 megadeals in 2007 was $12 billion, the lowest level reported during the last eight years, with the closest level being that of $20.3 billion in 2001. Average contract value (ACV) of megadeals also continued to decrease, from an average of $2.6 billion in 2006 to $1.2 billion in 2007.
Of the TCV of all outsourcing deals reported in 2007,
Gartner said megadeals represented 39.4 percent of the contract value
and represented only 6.8 percent of the number of total contracts in 2007,
down from 7.4 percent in 2006. Although deals with less than $50 million
in TCV continued to increase and reached 39.5 percent of the total number
of contracts, they only represented 3.3 percent of TCV for 2007.
More...
CRM Customization Initiatives Improve Key Sales and Customer Metrics
Customizable applications and software developer kits allow for better
information management and data collection; as a result, top organizations
are using these technologies to customize and configure their core CRM
solution to mirror unique business processes. In an increasingly competitive
marketplace where companies are challenged to obtain a 360-degree view
of the customer, businesses are customizing CRM solutions to integrate
data from customer-facing groups, as well as increase the level of internal
visibility into sales processes.
A recent study, Tailor-Made CRM: Best Practices in Customization, Configuration, and Integration, conducted by the Aberdeen Group, a Harte-Hanks Company, revealed that Best-in-Class companies are 2.4 times more likely than Laggards to leverage a data integration solution to support CRM customization initiatives; the result is increased performance in data entry, data retrieval, and ease of maintenance.
The top two objectives of an organization’s CRM customization initiative stem from the most fundamental of business drivers: to attain and keep customers. The need to improve customer retention (36%) and the need to improve customer acquisition (36%) were identified by all respondents as the top two objectives of a customization initiative. Best-in-Class companies indicated that they currently utilize data integration solutions (47%), contact management solutions (50%) and sales knowledge management solutions (38%) to increase the effectiveness and functionality of the core CRM solution. As a result of technology implementation and integration, Best-in-Class companies are more than 5 times as likely as Laggards to experience year-over-year improvement in customer retention levels.
The report demonstrates the value of collectively leveraging organizational practices in process, performance measurement, knowledge management and technology to provide a foundation for CRM success. By combining processes for data sharing between customer-facing groups (47%) and dedicated CRM support resources (47%), Best-in-Class compaines are able to maximize the effectiveness of their sales force by customizing the CRM solution to match unique business processes.
Most Companies Don't Have A Mobile
Device Management Plan
Mobile device management will become a must-have capability for most IT
departments over the next few years. As mobile devices and applications
take over many of the functions previously carried out on desktop PCs,
the ability to secure, track, update, and provision such devices will
present a significant competitive advantage in many industries, from financial
services to health care to shipping and logistics. Unfortunately, IT directors'
ability to manage these devices as corporate assets, while controlling
the data and applications that run on them, hasn't kept pace.
Full
Article...
The Problem with IT Project Management
Most companies still do traditional IT project management in which the
requirements are defined and budgets set as if that IT project has no
interaction with any of the other IT projects and resources that already
exist in the company. In an environment where the web of complexity exists,
the notion that you can pick up an “IT stick” without disturbing
the rest of the pile makes no sense. One of the prime reasons why many
IT projects go over time and budget is because the requirements that seemed
simple turn out to be more difficult than anticipated. Some of the difficulty
comes from imprecise definition of requirements, but the majority of the
challenge comes from realizing how one requirement impacts the system
as it already exists.
Ful
Article...
The Practical Visionary
For the chief information officer (CIO), thinking strategically has never
been more important. New technologies are changing how companies relate
to their employees, customers, suppliers, partners, sales channels, and
markets. The CIO can earn a seat at the senior leadership table by helping
to set and realize long-term goals and by augmenting the capabilities
of the entire enterprise.
Full
Article...
Believe the Hype about Hosted Contact Centers
Vendors, analysts, and consultants -- and their collective press releases,
study results, and sales calls -- all indicate that the hosted center
is on the rise. For the last several years, the notion of a hosted contact
center for the enterprise has been on many contact center executives'
minds. Pundits have been singing its praises since at least the early
2000s -- building the hype, promising that it would certainly shift the
way operations were run. However, with some analysts differing on just
how mature the market is, how much longer before it really makes a splash?
Full
Article...
Clearing the Air: How Companies Operate in a Climate-conscious Era
Where to locate a new headquarters, how to close a supply-chain loop,
how to anticipate customer demands: These are all decisions that companies
must wrestle with as they respond to increasing concerns about global
warming. With so many moving parts, how do companies gather intelligence
and know what steps to take in a new climate-conscious era?
Full
Article...
2008 Service & Support Metrics Survey
Results
Supportindustry.com has announced the release of
a free white paper outlining the results of the 2008 Service & Support
Metrics Survey. This annual survey explores the state of enterprise service
and support -- current industry trends, future plans, technology adoption,
workforce issues, benchmarking strategies, metrics and other areas.
Get
your free copy of the survey results today!
White Paper: Improving Customer Service Using Web-based Support Tools
In the realm of service and support, the Web has made its mark.
Since a business's Web site is the first place many customers go today when they're in need of service, it's imperative that what they find there -- the search tools, the breadth and depth of content, easy escalation paths, the tools that aid in speedy resolution -- meets their needs. Each visit presents the business with the opportunity to impress and influence existing and potential customers.
Find out more! This informative white paper from SupportIndustry.com examines the latest trends and technologies in using Web-based support tools to improve customer service.
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