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Proving the Business Case for Implementing the IT Service Catalog and CMDB Together

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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eGain ensures good health of customer service at Allianz Worldwide Care
eGain, a provider of multichannel customer service and knowledge management software on-premise or on-demand, announced that Allianz Worldwide Care, an international health insurance provider, has selected eGain’s email management product to improve the efficiency and quality of customer service. eGain Mail is set to alleviate the demands of email communication between Allianz Worldwide Care’s contact center and its international customer base by automating customer service processes to further increase agent efficiency and service quality, while reducing management complexity.

Feel like your support team is on the losing side of a Red Rover game?


The Service & Support Professionals Association (SSPA) recently conducted an exhaustive study on retaining technical talent in service and support organizations. This comprehensive report defines the keys to hiring, training, engaging and retaining the best possible service and support staff.

Download the "Best Practices for Retaining Top Technical Talent" research report to discover expert recommendations for the most effective way to accomplish this goal.

Survey Reveals Scandal of Snooping IT Staff
Whilst you sit there innocently working away, little do you realize that a third of your IT colleagues have been snooping around the network, looking at highly confidential information, such as salary details, M & A plans, people's personal emails, board meeting minutes and other personal information. That's the findings of a survey released by Cyber-Ark Software, specialists in privileged identity management and digital vaulting solutions.

One third of the survey sampled admitted to using their privileged rights to access information that is confidential or sensitive by using the administrative passwords as a means of peeking at information that they are not privy to. In fact, when IT professionals were asked if they had accessed information that was not relevant to their role, 47 percent admitted they had!

Even more worrying is the fact that privileged passwords get changed infrequently and often a lot less than user passwords. Thirty percent get changed every quarter and a staggering 9 percent never get changed, giving access indefinitely to all those who know the passwords, even when they've left the organization.

Half of IT administrators do not have to get authorization to access privileged accounts which shows a general lack of control of these power identities and indeed understanding over the power that these privileges command.

Seven out of 10 companies rely on out-dated and insecure methods to exchange sensitive data when it comes to passing it between themselves and their business partners with 35 percent choosing to email sensitive data, 35 percent sending it via a courier, 22 percent using FTP and 4 percent still relying on the postal system. This shouldn't be any big surprise when you learn that 12 percent of these senior IT personnel who were interviewed also choose to send cash in the mail.

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51 of the Nation's Top 60 Metropolitan Areas Add High-Tech Jobs
AeA, a trade association representing all segments of the high-tech industry, released Cybercities 2008: An Overview of the High-Technology Industry in the Nation's Top 60 Cities. This report examines the high-tech industry in the nation's largest metropolitan areas focusing on high-tech employment, wages, establishments, payroll, employment concentration, and wage differential.

Cybercities 2008 shows that 51 "cybercities" added high-tech jobs in 2006, according to the most recent metropolitan data available. Seattle led the nation, adding 7,800 net jobs. The next largest net gains in high-tech employment between 2005 and 2006 occurred in the New York Metro Area (+6,400) and Washington, DC (+6,100). On a percentage basis, Riverside-San Bernardino, California saw the fastest job growth in 2006 at 12 percent.

The leading metro areas by high-tech employment in 2006 were the New York Metro Area (316,500 jobs), Washington, DC (295,800 jobs), San Jose/Silicon Valley (225,300 jobs), Boston (191,700 jobs), and Dallas-Fort Worth (176,000 jobs). 2006 data are the most recent available at the metropolitan level.

San Jose/Silicon Valley led the nation in concentration of high-tech workers in 2006, with 286 high-tech workers per 1,000 private sector workers. Boulder ranked second in 2006, with 230 high-tech workers per 1,000 private sector workers. Huntsville, Durham, and Washington, DC rounded out the top five by high-tech concentration.

San Jose/Silicon Valley dominated the manufacturing sectors. It ranked near the top in seven of the nine high-tech manufacturing categories. The New York Metro Area led in many of the tech service sectors, with the highest employment in telecommunications, Internet services, R&D and testing labs, and computer training services. Washington, DC led in computer systems design and related services and engineering services, with nearly three times as many industry workers in these fields as San Jose/Silicon Valley.

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Organizations Lacking in Customer Experience Management Capabilities
ciboodle, a wholly owned subsidiary of Sword Group and provider of customer-oriented business software and services, is a sponsor of the customer experience management benchmark study released this week by Ventana Research. The survey of more than 250 companies from around the world evaluated the maturity of customer experience management and found that only 12 percent of organizations are truly mature in their focus on ensuring the optimal customer experience.

On the surface, the research results show a high degree of understanding of the customer experience management as a serious business strategy, with more than half the participants identifying the term as the process of improving customer interactions and a quarter recognizing it as a strategy for influencing customer behavior.

In the study, key themes emerged around multiple channels, the single customer view and the agent desktop:

-- Multi channel: The Ventana study found that nearly all interactions occur through a customer service agent in a call center or through the Web, and the research shows that customers are less than satisfied with the results of their calls. Few participants reported that issues usually are resolved during the first call. And despite the growing prevalence of multi-channel customer service amongst the organizations surveyed, less than a quarter of organizations record handoffs between communication channels, and only about two-thirds are capable of tracking interactions across channels.

-- Single customer view: Creating a single, comprehensive (or 360-degree) view of the customer is an objective that companies have talked about for many years. Yet the Ventana study shows that it remains a dream for most organizations — barely a third companies reported that they have currently achieved this.

-- Agent desktop: More than one-third of the organizations participating in the research said they intend to upgrade the desktop technology on which agents rely in the next 12 months. Only about one-third of respondents said their current desktop provides agents with relevant information that depends on the caller's profile and circumstances.

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More Than 50% of Large Companies Will Use Software Tools to Manage Shared-Account Passwords by End of 2010
The number of organizations using software tools to manage passwords for shared accounts grew 50 per cent worldwide in 2007, according to Gartner, making it one of the fastest-growing identity and access management (IAM) markets. Analysts predict that the shared-account password management (SAPM) market will continue to exhibit strong growth and that more than half of large organizations will use SAPM tools by the end of 2010.

Growth has been driven largely by regulatory compliance, especially where regulations, such as payment card industry data security standard (PCI DSS), require personal accountability.

Gartner estimates that around half of organizations using SAPM tools are large (i.e. organizations with 5,000 employees or more), around two thirds are based in North America and a quarter is based in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA). One fifth is in banking and other financial services.

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Study Reveals Enterprise and Early Adopter SMBs Leapfrog SMB Peers in Business Software Spending
Though they represent the smallest percentage of the overall SMB universe, Tier 1 (or enterprise) SMBs spend far more than all other SMB tiers on business software; while they spend the most on IT deployment, the gap is widest in the ERP and CRM arena, according to a new study by New York-based AMI-Partners.

The study shows that enterprise adopters, or Tier 1 SMBs, view the use of IT solutions as a strategic way to drive growth, and that Tier 1 and 2 SMBs account for about twice as much spending on ERP solutions as the other two SMB tiers combined.

AMI-Partners' proprietary segmentation model categorizes and analyzes SBs and MBs in four distinct tiers, based on IT behavior, adoption, needs and attitudes for customer targeting, product positioning and focused offerings. By viewing SMB IT adoption through this lens, vendors can gain new insights into the buying propensity of each tier for different types of IT solutions and services.

The four tiers include:

Tier 1 (Enterprise Adopters) -- View IT solutions similarly to large enterprise counterparts. IT is an integrated part of their company strategy and they use IT solutions to drive growth. They account for the smallest proportion of the SMB universe, but they drive the lion’s share of IT spending.

Tier 2 (Early Adopters) -- Embrace new IT solutions to optimize productivity, but lack resources needed to deploy full-scale solutions. They tend to opt for less costly options or point solutions. They account for less than one fifth of the total SMBs.

Tier 3 (Value Adopters) -- Implement IT solutions after others have done so, with a relentless focus on costs. They need to be educated on the business benefits of IT solutions, and are a pragmatic, economically driven target for IT vendors. They account for slightly more than a quarter of the total SMB universe.

Tier 4 (Needs Help Adopters) -- Employ IT solutions only at the threat of losing customers or suppliers. As laggards, they view IT as a support tool for business functions, rather than a growth driver. They comprise almost half of the total SMB universe.

Highlights from the report include:

--Tier 1 SMBs make up the smallest percentage of the universe, but their ratio of IT spending proportion in proportion to their segment size is the largest among all tiers. Tier 1 SBs spend about twice as much as Tier 2 SBs, and over fifteen times more than Tier 4 SBs on CRM solutions. The bigger and more sophisticated SMBs become, the more likely they will switch from homegrown and simple contact management applications to server-based CRM solutions. Tier 1 and 2 SMBs are also more likely to lead software-as-a-service (SaaS) CRM adoption, with 11% of Tier 1 and 8% of Tier 2 SMBs indicating that they currently use SaaS CRM.

--Tier 1 and 2 MBs spend about twice as much on ERP solutions than Tier 3 and 4 MBs. Tier 1 and 2 MBs spend four times more on ERP solutions than Tier 4 MBs. Overall, the SMB ERP market is still very fragmented, indicating that horizontally focused players alone are not able to meet industry-specific and other SMB requirements.

--Tier 1 SBs are more likely to currently use and plan to use SaaS solutions. For example, 46% of Tier 1 SBs currently use/plan to use SaaS, while just 21% of Tier 4 SBs use/plan to use SaaS. Not surprisingly, Tier 1 SBs also spend considerably more on SaaS solutions, and 27% anticipate increasing their SaaS expenditures in the next 12 months.

--Less tech-savvy Tier 3 and 4 SMBs tend to expect a faster return-on-investment (ROI) on business solution investments than SMBs Tiers 1 and 2. However, a majority of all SBs expect results within less than 5 months, while a majority of all MBs expect to see a return on their investment within 7 months.

More...

Are Remote Agents in Your Staffing Future?
One of the most critical steps in making and receiving customer calls is deciding not just how many staff will be needed, but what type of staffing solution will be used. Since about three-fourths of call center costs are related to labor costs, this decision is fundamental to the operation of the business. The four main options for call center staffing include traditional in-house staffing, outsourcing, contract agency staffing, and telecommuting. This article will explore the possibilities, advantages, and disadvantages of telecommuting as a call center staffing solution.
Full Article...

Ten Trends in Contact Centers
Today's best-in-class contact centers have a secret – they are implementing the following trends for greater efficiency, effectiveness and ultimately operational excellence. Based on research of contact center executives, vendors and thought leaders, best-in-class contact centers either already have or will be adopting the following 10 trends in the near future.
Ful Article...

Identity Protection and the Contact Center
Payment card industry standards are just one of many industry and regulatory initiatives intended to protect personal identity. Contact centers need to be aware of the requirements that apply specifically to their environments and have a program for achieving compliance, including in-depth reviews with IT staff and compliance officials.
Full Article...

Eight Reasons Why Companies Still Say 'No' to SaaS
The enthusiasm for and growth in the software-as-a-service (SaaS) market cannot be discounted. SaaS has become a viable and cost-effective (initially, at least) means of application delivery for the small, midsize and even large businesses. However, according to Forrester Research survey data, not everyone has jumped on board the SaaS Train. So what's the holdup?
Full Article...

Google needs to rethink its customer service strategy
One beef I've had for quite a while now is Google's noticeable lack of commitment to personal support for people using their products and services. A good example would be businesses that use the free version of Google Apps -- good luck trying to get in touch with someone about your problem. Even the premium version which includes some technical support is useless when you have a non "How do I?" problem that requires real assistance. It doesn't stop at just Google Apps though -- it's impossible to get real customer service from Google for anything. You get lost in automated responses and forums that are filled with people having the same problems with no answers most of the time. In my opinion, you cannot rely on a users-helping-users model if you want happy users. There has to be a way to get in touch with a real person at any time
Full Article...

White Paper: Improving Customer Service Using Web-based Support Tools

Improving Customer Service Using Web-based Support Tools explores the undeniable benefits of using Web-based applications for customer service and support. The software-as-a-service (SaaS) model provides companies of any size with the power to leverage service and support technologies for competitive differentiation and is an invaluable asset when supporting today's generation of Web-savvy customers. These customers, when in need of service, often go to an organization's website first, hoping to be empowered with options to self-serve via knowledgebases and downloads, live chat sessions, and easy escalation paths. So, it is imperative that organizations impress existing and potential customers by providing the applications they desire, content that exudes both breadth and depth, and a support site that is easy-to-use.

Download now!

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!

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.

Check it out today

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