| Inc.com: Technology has improved many areas of our lives, but customer service isn't one of them. Gartner says two-thirds of customers who try to get service online abort their efforts and use the phone instead. According to Forrester Research, 73 percent of customers who used automated voice-response systems felt "customer rage." Yet companies can't afford not to automate; calls involving live agents cost at least five times as much as those handled by an automated system. The author discusses three new approaches that promise to reduce at least some customer angst. Tracking software found that 20 percent of customers bailed out of one company's voice system when asked to enter a Zip code; the dropout rate fell when the company specified that it wanted a home Zip. | Sponsor: VoIP Business Case Resource Kit | | Understand, Quantify and Explain the VoIP Opportunity
Save 20 hours or more of your valuable time with our background research, pro forma financial calculations, and ready-to-use PowerPoint presentation. Make the right decision on this critical technology and back it up! > Get more info. | ebizQ: Cloning could be the ultimate cost-savings strategy. Wouldn't it save the company money if there were more of you to go around? Since that option isn't realistic — yet — this article suggests that CIOs should strive to instill leadership qualities in their employees. The key to doing so, the article says, is effectively conveying the company's vision, with a focus on deliverables. The author offers the example of a foreman telling some workers to cut stones of a certain size and lay them in a certain configuration, and telling another worker that the stones will form the foundation for a cathedral that will become one of the world's most impressive architectural achievements. Create cathedral builders rather than stone cutters, he advises. CIO.com: Despite CIOs' best — and often costly — efforts, there are plenty of "gotchas" that can make a company vulnerable to security threats. The article describes 10 common security issues — ranging from unauthorized use of consumer-grade instant messaging systems to employees selling customer information to the true-life tale of a Morgan Stanley agent who sold his old BlackBerry, still loaded with confidential company e-mails, for $15.50 on eBay — and offers inexpensive suggestions for dealing with them. In many cases, simply establishing clear usage policies can help. | | Special Offer: Free White Paper Unlock New Business Value from the Sunk Costs of Existing Infrastructure
Business communications applications create business agility by connecting people and processes across the enterprise, intelligently embedding real-time communications into the fabric of the business in ways that make people more productive, processes more intelligent, and customers more satisfied. Read ahead to learn how these apps are empowering enterprises to unlock business value from the billions of dollars of investment in existing communications and network infrastructure. | | | | SupplyManagement.com: Many companies spend lots of money hiring and tracking temporary workers. Yet in some cases individual managers hire these temps on an ad-hoc basis. Moving the contracting of temporary workers to a company's procurement department can save money, mitigate risk and improve business performance. Vodafone saved more than 40 percent in some areas by sourcing IT contractors through a managed service provider, one of several procurement models discussed in the article. Advice on maximizing savings — with a focus on technologies that can help — is offered.
Microsoft Certified Professional: Surprisingly, since this article appears in a publication for Microsoft devotees, the author says total cost of ownership is more of a marketing tool for vendors than a valid factor for businesses to use when considering a move from Windows to Linux. One expert likens them to EPA mileage ratings: OK to consider, but don’t factor them too heavily into buying decisions, since they aren't all that accurate. The article discusses some of the shortcomings of TCO analyses and provides a list of eight questions for CIOs to ask when trying to make meaningful comparisons between a proffered TCO study and their own company's situation. PR Leap: Based on this press release, the Chrysler Group appears to be a happy corporate customer of click-to-call, a technology that lets users immediately connect with a customer service agent by clicking an HTML button embedded on a Web site, e-mail or search engine. According to the release, 10 percent of all marketing calls to Chrysler Group agents are conducted via click-to-call from the automaker's Web sites. Up to 20 percent of these callers actually purchase vehicles, vs. 10 percent of all callers lured by traditional marketing materials. The release includes a link to a downloadable case study of the Chrysler program. | IT Marketplace | | | | | Tell the IT Business Edge audience of technology decision makers about your product, service, event, or job. Click here to list it in the IT Marketplace! | | 3 QUESTIONS:
Getting on Track with Performance Indicators
With Marina Stedman, director of marketing at Touchpaper, a provider of IT business management systems and services, encompassing ITSM, CSS and systems/network management. Question: What are the most important factors for companies to consider when establishing key performance indicators?
Stedman: The most important factor when establishing KPIs is that they relate directly to the strategic and operational goals of the business, including such things as organizational effectiveness; efficiency; security; and proactive use of technology to drive growth, revenue, value for money, customer satisfaction, good governance and best practices. KPIs for IT must be measurable, and measure performance of individuals, departments, organizations or systems against particular values or formulas, including things like service availability, customer/user satisfaction scores, percentage of requests met within a service level agreement, and percentage of projects on time and on budget. Question: What are some of the most common approaches to tracking KPIs? What are some pros and cons of these approaches?
Stedman: The concept of KPIs to measure performance against objectives has been around for many years, but the ability to measure the performance of people and processes with automated systems has not. Manual measurements lack consistency and accuracy and are subject to human interpretation and intervention. When KPIs relate to legislative and regulatory compliance (Sarbox and HIPAA, for example), automated systems are even more important.
Systems should flag daily out-of-compliance indicators and support the proactive resolution of issues before they become business critical, as well as provide historical trend reporting, supporting decisions about expenditures that should be reduced or where further investment should be made in IT and the customer service infrastructure. Data collected from multiple systems should deliver key operational information in an easy-to-use, intuitive manner, including the ability to identify specific issues that affect overall KPI compliance. Question: How can establishing and tracking KPIs help a company achieve a better return on IT investments?
Stedman: KPIs and the systems that support them can not only help an organization make better long-term investment decisions, but they can support daily operating decisions and the allocation of resources against organizational priorities. For instance, by building a KPI weighting function into operational systems, according to the level of importance or value to the business, information can be presented to individuals and departments in accordance with their roles and responsibilities, ensuring that they take the most appropriate action at the right time to meet the organization's business objectives. | | Also from IT Business Edge: Leveraging Open Source Leveraging Open Source gives you a comprehensive view of open source adoption in the enterprise. From Linux's growing role in the mid-tier server market to open source corporate blogging software, the open source movement is making inroads in the enterprise. Click here to sign up! | By the Numbers
$129,835 Average salary earned by senior IT managers, up from $126,130 in 2004, according to Computerworld's 19th Annual Salary Survey. $900,000 Return on investment companies can expect if they invest $400,000 in self-service technologies, according to AMR Research. 40 percent-plus Amount saved by Vodafone by sourcing IT contractors through a managed service provider. Breaking Headlines
InfoWorld: Microsoft's Exchange 2003 Service Pack 2 includes solid yet ho-hum new features as well as sexier updates, says this author. In the "solid" column are new permissions management controls, improved support for GroupWise, and better management of things like offline contact stores. Filed under "sexy" is a capability called Direct Push Technology, which quickly and securely sends e-mail and other Exchange information to smartphones and PDAs. New security features for mobile devices include robust password management, device-locking, and tools that allow administrators to clear the device remotely if it's lost or stolen. There are new security features for desktop users, as well.
Computerworld: For the fourth straight year, IT workers received only modest raises — with compensation increasing by an average of just 3 percent in 2005, the same as 2004's average salary increase, according to Computerworld's 19th Annual Salary Survey. While 69 percent of respondents said their 2004 base salary increased from one year ago, 31 percent saw no change — or had their pay cut. Yet 63 percent of respondents said they were either "very satisfied" or "satisfied" with their jobs. The fallout from the Internet bust, a tepid overall economy and increased outsourcing have made employees less likely to complain about small raises, analysts say. Other survey highlights are included, as well as links to more detailed data. InformationWeek: IT spending by the U.S. government is expected to slow over the next five years, thanks to consolidation among agencies, the need to reduce the deficit and the growing costs of the war in Iraq, as well as hurricane relief efforts. The Government Electronics & Information Technology Association forecasts total federal IT spending of $64.7 billion in fiscal 2006, growing to $74.4 billion by 2011. The civilian portion of the fiscal 2006 IT budget totals $34.6 billion, with Defense Department IT spending accounting for the remaining funds. Eliminating legacy computer systems is one of the federal government's biggest goals. Emerging Trends
IndustryWeek: Many of the companies on IndustryWeek's 50 Best Manufacturing Companies list have scaled back IT spending. Yet a significant number of them are investing heavily in new technologies designed to improve performance. In particular, companies are looking for applications that mesh with their lean manufacturing methodologies. Logistics is another area that many companies are targeting for improvement — and increased spending. Dell recently upgraded its logistics management capabilities by investing in a new system called ION that will add flexibility to its supply chain. The article details this project, as well as several others undertaken by the 50 top performers. ComputerWeekly.com: A ComputerWeekly.com/BT survey seemed to bear out companies' prevailing attitude about wireless. They like it — though they may not have a compelling business strategy for it. The survey found that 94 percent of large British companies were using some form of wireless technology, yet 29 percent did not measure their ROI. The biggest factors cited by those that did measure ROI were increased productivity (53 percent), reduced operational costs (38 percent) and staff satisfaction (34 percent). The biggest bugaboos for IT departments were security (59 percent), reliability (9 percent) and cost (8 percent). internetnews.com: Wal-Mart, perhaps the world's biggest backer of RFID, is reaping benefits from the technology, according to an RFID Research Center study. The discount retailer experienced a 16 percent drop in out-of-stock items at stores using RFID to track products from factory floor to shelf. Items with RFID tags were replenished three times faster than comparable items with bar codes. In fact, the RFID-enabled stores were 63 percent more effective in replenishing out-of-stock items than control stores in the study. Wal-Mart also reduced its manual orders by about 10 percent. Wal-Mart is tripling the number of stores equipped with RFID, with a goal of 1,000 such sites by the end of 2006. IT Business Edge: Maximizing IT Investments
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Ann All covered a variety of business topics as a newspaper reporter before switching to automated teller machines — which, unbelievably, are just beginning to migrate to a Windows-based platform and more modern networking technologies like TCP/IP — as the editor of online trade publication ATMmarketplace.com. She can be reached at investments@itbusinessedge.com. | |
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