Technology Selection Dilemma

While technology continues to be the key enabler it is not necessarily a
differentiator

Technology
continues to be the key enabler for the call center BPO industry. It was the
advent of the Internet and the convergence of computing and telephony coupled
with the availability of higher bandwidths at lower costs that led to the
creation of this new industry. As a result, organizations could consider doing
back office operations at remote locations. This led to outsourcing or
insourcing of business processes to locations that offered labor arbitrage. In
more recent times this has also led to the concept of centralized back offices.
Many Indian banks and insurance companies are leveraging technology to
centralize their back offices and thereby achieved efficiencies of scale, higher
productivity, lower costs, and above all more consistent service delivery.
Multi-location manufacturing companies are also beginning to look at these
options.

The ability to align
the technology to customer needs and create an optimum solution is to my mind
the key challenge of a modern day CTO. The CTO has to look at the business
context and also handle the return on investment. It is extremely easy to invest
in technology, but to provide an effective solution requires the convergence of
innovative ideas, smart processes, and appropriate technology. Technology
decisions therefore need to be based on understanding customer needs and
understanding the business model.

Align it to Customer Needs

The customer sees the effectiveness of the process and not the
infrastructure and technology that has made it happen. Technology investments
should help the organization in meeting customer expectations.

Lets take a situation
of a customer calling a telecom company for a new connection. The inbound call
center receives the call and logs the request in a state of the art CRM
software. But this same CRM software is not integrated with the sales effort in
the front. As a result the request captured in the CRM software is transmitted
to the sales team through e-mail with no details-when the person called and
his specific requirement. Further, the process of manual extraction of data and
sending it through e-mail takes time and has no way of ensuring that the
customer need is met timely and efficiently. As a result this customer does not
get a response for his call till much later and in spite of the best technology
the customer does not value the service provided. The organization would benefit
by finding a CRM solution that can integrate with the lead management program, a
solution that enables the organization to efficiently handle customer requests.

Tune it to the Business
Model

Technology to me is the skeleton on which the rest of the body is built
up. The skeleton itself is useless and not relevant. In addition the skeleton
should be aligned to what the body should look like. A horse's body requires a
different skeleton to that of a cow. This is the dilemma most organizations face
today at the time of choosing technology. Deciding whether to have a VoIP based
call center or a IPLC based or whether to have a predictive dialer, for example,
are decisions that are typically based on what you need to do and what is
appropriate rather than on what is “right” or “best”. The decisions on
what infrastructure to deploy are directly related to your business model.

Smart Processes

The journey does not end with technology. Having smart processes is the
key to making technology work for you.

Example: I was
recently on a panel discussion where we were discussing the business issues of
security in the BPO industry. While there are a number of state of art products
like firewalls, spy software, encryption technology etc. available to protect
the IT infrastructure there is no substitute for the right processes and
ensuring that they are followed in letter and spirit. An organization may buy
backup equipment to take regular backup of data. But if the process of data is
not well defined and monitored, backups will not be taken-organization stands
the risk of losing data in spite of having the best technology in place.

Having smart processes
is the key to making technology work for you. Whether you invest in technology
and then decide how it can be best deployed or first create the process and then
chose the best technology to deploy is a million dollar question. I would like
to opt for the later. Because processes do not drive technology, companies end
up investing in technology and then do not know what to do with it.

I remember an
insurance company that invested in an integrated voice response (IVR). A
customer calling in was given three options-press 1 if you are an existing
customer, 2 if you are a dealer, and 3 if you are a new customer. It was
interesting to find out that behind this structure there was no method of
diverting calls to specific agents most capable of handling different
situations. In a situation like above, where there were only seven agents, it
did not make sense to go for techniques like skill based routing and investment
in IVR added no value.

Effective technology
selection can lead to lower investment and can help a provider offer lower cost
points.

In response to a
particular RFP we offered a base cost given a minimum solution that met all
requirements and incremental prices for other elements such as business
continuity, disaster recovery etc. This customer was only outsourcing a small
portion of his overall requirement and was quite happy with his own business
continuity and disaster recovery plans and did not need these services from the
India vendor. The lower price point created a winning proposition.

Challenges of Investment

In the current context the number of technical elements have multiplied.
Both from the context of the International call centers and BPOs-wanting
to set up customer contact centers or integrate their back offices. It is
imperative to first think through their strategy and then design an appropriate
solution that optimally leverages the available technology solutions. This will
enable the organizations to invest correctly and ensure high RoI on their
investment.

For example, a “CRM
software” is not an integral part of a call center. If the call center is in
the business of generating leads and the number of people doing it is small, say
5 and they are only generating 5 to 6 leads a day, a simple solution on Excel or
MS Access may suffice.

To conclude, companies
need to invest wisely after considering the overall business perspective. The
decision process should involve not only the CTO, but the entire management team
including the CEO. A lot of Indian companies wanting to improve customer service
tend to use the technology prop and miss out on the bigger picture of first
getting their processes right. Organizations with well thought through technical
solutions typically spend a lot more time on the solution, the processes and the
technology selection.

The
author is head of the IT, BPO and Telecom practice at ECS Limited