The Verghis View
Global Service Delivery Newsletter
June 2008

The Verghis Group is a trusted advisor to senior executive and customer support executives on service and support strategies.

In this issue:

• Six Sigma for Services: The Great Divide?
• Upcoming workshop
• Command and Control in Today’s IT Reality
• Upcoming Global Support Summit
• Travels/Appearances
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Six Sigma for Services: The Great Divide?
by Phil Verghis
President, The Verghis Group, Inc.

Major philosophical differences exist between managers who run large-scale operations - ones with a massive number of incoming calls - and operations with a lower volume of quite complex calls.

One big disparity revolves around metrics. High volume support centers generally concentrate on metrics that show how smoothly their operations are running. These managers know that slight changes in efficiency make a significant difference in a unit’s profitability. The folks running complex support centers, on the other hand, tend to dismiss Six Sigma and focus on things like customer satisfaction or loyalty.

Is there a happy middle ground?

I spoke recently with Geetha Panda, Hewlett-Packard’s worldwide head for service delivery excellence. She explained a pre-emptive escalation model they’ve developed in their Bangalore service delivery center. The model was based on a study of the relationship between output metrics (customer SLAs and KPIs) and the input metrics that directly or indirectly affect them.

This derives from Six Sigma, in which you focus on the things that you have control over (e.g., staff availability), and ignore the things that you don’t (e.g., customer satisfaction). By ensuring a good end-to-end understanding of the implications of decisions made along the way, a strong alignment is created. This reduces variation and unpredictability, which in turn helps ensure that the outcomes are more likely to be statistically “in control.”

Geetha cited one example of how this approach has transformed HP’s Bangalore center. They took over an exceptionally high-profile, at-risk account from a native English-speaking center, and successfully converted them into fans again. She credits their pre-emptive escalation model for this win. In fact, the model has been so successful that HP is now extending it to other centers around the world.

As I reflected on my conversation with Geetha, I wondered why many in the support world - especially those who run lower volume, high complexity support centers - tend to dismiss Six Sigma. I would guess it’s the apparent focus on process and metrics to the exclusion of everything else. Think about it. Complex technical support inherently has a “people first, process second, technology third” hierarchy. Six Sigma’s priorities seem to be process first, followed by people and then technology.

But is that really true? A careful analysis of Six Sigma shows it’s not. In fact, one of its key tenets is gathering input and suggestions from those actually doing the work.

Are you successfully using any aspects of Six Sigma in your support organization? Let me know. I’m particularly interested in lower-volume, high-complexity support organizations using Six Sigma.

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Upcoming workshop

Good news: Three slots have unexpectedly opened up for my June 5th Be the Voice of the Customer workshop just outside Boston. This intense session will be held in an elegant executive boardroom, a great environment for interactive learning.

Among the topics we will explore are metrics, global support models, cultural issues, your career path — plus any and all topics the group wants to explore. This flexibility is a direct result of intentionally keeping the workshop small.

All participants also receive a signed copy of my book, The Ultimate Customer Support Executive, on which the workshop is based.

For more details click:
http://www.verghisgroup.com/consulting/be-the-voice-of-the-customer-workshop/
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New Verghis Group white paper:

Command and Control in Today’s IT Reality

My most recent white paper, “Command and Control in Today’s IT Reality,” has been picked up by HDI, who promptly designated it their featured white paper of the month. This white paper cites, among others, an example from Proctor & Gamble on how companies are reaching outside their corporate boundaries to foster innovation and rapidly speed up their time to market.

The SSPA has re-published my article “No More Tiers” from a previous issue of this newsletter. It appears in their May 2008 issue.

The MITCIO Sloan Symposium also published an article from my blog.
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Upcoming Global Support Summit

Interested in exploring all aspects of global support? Then join us at the Global Support Summit, June 11-13, in Berlin, Germany. It is co-sponsored by the Consortium for Service Innovation and the Translation Automation User Society (TAUS). I’m delivering the keynote address.
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Travels/Appearances

I was on the road quite a lot the last few weeks, much of it at MIT.

• Consortium for Service Innovation executive summit in Arizona
• SSPA conference in Santa Clara
• Consortium for Service Innovation meeting hosted by my client, Deutsche Bank in Jersey City. I talked about the global KCS model they adopted there.
• IBM Pulse in Orlando - I talked about “Aging Assets and IT workforce”.
• 2008 MIT Sloan CIO Symposium MIT campus, Cambridge, MA.

I was panel captain for the CIO keynote and award. My panel included the CIOs of Adobe, Environmental Protection Agency, Liberty Mutual Insurance and the Special Olympics. It was moderated by noted MIT professor Erik Brynjolfsson from the Center for Digital Business at MIT.