Global Energy Company.

The business need.

A Global Fortune 500 energy company needed some consistency. It had operations in around 80 countries, but each was run differently – using disparate tools, technologies and processes to fulfil similar requirements. That in turn resulted in high costs, inconsistent processes and varying customer experience.

It had therefore begun a strategic transformation programme to consolidate the people and standardise processes and technologies to achieve economies of scale, reduce operational costs and deliver a world-class consistent customer experience.

A global service organisation was created, backed by regional service centres, and new global processes defined. It then needed to align the technologies – but this project was proving a challenge.

With multiple partners involved, effort was being duplicated and oversight was poor. There was also inefficient handover from delivery to support. The client was experiencing problems with design and configuration, and managing the plethora of defects and bugs following migrations. This resulted in significant delays and rising programme costs; more importantly still, the customer experience was heavily impacted.

The client realised it needed a change of approach, selecting a single partner that had the experience, skills and ability to manage the complexities and nuances of the technology and business environment. Connect was appointed.

The solution.

Connect worked with the client to resolve the technical and business challenges facing the transformation programme.

The first step was to perform a root and branch review of the overall design and identify areas of improvement in terms of efficiencies and optimisation. Connect then took a lead role to help the client manage the multiple suppliers needed to deliver the required solution; facilitating discussions and directing the execution where necessary, leading the fit-gap analysis and transforming in-country service centres to the centralised location.

With greater attention to detail regarding the client’s requirements and a more agile response to change, the transitions began to be smoother and more successful.

An essential part of the operational solution was Genesys contact centre, with Siebel CRM. Connect worked with the client to understand the needs of the business for an application management service relating to the Genesys platform that focussed on service availability, managing change, managing transformation roll outs into production, and developing enhancements. New features to be deployed included call recording and workforce management.

Connect took on the role of managing the Genesys platform and acting as a single point of contact for the solution, managing the third party suppliers on the client’s behalf.

Through a detailed assessment, Connect designed the application management service to deliver:

• 24×7 support coverage through Connect’s offices in UK & India
• Integrated ticket management system
• Engagement with vendors (including Genesys, Oracle and infrastructure service providers)
• Flexible model with ability to quickly ramp up and down as the transformation programme brought on new service centres
• Cost-effective delivery of changes
• Proactive monitoring
• Quality processes to ensure successful change management

With the programme back on track, Connect identified an opportunity for further cost savings and quality improvements by consolidating application development and management under one managed service team, rather than having multiple partners.

Connect worked with the client to define an ADAM delivery model. The delivery model consists of three components: Service Leadership & Management, Application Development (AD) and Application Management (AM).

• The Service Leadership and Management component manages the overall service delivery, acts as the design authority, manages suppliers and flexes resources across AD and AM to fulfil demand.
• The AM team supports all in-life aspects of the customer services technologies and delivers second level and third level support services (first level being managed by the client’s helpdesk), proactive monitoring of the solution landscape, change management, disaster recovery and business continuity.
• The AD team is comprised of consultants, application developers and testers who deliver changes to applications through the application development lifecycle. The team is focussed on delivering innovative solutions for the changing business landscape.

With the ADAM delivery model in place, Connect continues to work with the client to define and support customer engagement programmes and help the client innovate and fulfil its vision of the customer journey.

Outcomes.

Connect’s core contribution was to re-energise the delivery of the core transformation programme, bringing it back on track and helping the client make the global operating model a success.

Now, as the relationship has evolved, Connect continues to provide vital managed services to underpin the operation and ensure that high service standards are maintained globally.

In addition, Connect has recommended and introduced a series of improvements in the customer services operations above and beyond the scope of the original transformation programme. These include:

• Measuring customer satisfaction – deploying a solution that enables the client to measure customer satisfaction through the use of a dynamic IVR survey and a set of integrated reports
• Optimisation of interaction handling within the contact centre – resulting in cost savings for the service centres
• Business continuity planning – developing a business continuity solution that allowed calls to be overflowed and managed by any service centre
• Leveraging Unified Communications – creating a business case for integrating Microsoft Lync that delivered cost savings for the service centres.