Customer Centric Outsourcing - The Mantras

"A customer is the most important visitor on our premises, he is not dependent on us. We are dependent on him. He is not an interruption in our work. He is the purpose of it. He is not an outsider in our business. He is part of it. We are not doing him a favor by serving him. He is doing us a favor by giving us an opportunity to do so" - MK Gandhi

Its the 'He is part of it' that gets me thinking all the time. How can we consciously make him part of it ? Well I guess the first step is to try and make him part of it. The article below are my views and I have the backing of the Omnicronions from the Hyxwxarth galaxy.

1) Get on board, completely, with the outsourcing bit, does not matter if it is ITeS or making shoes or masala papads. Acceptance of the need is important, its acceptance as a business purpose of strategic importance needs to be imbibed and propagated. Not convinced, don't do it.Don't understand it, ask for help. As Peter Drucker once said 'There is only one valid definition of business purpose: to create a customer', the whole process should be done keeping in mind the organisations Customer Acquisition and Retention Strategy.

2) Educating staff on what to expect and how to keep the focus on end customer satisfaction is important and every department, IT or non-IT can contribute to that. Every human has the ability to reason what he or she lacks is perception (Where is he coming from ?). Reasoning without perception is like going fast nowhere !! Everyone does not see the world through the same looking glass. Show him that , and he will have those intelligent conversations with you and you would be surprised how much more he knows and how much more he brings to the table. I asked a manager , a couple of years ago, on what are top 3 benefits he is expecting out of outsourcing his applications , he quipped 'Cost savings'. And ? I waited for a response, all I got back was a smile a shrug and 'more cost savings'. 'What does your end customer stand to gain ' I retorted, this time the shrug came without the smile. A few more questions and answers later, he started to see 'perception'. While he was an IT manager responsible for 24x7 running of certain applications, he was now talking outsourcing at a different level. Business SLAs tied to IT SLAs, keeps his end customer and more importantly the Head of Service Operations happy. The focus changed from 'cost savings' to meeting SLAs that in-turn keep customer satisfaction levels high.

3) IT SLAs and Business SLAs are disjointed in most places. While defining an IT Outsourcing strategy, it is important that this transformational exercise removes this as much as possible. Look at outsourcing as a way to change your current way of working, not move it as is. IT SLAs the way I have looked at them usually have a response time attached to it and people resolve it in a specified time. The way I look at Business SLAs and IT SLAs coming together are , if the Business SLA is to keep a Sales Channel (say online shop) running so as to allow 3000 registrations/day based on Business Intelligence trends , the IT SLAs should back that. The IT infrastructure and associated services should back that. Not have their own. And the objective should be to excel that. It is important that the partner is empowered and encouraged to make such suggestions , or it is mere abdication of what is 'your' promise to 'your' customer. Based on suggestions a cost benefit analysis needs to be carried out to review ROI. Remember, the high street has other stores, so if your system is down, your competitors are running.

4) It is important to have an 'As-Is' and a 'To-Be' model . A visual representation helps in more ways than one. You can visualise a concept, you can pick holes, review your BRP strategy based on the new model etc. However reviewing this with the CAR strategists is important. Why is that so important to the customer ? Trust. The guys who face the customer are the face of the company, it is them who answer difficult questions. How can a company that manages IT services for other companies justify to their customer, when their own organisation is outsourcing their internal services to competition ? Their own competition not even a partner. Will this not have a bearing on customer trust ? CAR strategists play an important role in deciding the right 'partner' for such deals and mitigating customer perception challenges, innovation plays an important role here. So if you do not have one, get one.

5) Run Outsourcing as a program, follow Prince2, or any project/program management methodology. Status reporting, measurement and realisation of benefits are important. These benefits are tied to customer acquisition and retention strategies. So tracking them are of paramount importance. Outsourcing deals are probably the most neglected unless something blows up. Use knowledge management systems and proven transition managers. It is assumed it will happen, now that the wheels are set in motion. Assumption is the mother of all evil.

I wonder how Peter Drucker and Mahatma Gandhi would have run a business together ...do you ?

Next up, 'from here, to eternity', the 5 remaining mantras.

PCI - Protect Customer Identity (tm)

PCI - Payment Card Industry compliance, why should it not be Protect Customer Identity (tm) compliance ? For the rest of this article (because I wrote it), PCI is Protect Customer Identity (tm). The (tm) is fake, I have no rights over this name. But I would definitely like the abbreviation changed !!.

Why is PCI compliance important ? More so, why is awareness to such a standard important ? I personally feel getting people to know about Data and Identity theft and PCI's war against it is as important as the AIDS awareness program that started over a decade ago. I am neither a guru, nor an evangelist , I like, however, to challenge the human thought and I apply logic. Yes miracles do happen and there are mystic unexplained theories (how does a sock disappear in a washing machine) , but I will leave solving them for another life. I will stick to logic in this one. It makes living life both easier to justify and pragmatic.

Now for the real deal, PCI - for a lot of people it never really exists. Or in other words , no one cared if it did. At least not until a few million had their credit and bank accounts zapped. Some even today are trickling by the pennies and cents, who cares about a few pennies here and there ? You would probably have more lying in that glass jar sitting on top of the kitchen table. Do the math times a few billion and you would know what I am trying to get at. Yet...who cares for a few pennies here and there.
This is partly because people have left the decision making on how sensitive data should managed to someone else (Banks, e-commerce shops, Stores, Utilities etc etc). An average person will leave his identity information in over 50 different places a month.
Not following a PCI compliance is abetting a crime !! Yet...who cares for a few pennies here and there. However, there are companies who do and value this as a service to their customers and it is them who make the community they thrive on proud. It is these companies who will succeed in gaining the customers trust and translate it as long term value. And in them I lay my trust as a consumer and it is with them my business commitment lies.
A simple shopping cart that gets and stores credit card information needs to be PCI complaint. Not all major frauds happen in large companies, they happen at a smaller (more frequent though) scale in smaller businesses that are a hacker's paradise. PCI is not just about storing data the right way but also a having the right infrastructure to be able to protect it. PCI Vaults that store CC/DC information and encrypted through patented algorithms are only a part of the solution. One would still need a robust and impenetrable infrastructure to protect this data. And this is always a lead-lag process. Hackers will find new ways to get to the data and we have to keep finding ways to keep them at bay.It is a relentless war against identity theft.

From here on , PCI is Payment Card Industry.
To know more about PCI and PCI compliance and be up-to-date with what is happening in the PCI world please visit, or keep an eye on this blog site for more updates.
http://www.pcicomplianceguide.org/
or
http://www.pcisecuritystandards.org/

Customer Centric Outsourcing

Outsourcing is not fun at all, but it was never mean to be, it is serious business. Unless outsourcing becomes a strategy and it is nurtured and given importance like any other business transformational initiative , it is best to bury it. Knowing what not to outsource is more important than knowing what to.It usually is an easy option to take a decision to outsource services lock,stock and barrel, or refrain from doing so at all. Two extremes that never realise the benefits that outsourcing promises. Those who embraced the preambles the right way could boast of success, while others mulled and meandered about what hit them.
The moment you remove your end customers focus and what appeals to them it ruins the very essence of outsourcing. Outsourcing is not about labour arbitrage, that's simple math, a 5 year old could tell you how many jobs you need to move offshore to get an advantage. Without even looking at a service portfolio one can guarantee 30% savings straight off on pure onshore work.
Knowing what to offshore is key, bringing your customer into the equation is keyer (for lack of better verbiage). Certain services cannot be outsourced, it just cuts you off from the customer. A haircut in the UK costs anywhere around £15, you could get a similar haircut in India for that price for the next 5 years, assuming you get your haircut every couple of months. The savings are enormous, however does this business qualify for outsourcing ? Anyone who says yes and wants to take this up I have a couple of websites for sale, eBarber and Salon'e'. I also have ideas on how to make an XBOX360 float while you play Ninja Gaiden II in your bathtub.

Customer Centric Outsourcing (CCO) ensures that end customer impact is evaluated before packaging work that can be outsourced. Intellectual Knowledge and Instinctive work cannot and should not be outsourced. Intellect and Instinct develop in the habitat the business exisits , one cannot expect someone sitting in Cambodia to know how a customer feels or will react to a service.
Outsourcing is here to stay, but must become more customer focussed if it has to deliver to expectations. When you walk into a store and expect service without an iota of comprise why should your customer.
Remember 'Everyone in this world is another's customer'.

Next up, 10 Mantras to make Outsourcing more customer centric...