Operations

Operations is one of the major functions and is vital to the success of every organization irrespective of the size and sector. A strong operations management enables an organization to effectively and efficiently utilize the resources (people, process & technology) to provide quality products/services and successfully deliver it to the customers. A well planned and robust operations is necessary to achieve the goals and objectives in the strategic plan.

Issue

An IT service company had challenges to drive seamless operations within the technical support team due to poorly defined processes, inadequate knowledge management systems, knowledge gaps within the team, untimely sending of progress updates to the customers and lack of coordination between the onsite and offsite team members. This led to having an adverse impact on business operations due to the delay in restoring normal operations in time resulting in increased customer escalations and high risk of SLA (Service Level Agreement) breach.

Solution

The objective was to improve customer experience and create value for the customer. To address the issue, the focus was to develop and execute strategies to build an efficient processes, a robust knowledge management system, training to fix the knowledge gaps, implement a communication process to ensure timely progress update to all the customers impacted and effective collaboration between the onsite and offsite team. A detailed process mapping was done to identify loopholes and bottlenecks affecting the result. Revised process flow was designed to eliminate the risks and to fulfill the needs of the customers and internal team members.

• A training program was developed and conducted to fix the knowledge gaps among the team members.
• An effective knowledge management system was implemented to promote knowledge sharing and faster resolution of the requests.
• Automated tools were implemented to eliminate the inefficiencies and further enhance the process.
• A systematic workflow plan and communication channel were implemented to balance the workload and effective collaboration within the onsite/offsite team members.
• KPI’s (Key Performance Indicators) were identified and a reporting dashboard was created to measure performance.
• Automated reports were created to keep track of pending requests (critical/non-critical) for timely processing of the requests.
• A BCP (Business Continuity Plan) was implemented to ensure the availability of continued operations.

Result

Implementation of robust operational controls helped in consistently meeting the SLA’s and enhanced customer experience. Achieved a 40% reduction in turnaround time. Improved transaction quality to 100% with process automation. 43% reduction in critical requests. Reduced customer escalation by 15% and improved customer satisfaction.