The Dutch, who know a thing or two about frugality, have a saying, “Goedkoop is duurkoop.” The English translation: “Buying cheap is buying expensive.” And nowhere is that adage more fitting than in outsourcing.

University of Tennessee researcher Kate Vitasek offers an in-depth look at how shortsighted cost-cutting and nine other behaviors can hurt companies in her new book, “Vested Outsourcing,” which was published earlier this month by Palgrave Macmillan.

For her study, Vitasek looked at outsourcing deals and identified the most common mistakes companies make when contracting. Among them: Micromanaging, lack of formal governance, metrics obsession, and, of course, cost-cutting as a quick-fix measure.

Cost-cutting, Vitasek writes, is the easiest to identify. Companies desperate to trim the bottom line take the cheapest offer. The result is a tradeoff in quality, service or both.

For more about the study, visit Vitasek’s blog, which features a wealth of articles. It makes for great snow day reading. And for previous posts published on this blog about the subject, see the following: Wasting Money is Bad for the Bottom Line, When Mistakes add up to Millions, and The Real Cost of Offshore Outsourcing.♦

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admin Outsourcing, This Week in Tech News CIO, goedkoop is duurkoop, Help Desk, Kate Vitasek, Outsourcing, the Dutch

Poka-yoke – I never had heard the word before, but I was delighted to discover it two weeks ago in a Harvard Business Review article written by Michael Schrage.

Poka-yoke is Japanese for “mistake-proofing.” Think of the “In Case of Fire Break Glass” boxes found in office buildings. Because they include a wee stick with which to break said glass, they would qualify as poka-yoke.

Best of all, your employees will experience minimal downtime and very little lost productivity.

In business, Schrage explains, poka-yoke is the “simplest, cheapest, and surest way to eliminate foreseeable process errors.” He urges managers to perform a poka-yoke audit of their own department.

“What are the persistently simple — and simply persistent — dumb mistakes we make that our technologies can help us catch and destroy?” he asks.

Here’s where I believe IT managers should start: the help desk.

Say your company is planning an Office 2007 migration, and you, as CIO, have decided that because of the current economic climate, assistance isn’t needed. After all, your reliance on internal help desk staff during previous Office upgrades didn’t turn out disastrously. Read more…

admin Office 2007 Migration Assurance Program, ROI CIO, Harvard Business Review, Help Desk, Japan, Michael Schrage, Outsourcing, poka-yoke, software support

Sometimes it’s hard to explain in just a few words what this company does. Of course we help people with their PCs — that’s how the company got its start in 1992. But over the past 18 years, we have expanded our offerings. We help with Macs, mobile devices, Tier 1 help desk, migrations, and much more.

“The Ribbon” almost became a profanity in 2009. It’s central to the Office redesign, and it has rendered even seasoned Office users lost and confused.

Are we “efficiency experts”? We think so. Are we “leisure enablers”? Yes, we are. Are we “ROI generators”? Precisely.

Here’s a breakdown:

1. Mobile Device Support

I, personally, cannot imagine a world without on-the-go access to e-mail, documents, maps and every other feature my mobile device affords me. And, I suspect, most corporate workers would agree.

And smart phones will only become more central to how we work. According to a 2009 study, mobile use for business will double from 2008 to 2011 and the variety of devices being used will increase. Problem is, IT departments will continue to be ill-equipped to handle the support needs. Read more…

admin Customer Service BlackBerry, Customer Service, Help Desk, iPhone, mobile device, Office 2007, Outsourcing, smart phone, Windows Mobile

If there’s one idea that characterized 2009, it is “doing more with less.” If I had access to LexisNexis, I’d tell you just how many times it’s been used in print, but, alas, I don’t. Let’s go with it anyway.

The recession has forced managers and the C-suite to scrutinize budgets, choose which projects to embrace and which to scrap, and decide how many employees to sack. It has left a bad taste in many mouths.

“Doing more with less”: trimming the fat; getting back to basics; losing the bells and whistles; re-featuring; making tolerable tradeoffs; dialing down; innovating; repurposing.

Here are some variations of “doing more with less”: trimming the fat; getting back to basics; losing the bells and whistles; re-featuring; making tolerable tradeoffs; dialing down; innovating; repurposing.

Usually, I consider buzzwords and catchphrases as an affront, or a ruse to get me to think I matter as a worker. Then I remembered a column I read on Washingtonpost.com earlier in the year, “Eating Down the Fridge,” written by Kim O’Donnel, who happens to be a good friend of a good friend.

The column is O’Donnel’s challenge to her readers to skip trips to the grocery store for a week, and instead use what’s already in the fridge and pantry. It’s an experiment in doing more with less. (O’Donnel’s effort was inspired by fellow foodie Steven Shaw, co-founder of the web site eGullet.org, who endured his own no-shopping-for-a-week challenge.)

After re-reading it, the idea of getting back to basics in business offends me less, and almost seems noble. Read more…

admin Year in Review doing more with less, eGullet.org, Kim O'Donnel, kohlrabi, Outsourcing, recession, shallots, software support, Steven Shaw, trueslant.com, Washingtonpost.com

We may very well be embarking on the decade of the customer. Social media, especially Twitter, has empowered customers, and the recession has reminded businesses that keeping clients is easier than bringing in new ones.

It’s like watching your siblings bicker at Sunday dinner. Ugh. Enough already. Bring on a solution.

With the current state of customer service, a renewed focus would be a welcome change.

Look at current tech publications and you will surely find a rant or three about horrific customer experiences (for a recent one, see CIO.com’s “Tech Vendors Behaving Badly”). Search Twitter for “customer service” and you will find scores of tweets cursing the ineptitude of Company X and Company Y.

It’s like watching your siblings bicker at Sunday dinner. Ugh. Enough already. Bring on a solution.

You can start by taking note of a recent book, “Your Call is (Not That) Important to Us,” written by Emily Yellin (http://www.emilyyellin.com/) and featured in a recent AARP Bulletin story. Yellin, a journalist, wrote the book after enduring a particularly frustrating customer service experience herself.

Her book presents a fresh look at the customer service industry, and offers the average person some insight into the reasons many companies opt to automate and outsource to foreign companies. Read more…

admin Customer Service AARP, CIO.com, Customer Service, Dell, Emily Yellin, FACEBOOK, JetBlue, Outsourcing, Twitter, Zappos

Whether you have invested or are getting ready to invest in Windows 7 and Office 2007, you cannot afford to approach the migration willy-nilly. The switch promises to be like no other, especially if you are upgrading from XP. The user interface is radically different, and your employees will hit snags just trying to figure out how to perform basic tasks. How you handle the inevitable learning curve depends on your preparedness — and it may dictate future budget allocations, even the health of your IT department. This post breaks down the components of our Windows 7 and Office 2007 migration readiness kit, and gives you the information you need for a snag-free switchover.

Click to download your free Windows 7 and Office 2007 Migration Readiness Kit.

Part One, The Big Picture:

Expert support and training before, during, and after deployment is the key to a successful migration. You will need to tackle the steep learning curve and minimize downtime so your employees can regain the confidence and knowledge necessary to remain productive.

Some questions to keep in mind: If the average end-user was completing 30 tasks per day prior to migrating, what will it take to bring them back up to that level once Windows 7 and Office 2007 are deployed?

• Technical support and training for employees before, during, and after migration.
• Live, expert support and training, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
• Focused project timelines to coordinate deployment, support and training.
• Awareness campaigns that let Read more…

admin Office 2007 Migration Assurance Program, Windows 7 CIO, downtime, Office 2007, Outsourcing, quality assurance, ROI, software support

Outsourcing is a touchy subject. When a company decides to farm out part of its business, employees tend to quiver. It can damage morale, too. These two factors – plus a few uglier reasons — have given outsourcing a bad name.

They assume they will wait in a phone queue that rivals their commute, and will sit on hold long enough to pen a novel.

When we answer the phone within two rings, some first-time callers, who perhaps expect the lowest level of service from an outsourcer, are often stunned. They assume they will wait in a phone queue that rivals their commute, and will sit on hold long enough to pen a novel.

And then there’s the issue of personalized support, which we offer to our clients. That is, if ABC Company wants us to answer the phones with “ABC help desk, how may I help you?” that’s what we do. It’s often less jarring to the caller, and can serve to enhance the internal help desk’s reputation.

Apparently, it’s working.

One of our consultants received an e-mail recently informing him that he had been nominated as employee of the month. But not by us. He was nominated by employees of one of our clients, who didn’t realize he wasn’t on the same payroll.

Our goal is to make it as seamless as possible. It seems we are doing something right.

MORE INFO IN: Desktop Application Support | Contact PC Helps

admin Customer Service employee of the month, Outsourcing, service level agreements, transparency

A recent Associated Press story was almost silly enough to qualify as a headline from The Onion: “Chicken farming growing trend in suburbia.”

What do chickens and software support have in common?

The article wasn’t a spoof; it was a legitimate news story that appeared in the Dallas Morning News. The piece detailed the how suburbanites have taken to rearing chickens to make it through the recession. It sounds like a lot of work for one egg per day for each hen. There’s a coop to build, feed to buy, local livestock laws to obey. And then there’s the smell.

Chicken-rearers say it’s a way of “getting back to basics.” My gut says it’s just too much work considering the return.

But upon further inspection (namely, the mere existence of “Raising Chickens for Dummies” – yes, it’s a real book – and the popularity of a the site BackyardChickens.com), it seems it’s not such a crazy notion after all. Yes, there is an upfront investment, but the ROI is supposedly stellar.

Chickens are working pets that guarantee a steady supply of fresh eggs (and, perhaps, an eventual main course). Raising your own chickens is also “green.” They help control bugs and weeds without the use of chemicals, and they create excellent fertilizer.

All this talk of getting back to basics got me thinking about dwindling IT budgets and the move on corporate America’s part to get back to basics. In particular, it brought to mind the misconception that services like software support and training for employees are excessive and unnecessary in an economic downturn. Read more…

admin ROI Associated Press, backyardchickens.com, Outsourcing, productivity, Raising Chickens for Dummies, recession, ROI, software support, The Onion

The economy has certainly changed the nature of the service level agreement (SLA). What used to be a formality now has the capability of becoming a powerful tool for ensuring successful outsourcing partnerships. In other words, it can help you cut costs.

Today – more so than in the past – companies should not be afraid to ask their outsourcing partners for updated SLAs, and more data, both qualitative and quantitative.

It’s the data that really matters – data such as:

• Abandonment rate
• Queue times, hold times
• Call duration
• Estimated hard-dollar savings
• Customer satisfaction and feedback
• Downtime analysis
• Call complexity

Using qualitative and quantitative reporting methods can provide IT leaders with proof of ROI and show value behind dollars spent.

This should be a focal point for every IT department, when many end-users (or customers) operate under the incorrect assumption that the IT help or service desks serve just a few purposes: resetting passwords, maintaining network connectivity, or putting out computers that are on fire.

Choosing the right outsourcing partner and putting strong SLAs in place can rejuvenate the image of the help desk in no time, which, in turn, makes for a better bottom line.

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admin Rants Outsourcing, ROI, SLAs

If you thought BlackBerry and mobile device support needs were overwhelming your IT department now, prepare yourself, as it’s only going to get worse. According to a recent study, smartphone use for business will almost double from 2008 to 2011, the variety of devices being used will increase, and IT departments will continue to be ill-equipped to handle mobile device support needs.

Yikes. All that, and we’re still in a recession.

Because the majority of users are higher-profile employees, the downtime has a greater impact on an organization’s bottom line.

According to the study, which was sponsored by Zenprise Inc. and published in March by Osterman Research, smartphone use in the enterprise will jump from 23 percent to 46 percent by 2011. Although the BlackBerry and Windows Mobile devices will continue to dominate the business market, support needs will increase for other platforms such as iPhone and Palm OS.

The report made special note of downtime as a key issue. Because the majority of users are higher-profile employees, such as senior and middle managers, the downtime has a greater effect on an organization’s bottom line.

“…Users become so dependent on mobile devices, and others become so dependent on being able to reach them, that downtime can cause serious problems – slower decision-making, slower customer response, etc.,” the report states. “Making mobile messaging available 24×7 is as critical, if not more so, than making conventional messaging available.” Read more…

admin Mobile Devices 24x7 support, BlackBerry, CIO, Help Desk, iPhone, Outsourcing, Palm OS, Windows Mobile