Friday 6 November 2009

Wikis in Knowledge Management Presentation

This is the presentation I gave at the Dublin Institute of Technology on 08/11/09. There were 2 masters classes in attendance (Knowledge Management & IT).

Monday 28 September 2009

For My Next Dissertation - BPO

I am currently working on my second masters dissertation as I near the end of my MSc in Operations & Technology Management at DCU.

The topic of BPO seems to be hot right now with recent M&A activity in this domain, including the acquisition of EDS by HP. Just last week, HP announced a re-branding of EDS which will now be known as "HP Enterprise Services".

My own specific focus on BPO relates to the challenges that a captive O&T unit faces in exposing BP services on the commercial market in their industry. This will build on the core competency theories of Prahalad and Hamel which would suggest that organisations can use their existing expertise to provide services to others.

Classic cases would include the spin-out of EDS from General Motors, 6-Sigma from Motorola and the likes of Canon becoming a key market player in the printing business.

I will share some of my research and thoughts here, but I am finding the subject very interesting and especially in a recession, where organisations are looking for new revenue channels when traditional income sources are suffering. Disruptive Innovation and Discovery-Driven Growth are two topics which are quickly growing my reading list currently!

Saturday 23 May 2009

Customer Service on Twitter

Now that I have finally finished my exams, I can get back to blogging and catching up on my RSS feeds etc. One of the things that I have been looking at on Twitter is corporate organisations responding to customer queries, complaints and comments via their own branded channel.

Just like they should keep an eye on what is being said about them in the blogosphere, it is equally important to go that extra mile and help their customers on Twitter. I think it shows proactive engagement on their part.

Some banking examples include:

For the organisations, this a low cost initiative, but has a potentially high positive effect on the customer who is looking for information. The answers to many of the queries are often simple links to existing FAQ and help material on their existing websites.

Approach seems to differ from organisation to organisation. Some have a single channel, while others allow separation of context by having a separate twitter stream per business unit (i.e. One for Credit Cards, another for Online Banking etc). It will be interesting to see if this type of web 2.0 customer service becomes mainstream, as you would almost expect the big players listed above to be leaders in this domain.

The main point here is that organisations must be aware of what is happening on the web in relation to customers making comment and publishing queries which are there to be answered. What better way to serve them than directly embracing the social media and making a difference to each one.