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Service Desks by TCS: Efficient and Effective Structures in IT Support for the Finance Industry a Case Study
The financial sector is facing a number of challenges markets are continuing to react volatilely, while requirements are on the rise. Here especially, a high-performance IT infrastructure is essential for responding immediately to market movements. The pressure to reduce operating and support costs is, however, also on the rise in the IT sector. But how can elementary business processes be improved and costs reduced without limiting service offerings and quality? This technical article, using a practical business example, describes how Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) supported a global financial services firm in improving service-desk offering. The success of this project depended on uniform, fully integrated processes that are subject to constant quality control and customer-specific service level agreements (SLAs), and on a risk-free transition strategy with low overall long-term costs.
Management Summary
In banking and finance in particular, a high-performance IT infrastructure is essential for responding immediately to market movements. IT support plays a crucial role here it has to handle requests as quickly and efficiently as possible. The pressure to reduce operating and support costs is, however, also on the rise in the IT sector. Against this background, TCS developed, for a leading European financial services provider, a new nearshoring/ offshoring operating model for IT support, including a migration scenario and implementation. TCS, a specialist in both IT and outsourcing, handled all the stages of work from planning down to support services. TCS consolidated the service desks previously been scattered across Europe into one central Contact Center. It serves as an enterprise-wide place for IT support, ensuring a consistent customer experience. The financial services provider benefits from faster, more reliable and cheaper services resulting from an effective combination of nearshore and offshore components with best-of-breed processes. Transparency and service quality are guaranteed by comprehensive quality management according to internationally recognized standards, as well as SLAs tailored to the customer. This case study examines the general requirements of the project, the approach taken and points of added value to the business in an anonymous form.
Table of Contents
Customer Profile Terms of Reference Goals of the Project Excursus: The TCS Value Proposition Competent, Scalable and Cost-effective IT Support, Including Infrastructure Approach and Scenario for a Solution Customized Analysis for Accurate Results Three-tier Service Architecture Nearshoring and Offshoring in Perfect Harmony Qualification of Service-Desk Staff Members Service Workflow Service Level Agreements and Reporting Quality Management and Security 4 4 4
5 6 6 6 7 8 8 9 9
Appendix IT Service Desk-related Project References References for Support Services in Various European Languages 13 15
Customer Profile
The financial sector is facing a number of challenges markets continue to react volatilely while requirements are on the rise. Political calls grow louder for bigger capital cushions and a general levy on banks, while shareholders demand constantly increasing returns. In this situation, all companies in the sector need to reduce costs. At the same time, fundamental business processes have to become more efficient, yet still ensure the same or better service. A leading European financial services provider contracted the IT, consultancy and outsourcing specialists at worldwide TCS. Its goal was to replace the structures at its Contact Center for IT support, so as to reduce operating and support costs while boosting efficiency, especially in the IT unit. The client is part of a corporate group with multiple financial services companies. The group employs more than 160,000 people and has over 9,500 branch offices. It is represented in 50 markets worldwide, including 22 European countries, primarily in Central and Eastern Europe, in addition to Italy. It is a leading company in the asset-management sector. These broke down primarily into the following subject categories: user and access rights management, problems with desktop hardware, specific business applications and the Microsoft Office package. The Contact Center was available around the clock to the financial services providers employees: From 7a.m. to 9p.m., support was provided in English, Italian or German; between 9p.m. and 7a.m. in English only. Contact Center locations were spread over the UK, Germany and Italy. The customer designed all workflows and processes itself. These differed from location to location, which resulted in inconsistencies in service.
Terms of Reference
The provider asked TCS to redesign its Contact Center, which is responsible for telephone IT support. TCS was to handle all stages of work, from planning down to the various services. The initial situation: The customers IT support was handled entirely by telephone, using a service desk tool, Remedy and Multichannel Contact Center System manufactured by Genesys. Approximately 3,000 users, with regional focuses in the United Kingdom, Italy and Germany, handled around 10,000 calls per month.
Excursus:
The TCS Value Proposition Competent, Scalable and Cost-effective IT Support, Including Infrastructure
Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) is a worldwide provider of IT, consulting and outsourcing services, as well as business solutions that together bring fast and lasting benefits especially for companies that operate globally. IT infrastructure services are among TCSs core competencies. More than 12,500 consultants provide customers worldwide with a comprehensive range of services from computer-center operations to end-user management, innovative IT service desk solutions and transformation solutions. Customers get scalable, flexible and transparent solutions that can be tailored to their particular requirements, enabling them to reduce operating costs, while avoiding having to invest in systems and hardware. At the same time, they increase their room to maneuver so they can again focus on their core business. All services meet the highest privacy and data-security requirements. Geared to ITIL standards, services from TCS provide fast and consistently high customer benefits. TCS assists customers from all industries to restructure their IT support or redesign it from scratch. This includes IT security and monitoring, as well as management of identification processes and access rights. This consulting service provider also offers innovative solutions that enable previously separate support units to be merged into one integrated, uniform and enterprise-wide service desk. TCS handles all the stages of work for customers from planning through integrating technological infrastructure down to the end help desk services. TCS currently operates more than 20 IT help desk centers worldwide, which offer comprehensive, high-quality support around the clock in more than 30 languages. Close to 1,500 qualified employees handle over six million calls per year. These IT help desk centers are an integral part of TCSs unique Global Network Delivery ModelTM (GNDMTM). It opens access for TCS customers to virtually any scalable resources desired for consistently high-quality service at low cost. A migration strategy tailored to individual customer requirements minimizes transformation and handover risks. TCSs technology partners in the IT service desk field include BMC Software, HP and CA Technologies.
available on weekdays 24 hours a day. The Delivery Center Budapest will continue to be responsible for support in German and Italian, but with service reduced to 16 hours on weekdays. This second stage of shifting to India (offshore) has a significant impact on the cost structure. TCSs service desk teams comprise several service desk agents who, under the supervision of a service desk manager, are in direct contact with customers. The manager, together with a quality analyst, make up the next organizational level. Both report to the service delivery manager, who has regular exchanges with the clients IT management. In addition, an individual in charge for TCS is locally available as a contact partner to customers in Germany.
Figure 1: Composition of the IT Support Team Responsible for the TCS Customer 7
from listening in on incoming calls to eventually taking calls, unassisted, with regular monitoring.
Service Workflow
Whenever an employee receives a service request or fault report at the Contact Center operated by TCS, it triggers a structured and efficient process (see Figure 2). The aim is to successfully handle as many inquiries as possible during the first call, achieving a high first-call resolution (FCR) rate at Level1. A TCS team member records and classifies the problem and enters it in the ticketing system. Together with the caller, the call center agent performs an initial diagnosis of the problem, using the knowledge base and fault database. When a problem can be solved by this route, the agent closes the job order. When a service desk staff member is not able to clear up a matter, he or she forwards the job order to the IT experts at Level-2 support. They perform a detailed analysis of the problem and seek a suitable solution.
Status Updates
Customer LEVEL2 Knowledge Database LEVEL-0-Support Solution TCS Contact Center LEVEL-1-Support Recording, Classi cation, Diagnosis, Solution
LEVEL1
Troubleshooting
LEVEL0
During this procedure, the call center agent keeps the customer updated every half hour. As soon as the Level-2 support has found a solution, it returns the case to the Level-1 staff member. He or she passes it on to the customer and closes the ticket. The knowledge base is updated accordingly. If a case remains cannot be solved, it is passed on to the service desk team leader or to the service delivery manager.
Implementation
To minimize risks during the handover of IT support, TCS has developed a tried and tested transition method (see Figure 3). Its several phases run in parallel, each pursuing a different subject area. The primary objective is to experience as few delays as possible in the ongoing service, while keeping support quality at a consistently high level.
Once TCS had signed contracts with the provider, implementation began and lasted 17 weeks. From the first through the eleventh week, two processes ran simultaneously: TCS put together a Contact Center team and trained them in the financial services providers content and structures. In other workshops, team members practiced their language skills and cultural competence. Team-building activities also strengthened mutual understanding and group cohesion. Concurrently, technical implementation was carried out for the services provided. TCS experts set up the necessary interfaces and connections to the providers IT and telecommunications infrastructure and established the tools required.
The transfer of knowledge from the client company to the TCS team took place in weeks 4 to 7. During the secondary support stage (weeks 8 to 11), TCS duplicated the client teams and further trained its own staff members in the processes to be handled. The client teams, however, still handled the operational work. During the subsequent primary support stage (weeks 12 to 17), the process was reversed: TCS handled the operational work and was shepherded and monitored by the client teams. A six-week pilot phase took place concurrently with the last section, then the TCS team took over the IT support at the push of a button, as
Transition Roadmap
Steady State
Technical ICT-Infrastructure
Knowledge Transition
Secondary Support
W1
W2
W3
W4
W5
W6
W7
W8
W9
W10
10
it were, and continued on its own. Spot checks were made, but the SLAs were not yet applied. At the end of the successful testing period, the provider permanently handed over its IT support to TCS.
Trilingual phone support (English, German and Italian), combined with e-mail and Internet contacts. Optimized use of Remedy, a user-friendly service desk tool. Extensive knowledge base and FAQs for unassisted problem solving by users. Improved knowledge management: more requests solved at Level 1 (left-shift strategy), and improved general resolution rate in first calls (first call resolution, FCR). Optimum composition of teams reduces average speed of answer (ASA), ensuring high customer satisfaction (CSAT).
Solution Elements
Delivery Location
Before
Germany United Kingdom Italy German users British users Italian users
After
Years 1 and 2: Hungary From year 3: Hungary and India For all users Best-of-breed processes according to accepted industry standards and ITIL V3 Consistent service activities Improvement of the service
Service Processes
Self-designed processes Location-specific in part, with different manifestation and service quality
Remedy
Optimized use of previous tools Telephone (primary), e-mail and website TCS Telephony Infrastructure (Avaya Systems)
Contact Medium
Telephone
Telephone Solutions
11
Tools: Added value of existing investments, maximi zing their ROI. SLA-driven service delivery model. ITIL V3-based service processes and strict implemen tation of Six Sigma standards. TCS telephony platform adapted to particular cus tomer needs and based on Avaya Contact Center System for outstanding reporting, performance monitoring and continuous improvement of performance.
In a Nutshell
In summary, TCS offers a unique package. Based on a comprehensive analysis, the IT and outsourcing experts drew up a solution for the financial services provider individually tailored to its needs. The customer benefited both from TCSs many years of experience in the service desk field and from its tried and tested automated implementation methods. Other important elements of the overall package were the client-specific mix of nearshore and offshore capacities within the global TCS service network, making nearly unlimited scalable resources available. The key factors leading to the provider opting for permanent collaboration with TCS were: uniform, fully integrated processes subject to constant quality control and customer-specific SLAs, and a risk-free transition strategy with low long-term overall costs.
12
Appendix
Calls/ Month
60,000
Main points:
Consolidation of seven service desks into a single, centralized one for five regions with 55,000 users Languages: English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch and Polish Increase of Level-1 resolution rate from 15% to 50% in first three months Improvement of customer satisfaction from 65% to 90%
33,000
Conversion of two service desks from different suppliers into a central service desk with a user base of 55,000 Relocation to India followed once the target business model was stabilized in the UK Initial resolution of 73% is above the agreed rate of 70%
35,000
Consolidation of four service desks into one central service desk Stabilization of the service desk in Montreal before relocating to India Optimized customer experience for 400,000 users resulting from improved index figures and SLAs
13
Customer
A leading health and hygiene company
Calls/ Month
20,000
Main points:
A regional service desk in Hungary with support in six languages, as well as English support from India Worldwide user base of 50,000 A new way to reset passwords automatically significantly aided both users and support Migration of 2,500 written articles from a knowledge management system to a new system, and revision of 2,000 additional articles on technology fields
25,000
Establishment of a central service desk for 500 branch offices and 2,000 back office users ITIL processes and a Remedy-based toolset Institutionalized KPIs and SLAs
14
Countries
29
Locations
51
Users
2,200
Languages
French, English, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian and Hungarian
Advantages
A more stable and more reliable system Improved documentation High ROI Optimized customer experience and fewer backlogs Uniform processes and tools Centralized governance Annual cost reduction Improved business Continuity Fewer events
10
36
3,600
A global manufacturer of adhesive materials, office and paper products A diversified technology and production manufacturer
n/a
6,000
Integrated service delivery model Shifting move events from Level2 to Level1 Higher rate of first call resolution 24/7 service
n/a
6,000
Improved knowledge management and intranet Greater efficiency Spanish and Portuguese as additional languages, depending on team skills
15
About TATA Consultancy Services (TCS) Tata Consultancy Services is an IT services, consulting and business solutions organization that delivers real results to global business, ensuring a level of certainty no other firm can match. TCS offers a consulting-led, integrated portfolio of IT, BPO, infrastructure, engineering and assurance services. This is delivered through its unique Global Network Delivery Model, recognized as the benchmark of excellence in software development. A part of the Tata Group, Indias largest industrial conglomerate, TCS has over 198,500 of the worlds best trained consultants in 42 countries. The Company generated consolidated revenues of US $ 8.2 billion for year ended 31 March, 2011 and is listed on the National Stock Exchange and Bombay Stock Exchange in India. For more information please contact: www.tcs.com/de