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In
this issue: |
May
2007
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Disruption in Autos and Support
by Phil Verghis
President, The Verghis Group, Inc.
Last month, a major upheaval occurred in the world of automobile
manufacturing. After 76 years in the top spot, General Motors was eclipsed
by Toyota as the world's top-selling carmaker during the first quarter of
2007.
One of the keys to that happening was Taiichi Ohno, a Toyota engineer who
is credited with revolutionizing modern manufacturing by showing that
flexibility could co-exist with the mass-production techniques pioneered
by Henry Ford.
 Taiichi's
big insight was that instead of parts being made in advance and stores for
use later, parts should be created only in response to an actual order.
While Taiichi was a huge fan of Henry Ford, he realized that parts and raw
materials should not be sitting around idle, any more than people should
be standing around waiting for work to do.
Part of each employee's job,
Taiichi believed,
was to improve his or her own efficiency, as well as the efficiency of
co-workers. This accounts in part for the famous Toyota Production System,
which demands a lot from people yet also expects teamwork and cooperation.
What does this have to do with customer service and support? Two things.
First, I see thought leadership for services increasingly coming
from outside the traditional powerhouses of the US and Europe.
Second, the hierarchical structure of services will flatten.
Service has borrowed much of our support structure (i.e., first
level/second level/third level) from traditional, inflexible
assembly-line techniques. Increasingly these hierarchies will be smashed.
Support will shift to more dynamic organizations that expend extraordinary
intellectual effort to make sure customer-impacting or customer-visible
issues don’t occur in the first place.
Smart leaders are already starting to make changes in both of these areas.
What are your plans?
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Butterflies, Assets and
You?
Can
butterflies can teach us something about managing assets in a complex
world?
You're invited to read
Butterflies, Assets and You,
a thought piece I wrote recently for MRO Software, an IBM company
(registration required).
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Quantum Computing
Imagine moving into a new
house, and not having a phone for two full years. This was the case not
too long ago in India. As late as the 1990s, the 800 million people in
India had only eight million phone connections. Another twenty million
people were on the waiting list.
Fast forward to 2006, when India boasted 160 million cell phone
subscribers. In August alone, 5.9 million new subscribers were added.
Market research firms predict that by 2010 that number will jump to
somewhere between 265 and 405 million cell phone subscribers in India
alone. Multiply this across multiple technologies around the globe, and
one has to wonder if the sheer number of assets we have to manage will
overwhelm our capability to keep track of them. One answer may lie in
quantum computing.
 (Let’s
ignore the complications that arise when millions of assets that aren’t
currently tracked start getting tracked with RFID, or how convoluted
things can get once language gets involved. For example, the Indian
currency note that is equivalent of a US dollar – the Rupee -- has 15
languages printed on it!)
It was Gordon Moore who postulated in 1965 that the number of transistors
per square inch on integrated circuits will double every year. The problem
is that sometime within the next two decades, as computer chip components
shrink to atomic size, ‘normal’ laws of physics will collide with the
often bizarre world of quantum physics.
Scientists, including those at the IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center,
began wondering if another type of computer – the quantum computer – could
replace the digital computer that has been around since the beginning of
computing time.
In a digital computer, a 'bit' is either 'on' or 'off'. But in a quantum
computer, the bit (called a 'qubit') can be both 'on' and 'off' at the
same time. This means that a string of qubits would be able to calculate
every possible on-off combination simultaneously. Do you begin to see how
a quantum computer will be able to zip through the massive asset databases
of the future?
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Educational Resources
As I prepared to meet a client at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
(MIT) the other day, I was reminded of MIT’s ambitious plans to put
all its courseware up on the web —
for free, no registration required.
Here is a slightly dated
article
from Wired that does a very nice job explaining how this new
approach to education has already started transforming lives.
There is a lot of excellent material available online. For example, many
of you work in companies that have a dual career track for employees.
There's a technical track and a managerial track. This seems
to help prevent highly skilled technical people from having to defect to
management in order to make more money. That’s the theory anyway - how
well does that work?
Here's a
pdf of slides from the Sloan School of Management’s Managerial
Psychology Laboratory that talks about this very subject.
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Events & Upcoming
Talks
- Thanks to all
who attended the April Be the Voice of the Customer workshop
in Boston. It sold out months in advance, and included people from all
over the US and Canada.
Last month's custom workshop for executive session panelists at the HDI
event in Las Vegas also was a very successful event.
If you are interested in having
a custom workshop at
your organization, let me know. You’ll be
surprised how affordable it is.
- May 2007 Executive
Summit for the Consortium for Service Innovation Boston, MA
(Invitation only)
For top-level service executives to discuss the leadership framework
for the organization as a network (the Adaptive Organization) - our
focus this year will be on people (independent of role) and emerging
measures
- June 2007 - Pacific
Rim Help Desk & IT Service Management Conference
By invitation only. I'll deliver the keynote address at the conference
and an invitation-only talk for CIOs.
Get details.
- July 2007 - Maximo
World
Orlando Florida
IBM's Maximo users gather to
discuss asset and
service management.
- October 3 –
Voice of the Customer
Retreat
MIT Endicott House,
Boston
First Wednesday Group looks at
how to do a better
job of understanding customers and communicating their message to
the rest of your company.
I hope to see you at one
or more of these events. If you're there, please come up and say hello.
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What's
On Your Mind?
I
want to hear from you! Your ideas, insights and feedback are important to me.
What topics or books would you like to see discussed? Who would you like to see interviewed? Your comments, questions, ideas,
suggestions, feedback and contributions are welcome. Send them to the editor here.
You're welcome to forward this
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with any third party.
Previous issues:
March 2007
January 2007
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 About Phil Verghis
A preeminent expert on global service delivery,
Phil was vice president of Infrastructure & Support at Akamai
Technologies and a member of the Senior Executive Operations Group.
Among other responsibilities, he launched Akamai's award- winning
Customer Care Department and ran the world's largest IP network: 15,000
servers in 66 countries handling billions of hits per day. More
about Phil.
About The Verghis
Group
We unleash the power of your
customer (SM). The Verghis Group
brings years of expertise with innovative solutions that enable
companies like yours to conceptualize and implement world-class
customer support strategies that delight your customers and enhance
your bottom line. Our strategies encompass your people, processes and
technology. For the right clients, we can add significant value by
taking a comprehensive look at issues from your customer's point of
view.
We are vendor-neutral. Our mentorship and
facilitation based model emphasizes the speedy transfer of knowledge to
your internal teams.
For more information or a no-obligation initial
consultation, contact:
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Phil Verghis |
Box 123, 1770 Massachusetts
Ave. |
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The Verghis Group |
Cambridge, MA 02140-2808 USA
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info@verghisgroup.com |
Toll-f'ree: (800) 494
9142 |
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www.verghisgroup.com
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Phone: +1 (617) 395 6613 |
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Fax: +1 (617) 395 6643 |
This publication is a presentation of The Verghis
Group, which is solely responsible for its contents.
©2007 The Verghis Group. All rights reserved.
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