In those days, if your organisation was lucky enough to have a website, you were starting to gain competitive advantage.  Especially if you could keep it up to date more quickly than your competitors.

However, that depended on your IT dept and an army of HTML programmers, who wanted a specification, a design document, a test environment, methodology, design authority, sign off procedures etc etc.

Then someone invented Content Management Systems.  The purpose of a CMS was to enable the business to make their own website changes in real time but, and this is a crucial but, within a corridor of governance enabled by the IT dept.  So it was possible to change the text, but not corrupt customer data.  It was possible to change pictures, but not corporate design rules.  It was possible to change the database contents, but not the database itself.  So business users can do a whole load of useful stuff without the risk of bringing down the site.

Of course, other governance is required.  Someone still needs to take responsibility for the content that, in an instant, is representing your organisation around the globe.  But without this level of flexibility how can your company compete with the speed of business today?

This type of flexibility (I prefer to think of it as agility) is now finding its way into the operational world.  Giving business ops a way of doing their own process integration, orchestration and execution for example is freeing the business to react to the daily challenges of the changing world.  At Blue Prism we call it Business Led Computing.  It is a growing movement.  People are used to being able to do their own computing at home.  The next big thing in corporate computing might just be self serve.

I sacked Streamline nearly 12 months ago but now they are trying to debit my account for another year’s fees.  I have been forced to change my debit card to stop them.

I enquired about how to cancel my account using the customer service support ticket system on their website.  This is the system that, as a customer, is the only possible way of getting any response out of Streamline.net.

Now I no longer want to be a customer – guess what?  To close my account I have to call a premium rate number where, surprise surprise, I sit in a queue that costs me more than next year’s subscription.  No reply in 20 minutes.

Am I the only one that thinks this is shoddy?

In today’s complex business world, front and back office customer service operations have to contend with a non-stop barrage of change.  Whereas traditional IT projects deliver systems against timescales measured in years, human beings on the front line have to react to events happening right now, today.

The long term IT strategy is generally based on what is known today with some future forecast factored in.  The business users, though, have little more idea of what is coming tomorrow than the poor EA faced with a blank sheet of paper.  Of course, the major systems still need to exist, CRM, core operational software, billing and collections etc.  It’s just that when these systems are conceived they have to be designed with a “best guess” of future requirements and this results in range of functions available to the front line that is then frozen in time.

The problem with this approach is that operational staff might need to do something new.  A merger or acquisition creates process duplication; a new product launch requires operational support with sketchy forecasts of process volumes; management want to push a certain product whilst sunsetting another; a processing error needs quickly reversing.

One of our customers had a processing problem caused by a mail strike.  Several thousand accounts were debited with a late payment penalty whilst the cheques really were “in the post”.  A decision was taken to refund these payments (very noble – glad I am a customer of this organisation!).  When the customer accounting system was designed, nobody thought that there might be a bulk requirement to selectively cancel debits applied to a range of accounts.  The traditional way of solving this problem is to take a few call centre agents off the phones for a few weeks to process these refunds manually.  With Blue Prism software the team was able to quickly piece together a new automated process flow that required no human involvement and the process was completed in one day.

Here’s the science bit.  Blue Prism retrospectively componentises the existing and legacy apps and allows you to re-purpose them into new operational scenarios and business processes.  Using point and click integration techniques (no code required), new methods can be clicked together into a process flow using a simple flowchart interface.  This gives operational staff the means to manage and react to short term change and therefore operational agility is enhanced.

Sounds like similar objectives to BPM/SOA?  Possibly some.  Except we are talking about delivery in days and weeks, not months and years.  I’ll go into more detail on this in a later post.

Access to the ground is already by contactless proximity card so making the leap to contactless payment is just like Oyster and Barclaycard really.  I criticised that one heavily for lack of ambition which just goes to show the power of fans eh?

I am not currently a season ticket holder at Man City but I do go to many of the home games using my contactless Access Card, where I merely ring up, ask for a ticket and access is authorised.  I turn up for the game and hey presto, my card let’s me in.  I won’t go into the number of times two people have been allocated the same seat but I tolerate this as a “fan”.  If that same access card could be used to buy a beer (for which I tolerate queuing for ages), a pie (ugh!), and my programme this would be great.  I then shuffle my way through to my seat amongst the thronging masses and watch City play out a drab 0-0 draw and go home to kick the cat.

A major energy company in the UK, npower, has a corporate strategy of turning customers into fans – no wonder….  At Man City, I am happy to pay for poor service again and again, and I never ever switch “suppliers”.   Btw, I am an npower customer and sadly I must report that I cannot make a valid comparison since I have never had a service problem with them.

I hear there are similar trials in the US too – I wonder if Man City fancy twinning with the Seattle Seahawks?  They had a service problem at Green Bay in last season’s playoffs – it snowed wildly – home advantage hmphhhh!

On the one hand, you buy in a package from a vendor.  They bring industry “best” practice.  They guarantee that your administration is as good as your competitors.  The trouble is that it is equally as bad as your competitors.  So it puts you in an equal position, not an advantageous one.  The lowest common denominator?  At the very least you are making your business subservient to the vendor’s view of the world.  Sometimes this can be good, sometimes it can be bad.

The traditional alternative is to build your own system.  For the purposes of this argument, I am placing this in the same category as buying a package from a vendor and then trying to tailor it to your environment.  The former can be very rewarding and can differentiate you greatly, but can also be very expensive.  The latter is almost always the worst of both worlds and creates expensive and long term projects, contorted business solutions, and a support headache long into the future.

So is there a third way?  I think so.

Your existing systems can adapt to changing business requirements if there is a process management layer capable of making sense of the existing infrastructure.  This can lead to business agility on a new scale if you implement it properly.

With the right tools and methodologies, new horizons are possible.  New standards in customer interaction, faster service, better compliance, process adherence, first time resolution and other desirable customer outcomes are all possible….in the short term.

But it seems I may be in the minority because, after years of “consolidation” many UK banks are actually increasing the number of branches.  Abbey (part of Banco Santander), for example, are planning 300 new branches  with an Abbey spokesman quoted as saying that although internet and phone banking are available, many customers “prefer dealing with our staff face to face in a branch”.  In case you are wondering whether 300 branches is a big deal, it represents an increase of 43% on the existing Abbey estate.

It seems that HBOS and HSBC are making similar moves.  Maybe my dream of being able to run my life through my mobile phone is being hampered by the old fashioned attitude of the UK consumer.

We were talking through the inconveniences that agents have to go through in terms of navigating through a variety of systems just to give the customer what they needed, in this case upgrading their contract.

The problems were obvious in terms of the corporate systems.  Like any other enterprise, these were divided into functional silos paying little regard to the business process.  However, additional difficulty had been added by the use of complex spreadsheets as workarounds for missing system functionality.  Am I painting a grim picture?  Not at all – I see this in every large call centre, not to mention back office.  This is the norm for operational managers – they come to expect it.

The manager volunteered that he was looking at ways of reducing average call handling times and had concluded that improving agents’ interaction with systems would be a way of achieving this.  As an example, he showed me a simple process where the agent had to do some nimble cutting and pasting between systems, whilst holding a conversation with the customer.  I was just thinking that automating that small piece of process would only probably save 10 seconds when I was advised that each second of call time equates to one FTE (full time equivalent employee).  So a 10 seconds reduction equates to approx £250,000 p.a!

What’s more, there were numerous examples of where these savings could be made.

Major IT projects had come and gone and tried to address the major issues.  The problem with such projects is that they focus (necessarily) on the major issues and forget the local problems, indeed sometimes actually create the local problems.  Furthermore, every major project I have ever seen has been de-scoped at some point due to cost and time pressures.  This leaves inflexible hardware and software infrastructures attempting to support demanding and frequently changing business processes.

Sometimes incremental improvements are the way forwards.  Major projects frequently don’t deliver promised advantages.  Smaller packages are more easily controlled and deliver benefits more reliably.  They also pay back more readily since investment is also incremental.  And it doesn’t take too many incremental improvements at £250k p.a. each to add up to a significant total gain.

Businesses need to be more agile than their fixed infrastructure allows so they can continuously improve customer service, efficiency, and compliance.  In this case, lower call handling times not only save money but also dramatically enhance the customer experience, and that is starting to look like a competitive advantage worth having.

It’s not just improvement in bad debt provisions.  A more independent focus and innovation (rare in financial services) is driving the brand forwards.

I criticised Barclaycard for lack of ambition when they launched the One Pulse card.  I feel absolutely certain that their recent decision to invest in mobile payment market testing, is a direct response to my post. 

Of course, it is impossible for any organisation, no matter how large, to do this on their own.  But all the technologies already exist and it only takes some co-operation on the technical as well as commercial side between the different parties to make things work for the customer.  In this case the parties are Barclaycard (banking), Nokia (handset manufacturer), O2 (mobile network), TfL (Transport for London), Visa (card issuer), TranSys (consortium that runs the Oyster proximity payment system).

What a fabulous piece of joined up thinking!  I’d love to be one of the guinea pigs.  Furthermore, I am already a customer of every one of these organisations.  The bad news?  There are only 500 trial places available.  Anyone know how I can get on the list???

I opened this weblog in Feb 2007 with a post extolling my disinterest in the iPhone.  Sure, Apple is a master of design, especially the user interface and experience, but price is a big buying factor too and, to be frank, Apple has overestimated how much people are prepared to pay for these advantages.

The deal offered to operators (only O2 was brave enough to take it up) was vastly over-priced and smacks of arrogance.  Apple is in danger of losing its cool image if it continues to expect its customers to fork out such huge sums for products that are, at best, marginal enhancements on existing technology.  And worse, although I haven’t used one myself, I hear that SMS text messages are really tricky, and the iPhone cannot even access 3G services.

Personally, I may look into the price of an iPod Touch but I won’t be bothering with this version of the iPhone.

In the unlikely event that you were thinking of buying me an iPhone for Christmas, could I ask you to think again and perhaps bring a bottle of wine instead?

Membership cards, physical access, small payments, car key, house key, TV remote control are just some of the many applications my current mobile phone could probably already be adapted to manage, if only the interaction was enabled by the various vendors agreeing standards and commercial terms.

At least contactless small payments (surely one of the simplest applications) is finally on the way in the UK.  It’s good to see that Royal Bank of Scotland heard my plea and is starting to pilot this technology in Edinburgh.