The era of service as a separate entity of the business is fast becoming an outmoded concept.   Instead it is being recognised that a total solution is of real value to the customer, therefore, having visibility of the entire business with service as an integral part is more important now than ever before.  Service can no longer be regarded as a separate cost or profit centre.

However, having a service operation fully integrated into the total business means the systems and processes must cover the entire business and not just provide compliance on a department by department level.  The processes and systems must provide integration, long term manageability, scalability and a continuous upgrade pathway.

Businesses face many challenges in achieving this single delivery solution, and the changing customer environment (increased demands) coupled with increasing demands for performance (margin and quality) have highlighted the over-riding importance of managing compliance of process and practice throughout the business: from the customer interface (service levels) into solution design (customer needs).

The issue of integration plays a very important part when considering compliance.  Compliance is a broad term and is becoming a crucial component as customers negotiate tighter service level agreements, with penalties for non-compliance.  This highlights the often overlooked aspect of brand compliance or living up to brand values. Such values include a range of aspects that the customer considers critical, and failure to comply with service expectations is the biggest cause of low levels of brand loyalty.  Unless the system solution can see all the aspects of the brand, the ability to consistently deliver brand compliance is often compromised.

Compliance has always been an issue but fundamental to success in service is true visibility across the business.  Most solutions provide operational visibility or have certain measures in place. However they don't provide visibility of changing customer needs because they were not designed to acquire the necessary information to evaluate the total solution delivered to the customer - they were only designed to provide an efficient productive operation.

Without a broad based solution there is no guarantee that the measures or processes in place will be aligned to the customer's areas of interest and therefore denies the ability to truly differentiate the offering to that customer. 

This has not become an issue sooner because businesses "don't know what they don't know".  Like modern cars and driver assist mechanisms, until we have them we don't really know their true value and what is possible.   The figure below illustrates how the supplier can differentiate their offering through both process and application integration.
 

Treating service as an important facet of the total brand solution is now not just desirable, it is fundamental to establishing and maintaining a long term, mutually profitable relationship with the customer.  Yet very few software solutions treat the service operation in this way; instead they tend to append it as the classic after-thought - important but still an add-on. 

In addition many suppliers complain that their service is treated as a commodity by their customers.  The reason for this is that the suppliers themselves are treating it as a commodity, because with their existing systems and processes they struggle to do much else.  Many still argue this is not a problem, however, the danger is that if the supplier dismisses its greatest asset in this way so will the customer, and the chance is lost to move service away from being a commodity.   The traditional role of service in terms of a break/fix role will always be necessary, but it will be considered by the customer as a given and, as a result, not really valued. In many situations the only notice paid is seen as a negative - upon failure to deliver.  

Changing customer needs are leading the customer to approach the supplier as a total business, expecting provision of a one-stop-solution to their problems or needs, not just a service operation (albeit they might come through the service contact).  This is shown diagrammatically in Fig 1.  They do not seek a service solution, but rather the fulfilment of their requirement by a knowledgeable partner. What will begin to develop is a degree of loyalty associated with finding a partner able to solve their problems effectively. 

If however the supplier offers what appears to be a fragmented interface to the customer in the form of separate Marketing, Sales and Service departments who appear to know very little about each other's role, then it is little wonder that the customer struggles to accept that the supplier really knows how to devise and deliver an integrated solution.

The systems that will support profitable organisations in the future will have to incorporate the whole business in their scope, not only encompassing the needs of service operations management but also the requirements of service administration and finance.  They must provide the customer with the security of end-to-end processes that the supplier can demonstrate will deliver the promises made. In the face of mounting competition and financial pressures, the opportunities to reduce costs and improve delivery of customer service come not only from improving business processes, but also from integrating truly up-to-the-minute financial and operational information about sales, supply, service and support.

In this context compliance is about truly fulfilling the customer's needs and delivering a solution designed to build upon consistent and transparent processes tailored in the delivery, reporting and performance explicitly to the customers needs.  In such an environment, compliance comes in a number of shapes and sizes, and recognises that the interface between customer and supplier has to be much more intimate and responsive.  It is also critical to recognise that it consists of a multiplicity of contact points, which must all respond in a consistent fashion. To achieve this is not an easy task but without consistent compliance it will remain an illusive goal. 

Compliance within the modern service environment has become harder and harder to achieve, without the necessary broad-based system support.  It is now more important than ever to ensure end-to-end process compliance is applied across the total business, to deal with all the various customer interface points in both customer and supplier's operations.   An effective broad-based system has the ability to disseminate information effectively; to cross-refer and correlate information and act upon the whole picture, and be able to demonstrate the full value of the solution offered.  It is then possible to demonstrate to the customer the full value of the solution and be able to charge the customer for the additional value delivered.

The value of an effective decision support platform (to source timely, accurate information for efficient decision making) is in the information provided and the surety of the data that the information is built upon.  Without confidence in the information, any decisions will always require secondary sourcing or confirmation, thus extending the time taken to make a final decision. In a complex network, data will be coming from a number of sources and is more difficult to verify quickly, resulting in having to resolve conflicting data.  Accuracy may not be in doubt, but appear to conflict or provide a trade-off decision, making validation difficult and causing unnecessary and undesired delays.  When the environment is simple and represented by a supply chain concept, it is possible to check reasonably rapidly. Given that intelligent decision-making, using sound information, is a driver of good management and control, it becomes painfully obvious why a good decision platform, supported by an effective broad-based business application solution, is so necessary to a modern business that demands rapid, accurate and effective decisions, to provide high levels of service - profitably.

Downton Consulting has established a reputation for providing effective business advice within the Services Sector specialising in guiding senior management teams and supporting service operations both large and small to improve their performance profitability and deliver service excellence.  steve.downton@downtonconsulting.com        www.downtonconsulting.com