Several years ago at IBM Credit Corporation, arriving at a quote for computer financing involved five business functions and, on average, took seven days — even though customers and sales representatives were anxiously awaiting the outcome. Now, coming up with a quote takes six hours, largely because one person handles the entire deal from start to finish. The company issues more than ten times as many quotes as it did in 1985, using a computer for more than half of the quotes. And IBM is beginning to issue quotes in real time on the customer site, by combining yet another role with that of doing the deal — selling the computer. IBM account executives have become representatives of IBM Credit.
At Pacific Bell, providing a business customer with Centrex telephone service once took eleven jobs and more than five business days. Service representatives had to update at least nine computer systems with the correct information, making frequent errors and rework, and consulting customers several times. Now, with a redesigned process for provisioning, Centrex service coordinators handle all interfaces with customers. Using a computer workstation that interfaces with all nine systems, they provide the customer’s service in no more than 2.3 days; if the order is for a type of service predefined in network software (as in 80 percent of orders), it is usually done the... To read the complete article, login or sign-up using the form below.
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