Businesses charged after market share and acquisition, fuelled in part by the availability of money. The best brains, with the best advisers, devised ever more complex and global ways to practice alchemy; converting base metals into gold.

Banks found ways to make big money not based on their own savings but by accessing capital markets. And bloated annual budgets were frittered away on continuous improvement of the wrong things.

Now, with trillions of dollars around the world being used to prop up failed institutions, it becomes clear that the risks were not understood. And when the risk of the capital markets drying up became a real issue, those same clever folks were slow to wake up to the critical issue: the bottleneck always controls what you can do, and that bottleneck can reside outside the company.     

“(R)evolutionary” is my attempt to crystallise what has been going on in a way that gets us thinking about what the future will look like.

The future is uncertain. Our challenges may be new, the instruments with which we meet them may be new, and mistakes will be made along the way.

And we must question, and come up with a better way....

~~~~~~~~~~

Micro extract:                

11th February 2008, Monday morning 7:30am

“This is not good”; I said out loud. “Definitely not good”. I had arrived at the office thirty minutes early in the hope that there would be plenty of time before the meeting to incorporate my weekend work into the report.

Alas, that great plan lasted until I got to my desk. The normally pleasantly lit blue ‘on’ button on my PC was suspiciously absent. The monitor worked, but the utilitarian grey box under the desk appeared to have phoned in sick.
The trusty old wiggle of the cables and a gentle slap did not help. I swapped the power sockets. The monitor still showed signs of life, whilst the box just sat there. So I sat there, mumbling under my breath, “Had to happen Monday and set me behind schedule from the start”.

I sighed and reached over to log into my Cisco phone, hoping that the password hadn’t expired. To have to think of a new password as well would have been too much. I dialled 4999 and waited, and waited. I listened as the call was routed and rerouted to some poor unsuspecting call centre advisor. It started to ring.

“Warrender Financial Global IT Help Desk, Good Afternoon. My name is Sage, what is your user id?” The pleasant chirpy voice did not fill me with hope. Ever wanted to give up right now, before you start? This was going to go badly.

“Good Morning Sage. This is Gordon Watson, Head of Customer Retention at our London office. How are you today?”

“I am good. How is the weather in London, England, Mr Watson?” came the slightly surprised reply.

“Sunny and cold, but what do you expect in February. Anyway, I have a problem. My PC won’t start. Tried the cables, cross checked the sockets and still no luck so I need to get someone to come and have a look at it”

“OK Mr Watson, may I please have your user id”

“CS10GPW”

“CS10GBW. I am not finding that on my system Mr Watson.”

In as polite a way as possible, I stated “ ‘P’ for printer. C S One Zero Golf Printer Watson.” I wanted to blame Sage for mis-hearing, but it was as much down to routing the call half way round the world on the internet as any language barrier. If only it was a clear line. Bet you line quality wasn’t part of the tender details when they outsourced the help desk.

“And the nature of your call?”

“My PC won’t start”

“Yes Mr Watson. And when did you first notice this?”

“When I pressed the button 5 minutes ago.”

“And what happened then?”

“Nothing, it doesn’t work. I need someone to come and have a look at it” Déjà vu, here we come, and I was just dying for Sage to suggest that I ‘switch it off and back on again’.

"Okay, I will raise a job for that. Just bear with me and I will get you the reference number” I listened to the tappity tap as Sage created the job for me. There wasn’t much other background noise, which is unusual. While waiting, I slowly twisted in my chair and looked out over the frosty City. My west facing, fourteenth floor Canary Wharf office definitely had the best view. Although Andy had a bigger office on the next floor, it faced East towards another office block.

“How long will it take for someone to come? Hello? Hello Sage?”

“Yes Mr Watson, I am just getting your reference number. It is UK10000000043442. Current service standard for this is 95% in 3 days, and we are currently achieving this. An email confirming your job has now been sent to you. Is there anything else I can help you with today?”

“So what do I do for the next 3 days?”

“I’m sorry. Mr Watson. An associate in your local service area will action it as soon as possible”.

“How do I get it marked high priority. I’m fairly senior over here and can’t be without access to the PC”.

“Okay Mr Watson. I have marked it high priority for you. Will there be anything else?”

“Will that speed up things?”

“That’s up to your local service area.”

I had my doubts that it would make any difference whatsoever. It’s not her fault some accountant decided that 3 days was an acceptable turnaround time. Clearly cost outweighed customer service. Poor Sage was left to pick up the pieces and manage down the customer expectation. I wonder if low morale at the Help Desk and increased staff turnover due to frustration had also been included in the cost/benefit analysis.

“Thanks anyway”. I hung up.

In the space of five minutes or so I had been abruptly reminded that Customer Service so often receives only lip service. And now I have a nice email from the Unhelp Desk in my mailbox, which of course I can’t read as the PC won’t start.

I started rummaging around in my desk until I found some post-its. I normally store ideas on a spreadsheet, but it looks like the old fashioned way would have to do for now. I quickly jotted down:

Difficulty in hearing over internet phone line to Australia (?)
3 days unacceptable
UK43442 – Sage
Turnover due to staff not being able to deliver customer service?

I glanced at the wall clock. 7:45, still 15 minutes to reorganise my thoughts for the morning meeting. It will be less perfect than I hoped for. Given the downbeat message, this was ominous.

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