Outsourcing: Amit Shankardass And Andrew Kokes Of Sitel (Part 8)

By guest author Tony Scott

Tony: We talked a little bit about [alignment of capabilities] in terms of being able to provide more total customer care, total customer cost of ownership, if you will. As you’ve done that, have you found gaps in the cultural approaches that your middle managers and senior managers take that have been more difficult to overcome? And as you’ve moved into higher-value services, how have you addressed those gaps?

Amit: That is an interesting question. If I understand correctly, you are asking me how, as we have moved into more complicated, complex, higher-end stuff, our middle management has adapted to this.

Tony: Middle management and senior management. It is one thing to bring people on at a junior level and train them, but the big issue I see in most companies’ ability to grow and be successful globally are the skill sets and attitudes at the top management and middle management levels, because these skills and attitudes actually drive the ability to be successful as a company.

Amit: That is a very interesting question. I will give you a simple answer from our perspective, and Andrew can pitch in. Thinking through this on our feet, the simple answer from our perspective is something we call GOS – Global Operating Standard. Let me try to explain this. I might be totally off, but there are traditional steps, such as taking an expat and sending him or her around the world. I have no doubt you can do that, and I think all of us are doing it; expats are the answer in that they import talent into a market. But in terms of creating a sustainable model, expats are expensive and not necessarily sustainable. You cannot afford to have all of your managers be expats.

GOS is the operating word for how we operate as a business from an executive level, how we look at our business, how we decide where we invest, how we manage our business down to the site level of how we operate for that client. It is a set of standard guidelines and principles such that if you walked into any of our contact centers anywhere in the world, they would look, feel, manage, and run the same. So, when we move up the value chain, it makes it easier.

A great example comes from a few years ago. When Six Sigma became the next wave within contact centers, we inculcated within GOS a module on performance improvement in order to build an organization, skill sets, training vernacular, knowledge, template, and expertise within the GOS model. Every operations manager, coach, site director, regional manager, and country manager goes through that training and education and is certified in GOS. That allowed us to standardize. We were able to take what we learned from one part of the world, institutionalize it, and move it to any other part of the world. In other words, I really do think GOS is what makes it work for us.

Andrew: I completely agree, and I think this is supported by the fact that we are effective and globalized not only in multiple countries, but also across multiple sites within the same country. We offer and manage more than 140 sites today, and it absolutely that core principle methodology that we work from that makes us fluid and scalable. As a large global organization, we believe that is one of our key differentiators, our ability to be flexible and scalable. Without a set of standards, we wouldn’t be able to do it.

Amit: We had a great lesson that comes up often. I will give you an example where we had some fantastic experiences. Are you familiar with the “net promoter” concept, Tony?

Tony: Would you explain it in more detail?

Amit: The “net promoter” concept, quite simply, is our policy simplifying this: The ultimate question at the end of an interaction, whether it is among individuals within a company or group, is, “Will you recommend me or my service to somebody?” Typically, people don’t recommend you unless they had a great experience and they trust you. It is more than being happy with someone. That promoter score is one of the key metrics that our clients measure from their customers. Not just satisfaction, but promotion. We had great success in developing a net promoter model in Australia and New Zealand with one of our clients. We were able to take that model and meld into our standards. Once it becomes part of the GOS standard, people go through training and education on the net promoter goal and how to institutionalize it. This is something that adds value; [it improves] our ability to help our clients.

Your question is a brilliant one. Ten years ago, the biggest issue in offshore location was middle management, and I see where you are coming from with this. It was easy to get people trained. Now you go to the higher-value [services] and you need domain experience, you need knowledge, and you need years of experience, not just training. As Andrew puts it, you need old guys with time on them, right? How do you take that experience out of them and institutionalize it?  We can’t import them all over the world. GOS is our method to do that.

This segment is part 8 in the series : Outsourcing: Amit Shankardass And Andrew Kokes Of Sitel
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