Cable and wireless have a small number of customers, but each customer is very large and as would be expected, such customers are very demanding in terms of performance and responsiveness. It is key for the operation to keep track of all the actions that are connected to each client and to ideally know and begin to take action to deal with problems, even before the client is aware of the problem.

These clients are existing service clients and they need to be managed as key accounts, however, there is a need to have an accurate assessment of the types and numbers of problems they face. The new capabilities of QMS fit extremely well into Cable and Wireless’s future requirements, particularly as the need to provide a much greater detail for their customers becomes important. The next step will be to capture data from within the system, through fault information traps etc. that are designed to record faults occurring throughout the operation.

The web component of QMS will support customers logging calls on the system, and ultimately the equipment logging faults directly through QMS. The system will keep an historic record of all actions that occur for a specific customer or a specific support group etc. It can also record the costs and revenues associated with customers. The visibility that QMS affords will be used to provide an overview of the entire field to enable accurate and timely escalation.

A very simplistic calculation was made of the savings that were already identified that would be achieved in the first 6 months of using QMS these savings stemmed from the following activities: -

1. Production of reports, improvements in productivity and the reduction of lost time. - £16K
2. Accurately assessing repeat visits “Echo calls” - £5K
3. Avoiding having to return car stocks to central stock each month - £15K
4. Accurately allocating calls and reducing travel time - £8K

Giving a total in the first 6 months of £44K against a cost of Ulysses of £30K. Giving a payback in just over 4months from go-live and 7 months from the start of implementation.

The measures and processes in place today are based around the existing technology FMS and the limitations that it imposes.

The future measures and processes need to be re-defined. It would be best to let the system settle in over the next month or so before finalising the new measures and processes so that the staff can get used to the new system. The only potential danger is that the staff will find the new system difficult to cope with using the old measures and processes and that the new measures and processes will make the new system easier to manage. However the danger of trying to change everything all at once might be greater.

A lot of very good ideas have been proposed and there are a number of excellent initiatives already in place to deal with significant immediate problems. There was a feeling that there would very soon be the need to view the longer term and to bring in ideas from the whole group through a facilitated workshop. This would have the dual purpose of ensuring external best practice was considered and evaluated by the whole department and the results bought into by all concerned