The document describes a case study of process re-engineering efforts at a telecom firm's duplicate bill dispatch unit. The unit was facing challenges of high backlogs, long processing times, and insufficient staff. The key problems were identified as high request inflow, long processing times per case, and lack of manpower. Root causes were analyzed and solutions implemented, such as reducing unnecessary case creation, improving access to billing systems, training staff, and allocating roles more efficiently. These changes led to a 50% reduction in new case inflow, 60% faster processing times, and overall case handling time reduced from 9.5 to 5.7 minutes. Costs per case were lowered from Rs. 55.54 to Rs.

1. Cost Reduction Initiative
Process Re-engineering
Cost Reduction Initiative:
Process Re-engineering
Prepared By: Manohar M. M. Iyer
VAS2010XMBA15P005

2. Introduction
Cost Reduction Initiative
Process Re-engineering
• Cost Reduction
– Reducing existing unit cost of the goods
manufactured or services rendered without
compromising on the quality
• Process Re-engineering
– Analyzing the current sequence of related tasks
which make up a business activity and redesigning
the workflow to achieve increased efficiency and
effectiveness of the process.
Prepared By: Manohar M. M. Iyer
VAS2010XMBA15P005

3. Case Study
Cost Reduction Initiative
Process Re-engineering
Duplicate Bill dispatch Process of a Telecom firm
Disclaimer note:
This study is taken from a real life challenge faced by me (Manohar) on around May 2004, while I was
working with a telecom firm between 2003 & 2006. At that time, I was a Senior executive in the Offline
Department, handling the unit for Legal & TRAI related communications.
The Duplicate bill dispatch unit, another unit within offline department was faced with severe
challenges. During that time , coincidently the operation manager, the process manager & the team
leader for the Offline department were on unavoidable long leaves.
As a senior member of the offline department, I took the responsibility of solving the crisis in the
Duplicate bill dispatch unit.
Most of the figures mentioned in the study are real practical figures. However, since this study is
presented 6 years after the incident, few figures may vary. Prepared By: Manohar M. M. Iyer
VAS2010XMBA15P005

4. Cost Reduction Initiative
Process Re-engineering
Facts
Case Study follows………
Prepared By: Manohar M. M. Iyer
VAS2010XMBA15P005

5. The activity
Cost Reduction Initiative
Duplicate Bill dispatch Unit
Process Re-engineering
• Every month postpaid mobile users are sent hard
copy of the usage bills as per their billing cycle.
• Some users require duplicate copy of the bills.
• Such users request for the same at the call centre.
• Front office executives raise request Cases in CRM
with SLA of 4 working days.
• Back office executives
– Take the dump of such cases from the CRM.
– Open the relevant bills & shoot printouts.
– Stuff bills in envelopes , dispatch & Close the case in CRM.
Prepared By: Manohar M. M. Iyer
VAS2010XMBA15P005

6. Challenges
Cost Reduction Initiative
As on May 2004
Process Re-engineering
• Queue of 34,000 backlog cases
• Constant inflow of 2000 new cases per day .
• Average time taken to log one case in CRM was 1.5
minutes.
• Only 9 back office executives to handle this queue
with 8 man hours per person per day.
• Average time taken to solve one case was 8 minutes.
• Total productivity of the unit was closure of 540 cases
per day .
Prepared By: Manohar M. M. Iyer
VAS2010XMBA15P005

7. Projections
Cost Reduction Initiative
Process Re-engineering
• With the prevalent trend the projections of
inefficiency were as follows:
Average Total Minutes Cases Total
Opening Man minutes Closing
Day New cases number reqd Per closed per cases
balance per person balance
per day of Agents case person closed
Day 1 34000 2000 9 480 8 60 540 35460
Day 2 35460 2000 9 480 8 60 540 36920
Day 3 36920 2000 9 480 8 60 540 38380
Day 4 38380 2000 9 480 8 60 540 39840
Day 5 39840 2000 9 480 8 60 540 41300
Day 6 41300 2000 9 480 8 60 540 42760
Prepared By: Manohar M. M. Iyer
VAS2010XMBA15P005

8. Costs of Operation
Cost Reduction Initiative
Process Re-engineering
Average
Man hours Cost of Total Cost
Salary per Number Cost of
Cost Per seat Cost Per seat available wages of
Cost Per seat person of wages
Per hour in Per minute per day for per attending
Per hour in $ per working per hour
Rs. Rs. work per Minute a Case Per
month Rs. days per Rs.
person Rs. minute Rs.
month
2.5 120 2 7000 25 8 35 0.58 2.58
Total Cost Average Stationery &
Time taken to Time taken to Total time to Total cost
of Printing Dispatch
log per case in Solve per case Attend a case per case
attending a cost per Cost per
minutes in minutes in minutes Rs.
Case Rs. case Rs. case Rs.
1.5 8 9.5 24.54 1 30 55.54
Every day 2000 new cases are created; i.e. Rs.1,11,083.33/- is required to process them
Prepared By: Manohar M. M. Iyer
VAS2010XMBA15P005

9. Cost Reduction Initiative
Process Re-engineering
Operations analysis
Case Study follows………
Prepared By: Manohar M. M. Iyer
VAS2010XMBA15P005

10. Key Problem Areas
Cost Reduction Initiative
Process Re-engineering
1. High inflow of requests
2. High processing time
3. Less Man power
Prepared By: Manohar M. M. Iyer
VAS2010XMBA15P005

11. Root causes
Cost Reduction Initiative
Process Re-engineering
1. High Inflow of requests
– The AHT target for the front office executives were reduced from 6
minutes to 4 minutes leading to lesser available time for customer
interaction and cases were created in CRM without proper probing.
– The process guidelines for front office executives emphasized on how
& where to create cases for Duplicate bill requests. Due emphasis on
when to create cases & probing were not given.
– Provision for FTRs were not available in the process.
– Alternative solutions for the customers were not built in the system.
– Customers are already sent Original copies of the bill. Scenarios on
why a customer will require a duplicate copy were not studied.
Prepared By: Manohar M. M. Iyer
VAS2010XMBA15P005

12. Root causes
Cost Reduction Initiative
Process Re-engineering
2. High Processing Time
– Each Back office executive was taking dump individually from the
CRM and working on it.
– The existing CRM which was built using Java & Oracle was slow in
downloading the copies of the bills in PDF format from the billing
server. Each bill took on an average 4 minutes to open.
– Few back office executives were not using advance MS-Excel options
and Keyboard short cut keys for processing the cases.
– There were no dedicated Printer available for the duplicate billing unit.
The available printer was shared by the entire floor operations. This
affected the print wait time & the system resources.
– The executives were also involved in less intelligent tasks like collecting
the printouts, stuffing the bills in envelopes and Zone wise segregation
of mails, etc.
Prepared By: Manohar M. M. Iyer
VAS2010XMBA15P005

13. Root causes
Cost Reduction Initiative
Process Re-engineering
3. Less Man Power
– Duplicate billing unit was not treated as an individual unit.
– The basis of Man power requirement calculations, made for other back
office units, were replicated for the duplicate billing unit.
– The domino effect of a policy change in the front office operations
were not foreseen.
Prepared By: Manohar M. M. Iyer
VAS2010XMBA15P005

14. Cost Reduction Initiative
Process Re-engineering
Solutions
Case Study follows………
Prepared By: Manohar M. M. Iyer
VAS2010XMBA15P005

15. Reducing Inflow
Cost Reduction Initiative
Process Re-engineering
• Scenarios/ Actions to take:
– Customer has not received Original bill
• May be the customer is not aware of the 10 day wait period for receiving the bills
after bill generation - Inform the customer to wait.
• Wrong Customer address in the system - Make corrections to avoid repeat request
from the customer in future.
• Lost in transits - Check the trail & Inform the dispatch unit about the errors.
– Customer has lost Original bill
• Provide. Add a nominal charge for the second copy
– Customer requires one more copy
• Customer wants to submit a copy to his office & keep original for his records -
Customer should informed about the time taken for the delivery of duplicate copy
& the cost involved. Advise the customer to take photocopies.
Prepared By: Manohar M. M. Iyer
VAS2010XMBA15P005

16. Reducing Inflow
Cost Reduction Initiative
Process Re-engineering
• Alternative FTR options
– Customer can walk into the nearest local customer service
centre of the telecom firm and request for the same.
– The soft copies of the bill can be sent as an email to the
customer & print outs of the same can be taken.
– The website of the telecom firm can have a provision from
where customer can log in to his account & take printout of the
bills.
Prepared By: Manohar M. M. Iyer
VAS2010XMBA15P005

17. Improving Process time
Cost Reduction Initiative
Process Re-engineering
1. Taking the dump from the CRM
– This task was taken over by the supervisor (Me), work sheets for each
individual back office executive were prepared & allocated to them.
This avoided replication of a case & increased the time available for the
back office executives.
2. Direct access to the billing server (mirror view)
– Instead of viewing the bills from the CRM, a mirror view of the billing
server was created in coordination with the billing team & IT and the
link for the same was provided to the back office executives. This aided
the back office executives to access the bills in less than a minute.
3. Training
– Back office executives were trained on using advance MS-Excel options
and Keyboard short cut keys.
Prepared By: Manohar M. M. Iyer
VAS2010XMBA15P005

18. Improving Process time
Cost Reduction Initiative
Process Re-engineering
4. Printer
– In coordination with the Administration & IT, all the existing printers in
the floor were reallocated to various departments & one dedicated
printer for the Duplicate billing unit was recognized. This reduced the
print wait time & provided more system resources.
5. Less Intelligent tasks
– Less intelligent tasks like collecting the printouts, stuffing the bills in
envelopes and Zone wise segregation of mails, etc were allocated to
office boys (with lesser salaries) in the dispatch unit after due training.
This aided the back office executives to concentrate only on processing
the cases.
Prepared By: Manohar M. M. Iyer
VAS2010XMBA15P005

19. Man power
for existing challenge & BAU operations
Cost Reduction Initiative
Process Re-engineering
– The HR was educated on the operational differences between
Duplicate billing unit & other back office units
– Also the importance that how a policy change in the front office
operations can affect the back office operations was
demonstrated.
– To handle the existing challenges in the unit the HR was ready to
provide extra man power to the unit by way of new recruits.
– Instead of new recruits the HR was advised to allow an option to
existing workforce in other units to work on over time basis
before or after their regular shifts @ Rs.40/- per hour per person.
An average of 75 CSRs volunteered for 2 hours every day.
– The supervisor (me) took the onus of providing process training to
them.
Prepared By: Manohar M. M. Iyer
VAS2010XMBA15P005

20. Cost Reduction Initiative
Process Re-engineering
Results
Case Study follows………
Prepared By: Manohar M. M. Iyer
VAS2010XMBA15P005

21. Effects on the Inflow
Cost Reduction Initiative
Process Re-engineering
• Repeat calls for the same request, from all those customers
educated & habituated with alternative routes for obtaining
the duplicate bills, were almost nil.
• The CRM was constantly updated with corrected address of
the customer leading to increase in receipts of original bills
• New FTRs made available in the system
• All this resulted in drastic reduction in the number of cases for
Duplicate bills logged in the CRM. Within a month the daily
inflow reduced by 50% on an average.
Prepared By: Manohar M. M. Iyer
VAS2010XMBA15P005

22. Effects on Process Time
Cost Reduction Initiative
Process Re-engineering
• The only task left for the back office executives were to Open the relevant
bills & shoot printouts as the dump were readily provided to them & post
printout tasks were handled by office boys.
• The access time for opening the relevant bills was reduced by 3 minutes
per case due to direct read access on the billing server .
• More system time was available for shooting printouts, since the print
wait time was reduced due to availability of a dedicated printer.
• Also the executives were more skilled & quicker in processing the requests
to the training provided on advance MS-excel options.
• Due to all this the process time for the back office was reduced by 60%.
• However due to inclusion of probing in the front office process, their
process time increased by 1 minute per case.
• The overall process time per case was reduced from 9.5 minutes to 5.7
minutes.
Prepared By: Manohar M. M. Iyer
VAS2010XMBA15P005

23. Revised costs of Operation
Cost Reduction Initiative
Process Re-engineering
Average
Man hours Cost of Total Cost
Salary per Number Cost of
Cost Per seat Cost Per seat available wages of
Cost Per seat person of wages
Per hour in Per minute in per day for per attending
Per hour in $ per working per hour
Rs. Minutes Rs. work per Minute a Case Per
month Rs. days per Rs.
person Rs. minute Rs.
month
2.5 120 2 7000 25 8 35 0.58 2.58
Cost of
wages per
Total Cost Stationery
Time taken to Time taken to Total time to Minute of Average Total cost
of & Dispatch
log per case in Solve per case Attend a case office boy Printing cost per case
attending a Cost per
minutes in minutes in minutes @ Rs. per case Rs. Rs.
Case Rs. case Rs.
2000 per
month
2.5 3.2 5.7 14.73 0.17 1 30 45.90
If 2000 new cases are created everyday, Rs. 91,790.00/- is required to process them i.e.
Rs. 19,293.33 lesser.
Prepared By: Manohar M. M. Iyer
VAS2010XMBA15P005

24. Comparison of Costs
Cost Reduction Initiative
Process Re-engineering
After one Difference
Intial
month saved per day
Average cost to slove per case 55.54 45.90 9.65
Number of cases created per day 2000.00 1000.00 1000.00
Total Cost per day 111083.33 45895.00 65188.33
Prepared By: Manohar M. M. Iyer
VAS2010XMBA15P005

25. Cost Reduction Initiative
Process Re-engineering
Thus due to Cost reduction
initiatives & the process
reengineering the telecom firm
started saving on an average
Rs.65,188.33/- per day on the cost
of operations of Duplicate bill
dispatch unit.
Prepared By: Manohar M. M. Iyer
VAS2010XMBA15P005

26. Cost Reduction Initiative
Process Re-engineering
I thank one and all who have provided me with the opportunity to handle this
responsibility and the knowledge & support to prepare this Presentation.
Please feel free to forward your valuable feedback, comments, queries and
suggestions related to this presentation at mumbai_man1977@yahoo.com
Thank you,
Warm regards,
Manohar M. M. Iyer
Prepared By: Manohar M. M. Iyer
VAS2010XMBA15P005