This is a one of presentations we made to complete the MBA program at University of Colombo. It was under the service management subject.

1. Analysis of Service
Gaps
Alcatel-Lucent International
Sri Lanka Branch
Technical Support organization
MBAMK620-Services Marketing
Master of Business Administration Weekday 2013/15
Postgraduate & Mid-Career Development Unit
Faculty of Management & Finance
University of Colombo

2. Our Group….
H.W.S.R.B. Gunathilaka 2013/MBA/WD/19
H.M.S.B. Herath 2013/MBA/WD/23
H.G.S.G. Hettiarachchi 2013/MBA/WD/24
D.K.N. Hiripitiyage 2013/MBA/WD/26
R.P.C. Jasasri 2013/MBA/WD/31
A.V.M. Kumara 2013/MBA/WD/40

3. Service Provider
Alcatel-Lucent
Alcatel-Lucent International-Sri Lanka Branch
Main Funtinonal
Units
Pre Sales
Projects
Technical Support
Organization
Supporting Units
Admin Dept.
Financial Dept.
Project Management
Org. (PMO)

4. Service Provider
Solution delivery to customer
Pre Sales
• Initial coordination with existing and potential customers to identify their requirements and problems
• Design solutions
• Technical, Commercial and legal negotiations
Projects
• Implementation of the solutions : Material delivery, site survey, Installations, commissioning,
Integrations, acceptances
Technical Support Organization
• Provide solutions to any failures occurred in the solution provided.
• Support customer in network maintenance
• Support customer in configurations and modifications

5. Service Provider
Technical Support Organization
(ALU-SL-TSO)
Technical Support Organization (ALU-SL-TSO)
Access Network (Wireless)
CS-Core
PS-Core
IPD
Transmission
Radio Network Planning

6. Service Provider
Organizational structure/reporting hierarchy
of a Business Unit

7. • Telecommunication service providers:
– Etisalat Sri Lanka
– Sri Lanka Telecom
– Dialog Axiata
– Dhiraagu (Maldives)
• Personal in each service provider who become direct customers:
– CEO (Chief Executive Officer)
– CTO (Chief Technical Officer)
– Managers of different levels in Technical Departments
(Access, Core, Transmission, NOC, RNP)
– Engineers
– Assistant Engineers, Technicians and other technical staff
The Customer

8. Expected Service
Expected service of Customer
Incidents
• Total or partial outage in solutions or equipments
• Performances degradation
• Customizations and Configuration modification
• unexpected outcome of preventive or regular maintenance activities
• New feature implementations
• Information requirements
Need to Minimize…
• Intervention of customer
• Cost to customer
• Customer resource utilization
• Time to provide the solution
Reporting…
• To Front End Engineers
• over the phone or via e-mail

9. Management perception
Management perception of Customer expectation
Management…
• Regional and Global Business Unit managers.
• Global Technical Solutions managers
• >> they are responsible to Service design in ALU-SL-TSO
Source of Information
• Maintenance Agreement
• Service Level Agreement (SLA)
Adhere to Maintenance Contract and fulfill the conditions
of Service Level Agreement…

10. Service design
TSO : updated in BMC Remedy, CARES and other relevant tools
TSO : Solution will be provided to customer within SLA conditions
TSO: escalate the issue to higher levels
TSO: technical analysis and solution development
Customer : provide relevant details/logs/traces and perform basic troubleshooting activities
GWC: assign the AR to revent TSO Business Unit
Customer: provides Service Entitlement number, Product, Severity, Priority and description.
Customer : open "Assistant Request (AR)/ Trouble Ticket (TT)"

11. Service design
Escalation and investigation hierarchy of
TSO Business Units

12. Identifying and
Closing the Gaps

13. Service Gap -1
ALU Management not identified the exact
“Expected Service” by the customer
Customer
Expected
Service
Maintenance Contract
&
Service Level
Agreement
Service
Design

14. Service Gap -1
ALU Management not identified the exact
“Expected Service” by the customer
• no proper communication between service designers and the customer.
• “Maintenance Contract” and “Service Level Agreements” prepared and
negotiations done by Pre-sales teams and local management.
• Service design done by top regional and global management
• customer does not reveal their true expectations to reduce cost
• ALU prefer to keep uniform solutions and process globally >> lead to less
customizations
Reasons for Gap

15. Service Gap -1
ALU Management not identified the exact
“Expected Service” by the customer
• Front End Engineers engaged in activities which should be performed by
customers
• Problems of this solution:
• Not close the real gap
• ALU-SL-TSO delivers a service free of charge
• Increasing work load which not count by the ALU Business units.
• Customer will have a wrong perception on services
Current solution implemented

16. Service Gap -1
ALU Management not identified the exact
“Expected Service” by the customer
• Communicating with Engineers and technical managers when preparing Service
Agreements.
• Identified exact requirement should be reflected in “Maintenance Contract” and
“Service Level Agreements”. (Financial negotiations and discounts can be used to
reduce cost.)
• Service package with higher service level can be sold to customer
• Exact customer service requirement should be properly communicated to the
regional and global business unit managers to evaluate front end engineers.
solution purposed

17. Service Gap-2.1
• Customer needs to create Generic support
issues rather than specific issues identifying
relevant product unit.
Poor Service Design To Handle Generic
Customer Support Issues
Customer Behavior
• When total solution comprises of different
products/solutions of same Vendor, it is not
justifiable from customer end to ask to
identify different product unit in an issue….
Justifications

18. Recommendations
Service Gap-2.1
Poor Service Design To Handle Generic
Customer Support Issues
PL
1
PL
2
PL
3
PL
4
Front End Engineers
General
Issue
Sub
Issue
1
Sub
Issue
2
Sub
Issue
3
Sub
Issue
4

19. Service Gap -2.2
Needs to get higher Service Levels always,
compared to others
Issue in defining the Service Level
Customer Perspective
Prioritize all customer’s requests and serve based on
Priority level and Severity
Supplier Perspective
Severity Priority
 Critical
 Major
 Minor
 Priority-1
 Priority-2
 Priority-3

20. • Sometimes customer marks the support request as “Critical” or “priority-1” to
get more attention.
• Creates a lot of panic inside ALU organization.
Issue in defining the Service Level
Customer Behavior
• Business Critical events needs higher attention although not fulfilling criteria
• A small technical problem can cause a huge business impact.
• A simple information request may due for a critical business decision.
• Customer is not properly educated on the process
Justifications
Service Gap -2.2

21. Service Gap -2.2
• Not Properly understanding all customer concerns
• Service design not sufficiently customized to fulfill customer requirement
• Customer is not properly educated on the process
Issue in defining the Service Level
Analysis
• Redesign service to add additional step to verify the severity and priority
• Redesign the service prioritization
• Operational severity, operational priority to business severity and
business priority
• Educate customer to populate correct information
Recommendations

22. Service Gap - 3
Conflict in personal objectives in knowledge
transfer with service delivery requirements
Service Delivery
Service Design and
Standards
Several business units based on product category
Each business unit divided into groups based on
technical knowledge

23. Service Gap - 3
Conflict in personal objectives in knowledge
transfer with service delivery requirements
 from ALU technical teams who posses
knowledge on their solutions to customers
 reluctant due to cautions
Between different levels - vertically
 Develop monopoly
Between different BU – horizontally
 Not the objective or goal
Issues : lack of Knowledge transfer

24.  Knowledge transfer can be considered
in KPIs at the evaluation
 It is a part of job role
 Reward based knowledge sharing
 Internal certifications
 Open tests
 Creating a knowledge sharing culture
 Out bond team building events
 Multiple business unit experience
Service Gap - 3
Conflict in personal objectives in knowledge
transfer with service delivery requirements
Solutions

25. Single point of contact
Common Word
Alignment between what is committed and what is delivered
Customer Expectations in communication
Service Gap -4
Issues in external communication to customer

26. Service Gap -4
Issues in external communication to customer
Customer
KAM MSM GPM
LocalManagement
Pre-Sales Projects
Technical
Support
Existing communication model

27. Service Gap -4
Causes
Different departments communicate to customer as individual entities
Gold plating on their service commitments
Inconsistency between Internal and External communications
Fewer blends in cross functional teams
Consequences
Customer is not educated
Customer confusion and over expectation
Commitment is impossible to deliver
Customer dissatisfaction
Threat of loosing multimillion USD business
Issues in external communication to customer

28. Example
Service Gap -4
Issues in external communication to customer
Pre-sales Technical support Additional cost
Additional man hours
Additional time
Customer dissatisfaction & threat of losing business

29. Recommendations
Service Gap -4
Issues in external communication to customer
Go for better communication model
Customer
KAM+MSM+GPM
Pre-sales Projects
Technical Support
local team leaders
PU1
PU2
PU3

30. Thank you….