Change in Business Model to survive

Challenge Analysis:
A leading Telecom Services Company with a large number of Data Network and Data Centre customers was faced with impending closure of the Data Network business.

In the existing business model, while only one service was being ‘charged’ under Network Provisioning Services to the customer, there were in fact two services being provided – Network Provisioning as well as Network Management. The licence and cost limitations were around the Network Provisioning service and not the Network Management service.

Solution:
The management team migrated the Data Network customers to another telco, while retaining the customer interface through the Network Operations Centre (NOC).

Result:
This helped the service provider reposition itself as a Remote Infrastructure Management (RIM) services company, while retaining its customers as well as employees. The Network Migration task was the largest such exercise carried out in India till then and won appreciation from all. It also helped the company showcase its Project Management capability and later bid for projects requiring Project Management capabilities. Moreover, the Data Centre business continued as before. No engineers had to be removed and the service provider transformed his business model from Network Provisioning to Network Management.

Pricing as a Marketing Tool

Challenge Analysis:
Services Marketing (Messaging): A leading E-Commerce messaging services provider found New Customer Intake slowing down due to new age internet offerings.

Analysis showed that the existing product, though technologically outdated, was well accepted by the market. Product software costs were high and already paid for – but with a shelf life of less than 18 months. Given the high cost of the Product, the customers were facing objections from their finance departments regarding the capital expenditure involved.

However, the competing internet based offerings were still not robust and the customers were willing to stay with the old technology, given the challenges in the telecom infrastructure available at that time .

Solution:
Based on the above analysis, the Pricing was restructured to eliminate budgetary hurdles that the prospective buyers were facing. Instead of high capital costs, the customer could now use the service on a Minimum Monthly Payment basis with ‘Zero’ upfront payment.

Result:
There was an immediate shortening of the customer buying process resulting in a 200% plus rise in new order intake without compromising on margins or revenues.

Root Cause Analysis to improve Customer Satisfaction

Challenge Analysis:
The Regional Repair Centre for a large Copier company faced a peculiar problem: Machines repaired and sent back to customers reported failure rates much higher than acceptable limits. Customers were naturally upset and pressure was mounting on the Regional Repair Centre to improve performance of repaired machines.

The Team collected extensive data on every machine that had been repaired at the Regional Repair Centre. Number of service calls per 10,000 copies, parts replaced for every 100,000 copies post repair, track records of service engineers attending to the machine post repair, etc. The analysis of this extensive data showed the following –

1. the parts replaced for the machines repaired at the Regional Repair Centre were different from parts replaced for other machines of the same age and which had not been repaired at the Regional Repair Centre.
2. the replaced parts were parts which could only have been damaged during transport and not due to normal wear and tear of the machines.
3. transportation of machines to and from the Regional Repair Centre was not being done by using standard methods prescribed for packaging, transporting, loading and unloading the machines, resulting in damage to the machines and their poor performance.

Solution:
Based on the findings, Transportation, Loading and Unloading of repaired machines were carried out in accordance with defined standards.

Result:
The performance of the machines repaired at the Regional Repair Centre immediately shot up and met standards. Also, the customers saw value for money in having their machines repaired at the Regional Repair Centre.