 PROGRAMS
Industry Partners
·Hardware Manufacturers
·Software Publishers
·Internet Service
Providers
Business Customers
·Corporate
·Government
·Education
·Small Business
Individual Consumers
·Pay-As-You-Go
·Prepaid Support
Engineering Services
PEOPLE
TECHNOLOGY
FACILITIES
NEWS ABOUT US
CONTACT US
|
 |
|
|
|
CompUSA's Service EXPANSION Hinges on Integrator's ERM Solution
By Amber Howle
WHEN COMPUSA INC'S call-center IS depart-ment needed guidance in implementing an en-terprise relationship management system last spring, it turned to an enterprise partner for a complete solution.
Although the $4 billion Dallas-based com-puter retail chain knew the results it wanted, specialized expertise and advice were needed to get them, said Harold Vance, IS business part-ner for the CompUSA call center. "We needed someone ... [to provide] peer consulting and let us know whether or not we were going down the right path," he said. CompUSA's size and business were growing rapidly, and the enterprise company's IT system was not keeping pace. During the past five years. CompUSA, which was founded in 1984, went from 50 retail stores in the United Slates to more than 210. The company also launched a service and support business, landing several government and business accounts, and last year started a third-party call-center service.
The call-center service provides outsourced help-desk services to a wide range of corporate CompUSA customers, such as computer hard-ware manufacturers, software publishers and business customers. "The one piece we were missing was tele-phone support for our customers," said Blake Wolff. director of CompUSA call centers. "They were asking for it, and we were unable to deliver."
However, thanks to Chicago-based integra-tor Inforte Corp.. CompUSA's customer-service and sales departments are well on their way to becoming a fully integrated enterprise relation-ship management (ERM) system, allowing em-ployees fingertip access to customer informa-tion and an understanding of their needs.
Ron Meyer. partner and practice area direc-tor for customer management solutions at In-forte. said that the integrator works with a va-riety of large companies in industries ranging from banking to government to retail, primari-ly on enterprise and knowledge management solutions.
"When a lot of larger companies choose smaller [partners], they are looking for flexibili-ty and more responsiveness." Meyer said. "In the companies minds, [smaller partners] bring a higher value per dollar invested." In the case of CompUSA, the decision to re-engineer sales and streamlining responsiveness meant that at least part of the plan would involve the implementation of an ERM system.
"We had a legacy system that had a lot of product knowledge and zero customer information," said Vance. When a person telephoned the call center, his or her information was in various places that were not easily accessible. When the company was smaller, the facct that the various sales and customer-service departments used three different information and service records did not seam to be much of a problem. That changed, however, when CompUSA began to grow.
The original applications consisted of a customized version of ACT from ACT Networks Inc. Carmillo, Calif.; and an in house access program.
Using these various, unintegrated applications resulted in duplicate records and difficulty accessing customer history, which became a more cumbersome task as the company grew. To solve the problem, a single, fully integrated ERM application was needed.
CompUSA IT personnel picked Siebel 98, an ERM application integrating sales, market-ing, customer-service and support functions, from Siebel Systems Inc., San Mateo. Calif. For the database platform, they chose SQL 7.0 from Microsoft Corp., Redmond. Wash.
CompUSA purchased 5,000 seats of Siebel for users falling into different categories who were all expected to have access to the system after the final rollout.
The hardware consisted of four ProLiant servers from Compaq Computer Corp., Hous-ton-one for the database, one for the applica-tion and a backup for each; and CompUSA's own PC desktops.
Although the call-center IT team knew what it wanted the system to do, an integrator was needed to configure it and oversee imple-mentation. Siebel offered referrals: Andersen Consulting, Cambridge Technology Partners Inc. and Inforte.
"The choice in the end was determined based on who could do it in the time frame Comp-USA needed." Vance said. "We knew that all three were defi-nitely qualified, we knew they were at different price points, and we knew we had some pretty tough deadlines."
Vance said CompUSA did not just take the lowest bid. "We analyzed how [Inforte's team would relate to Comp-USA's], and how they could bend to accomplish our task."
Factors considered included how many previous Siebel in-stallations each company had done (as well as previous in-stallations per each company team member) and how well company managers performed technical and nontechnical demonstrations of Siebel.
Inforte's Meyer said flexibility and respon-siveness were important in landing the enter-prise account. "I think they considered our ability equal with Andersen and Cambridge. The differentiators were our flexible ap-proach. responsiveness and the ability to work with them."
For the first rollout phase last spring, Inforte was asked to complete the project in approxi-mately four to six weeks so CompUSA could get its third-party call-center services up and running for its first major corporate customer. Inforte met the challenge, making it the fastest Siebel implementation to date. accord-ing to Meyer. In addition. Siebel 98 went live with about 100 call-center agents just days after it was publicly released.
"We were actually working with beta code during the first days of the project, which is kind of a testimony to how solid [Siebel's] code is." Meyer said.
The next phase covered the remaining: call-center agents, totaling about 450 users. The en-tire rollout is scheduled to wrap up in about six to 12 months with the implementation of vari-ous sales departments and. finally, the mobile community.
So far, CompUSA said the project has bene-fited approximately 150,000 customers since last spring. For example, agents are now able to greet customers by name and already know what their last call was about as well as their purchase history. CompUSA Wolff said.
Other benefits include faster answer time by call-center agents, quicker responses to ques-tions and more accurate and personalized ser-vice for each customer, Overall, the project has provided faster responses due to easier access to more knowledge and offers the opportunity for increased repeat business. Wolff said.
As for the outsourced call-center services, customers' call statistics are integrated into the service enterprise system so that they have the ability to preview the status of their open ser-vice items and up-to-date call statistics, The customer gets up-to-the-minute account infor-mation anywhere in the world. Wolf said.
But although such benefits were obvious during the planning phase, getting the go-ahead for the project was not an easy process.
"The return on investment [was a concern in getting executive e sponsorship]." Wolf said. "Any kind of enterprise wide solution is expensive, and it took a long time to substantiate the return on investment we would get from this project."
CompUSA began discussing the project three years ago, then underwent intensive evalu-ations of how each department would benefit. Wolf said. It took another year to review vari-ous products before choosing Siebel 98. Obviously, the implementation process was faster than our choosing process. Wolf said. But that too had its challenges.
CompUSA's various sales and customer-service departments needed unique Siebel con-figurations to do their jobs effectively, yet re-quired a similar look and feel for easy access to ail information. Siebel 98 was equipped with about 200 different screen images as well as the option to program to home-grown solution.
"We wanted to stay out of [programming]." Vance said. "In the industry a lot of projects of this size will drag out" because IT must figure out which options are best for their companies with applications they are unfamiliar with. he added.
CompUSA wanted to save itself from that hassle. That is where Inforte came in.
"We leveraged their abilities and past experi-ences." Vance said. "They were the channel to take what we needed and show us where it was already located in [Siebel 98}."
As a result. CompUSA and Inforte avoided programming and configured the most effective ERM solution for the retailer.
"A couple of times we wanted to go on a dif-ferent path. but [Inforte's team] said [this is the best way to do it with Siebel." Vance said. "Inforte's role was. to empower us."
While CompUSA continues its Siebel ERM rollout with Inforte. It is simultaneously plan-ning an implementation of SAP Retail, from SAP America Inc. Philadelphia to manage the supply side of the business.
Although SAP will implement its own prod-uct, CompUSA will have Inforte step up to the plate once again, Vance said, to guide the inte-gration of SAP and Siebel 98 giving the giant computer retailer a seamless view of all its businesses.
|
|
