White Papers

Rapidly evolving information technologies are changing the face of business. Developments such as robust and pervasive Internet-based communications have lowered the cost of business activities, including product and service delivery, support, business-to-business transactions, and others. To remain competitive in this landscape of rapid technical development, contact center operators benefit from opportunities to adapt, embrace, and innovate to satisfy heightened customer expectations and achieve the agility to take advantage of rapidly changing business landscapes.

Service-oriented architecture (SOA) promises to deliver exceptional flexibility and cost savings to IT by defining a methodology for the use and reuse of software components and business processes. SOA focuses on bridging the gap between business processes and IT through well-defined, business-aligned services developed along established design principles, frameworks, patterns, and methods. However, SOA is still new, and organizations are still in the process of learning how to implement it so that it fulfils its potential for accomplishing desired business goals.

Today, the business world is undergoing a significant transformation thanks to a set of technologies collectively known as "Web 2.0." Web 2.0 describes a set of next-generation Internet technologies that make it easier to create online applications that behave dynamically, much like traditional PC-based software.

This white paper illustrates key knowledge management milestones in context of the KCS journey. For each phase, we describe the relevant benefits and measures and how these factors change as organizations mature from adoption through proficiency. We specifically note the tell-tale conditions, the exit criteria, that help leaders know they're entering the next phase.

With the launch of the third incarnation of ITIL, we now have an industry standard road map for taking ITSM best practices to the next level. ITIL v3 marks a significant change in emphasis, away from IT as a series of interlinked processes and toward IT being considered as a value-added service for both internal and external business customers.

The lifeblood of every business is its employees. Given this critical fact, you may assume every business has a detailed plan and solid processes in place to ensure employees are engaged. Unfortunately, this is generally not the case. Many companies continue to assume that if they build a good product or offer a good service, and if customers continue to buy those products or services, then employees should be happy. Is this the right way to approach employee loyalty?

Every company executive will raise their hand and say they believe having loyal customers is a key to business success. But what are executives really doing about it? Most will point to their customer care training or CRM system and say, “That’s how we take care of loyalty here.” Some will also point to their monthly newsletter or discount program to demonstrate their efforts. All of these are good attempts. However, they are not enough.

For many enterprises, service catalogs can be a double-edged sword. They allow you to automate and publish, via the web, access to a vast library of applications and corporate information to both internal and external constituencies. Yet access to anduse of those applications and corporate information must be more tightly controlled and auditable than ever before. Increased access with increased control isn’t a paradox for organizations that build service catalogs tightly integrated with their existing enterprise IT management system, but rather an easily solved challenge.