RESEARCH TOPICS
The TSIA Research team is committed to maintaining content on a list of topics that are important to our members. Here are the topics that TSIA is pursuing in 2012:
|
TOPIC |
DESCRIPTION |
SERVICE DISCIPLINES |
|
Account Services Organization |
Transforming support services to an account services organization |
SS |
|
Analytics Everywhere |
A key concept in Consumption Economics is leveraging analytic platforms to mine customer data and interactions for business insight. |
ES, FS, PS, SS |
|
Attach and Renewal of Support Contracts |
Best practices in attaching and renewing support contracts. |
SRG-R |
|
Benchmarking Technology Services |
Development of general concepts and unique TSIA approach to benchmarking technology services. Emphasis on the practice business application of benchmarking. |
ES, FS, PS, SS |
|
Best Practices in Content Development |
Multigenerational considerations, multicultural/localization aspects, community-based tools, processes, and practices. |
ES |
|
Building Value-Added Support Offerings |
How support organizations build out value-added service offerings. |
SS |
|
Business Model for Emerging Markets |
How the ES business model changes when comparing established to emerging markets. |
ES |
|
Cloud Impact on Professional Services |
Topic deals with the current and likely impacts of "cloud" on professional services business models, sales models, services development, and more. |
PS |
|
Consumption Analytics |
The discipline of analyzing actual customer usage data to create new service offerings and sales opportunities. |
ES, FS, PS, SRG-R, SS |
|
Contract/Entitlement Management |
Tools used to manage customer warranties and maintenance contracts, and provide fast and accurate entitlement for customers seeking assisted service. |
SRG-R, SS |
|
Converging Service Resources |
Tactics to leverage resources across traditional service lines to optimize cost structures and scalability. |
FS, PS, SS |
|
Converging SLAs |
How the blurring of traditional SMB and enterprise markets is changing the expectations of customers regarding service level agreements and the cost of support contracts. |
SS |
|
Cross-Sell/Upsell |
Best practices in how service employees can help cross-sell and upsell other company offerings during a service engagement/incident. |
SRG-R |
|
Customer Management Technology |
Tools for customer management, including incident or case tracking and customer relationship management (CRM) software. |
ES, FS, PS, SRG-R, SS |
|
Customer Satisfaction |
Establishing customer sat process. Optimizing customer sat process. |
ES, FS, PS, SS |
|
Customer Satisfaction/Enterprise Feedback Management |
Customer satisfaction and loyalty tracking, sometimes part of a larger Enterprise Feedback Management program. |
ES, FS, PS, SRG-R, SS |
|
Economic Impact of ES |
How ES offerings impact account revenue and success. |
ES |
|
Enterprise Knowledge/Content Management |
Tools and processes for capturing, sharing, and retrieving tacit and problem-resolution data. |
ES, FS, PS, SS |
|
Enterprise/Intelligent Search |
Search technology that leverages linguistic analysis to better understand customer questions, and the ability to reach content stored in any system to retrieve results. |
ES, FS, PS, SS |
|
ES and Mobile/Social Platforms |
How ES offerings are being delivered through mobile and social platforms. |
ES |
|
ES Bundling |
How are companies bundling ES offerings with other service offerings. |
ES |
|
ES Channel Strategy |
The role of partners in selling and delivering ES offerings. |
ES |
|
ES in Emerging Markets |
The business model for education services in emerging markets such as China, India, etc. |
ES |
|
ES Metrics |
What are the key metrics ES organizations use to manage the business? |
ES |
|
ES Pricing Models |
How ES organizations are pricing their service offerings. |
ES |
|
Field Service KPIs |
KPIs for managing a field service business. |
FS |
|
Field Service Parts and Logistics |
Tools to manage spare parts for field service operations, including logistics systems and returned merchandise authorization (RMA) tracking. |
FS |
|
Field Service Scheduling/Dispatch |
Tools to identify the best resource for a field service appointment and provide routing assistance using GPS and real-time traffic updates. |
FS, SS |
|
Learning Management Systems/Learning Content Development |
Technology used to create and distribute learning modules to customers or employees. |
ES, SS |
|
Leveraging E-Learning |
Migrating from macro training to micro training. |
ES |
|
Managing Remote Employees |
How to make sure remote employees are trained, engaged, etc. |
FS |
|
Minimizing Discounting of Support Contracts |
Best practices to minimize support contract discounting. |
SRG-R |
|
Mobile and Video in Service |
New technology and processes enabled by new mobile and video capabilities offer dramatic improvements to productivity and operational costs. |
ES, FS, PS, SS |
|
Multichannel Service and Self-Service |
Moving customer traffic away from more expensive and less effective channels toward channels with higher sat scores and lower cost, typically migrating phone and e-mail traffic toward chat and the online community. |
FS, SS |
|
New Major Markets |
Delivering services in new major markets such as India, China, and Brazil. |
ES, FS, PS, SS |
|
Offering Pricing: Support Services |
How support organizations can structure the number of support offerings and the pricing levels to maximize service revenues. |
SRG-R |
|
Online Communities/Discussion Forums |
Online communities for customers and employees. |
ES, FS, PS, SS |
|
Organizational Design |
How service organizations are structured. |
ES, FS, PS, SS |
|
Outsourcing |
How support organizations can best leverage outsourcing partners. Trends of bringing support centers back onshore. |
SS |
|
Partner Management for PS |
How PS organizations can best enable delivery partners. |
PS |
|
Proactive Support/Intelligent Diagnostics |
Technology used to analyze customer environments to identify failing components or to predict when outages will occur to allow preventive action. |
FS, SS |
|
Professional Services Automation (PSA) |
Platform used to manage consulting projects and resources. |
ES, PS |
|
Project Management Office |
Establishing a Project Management Office to drive best practices in project management across engagements. |
PS |
|
PS Compensation |
Thread has to do with benchmarking compensation levels and incentive compensation design to support business objectives for PS businesses. |
PS |
|
PS Engineering and PS Assets |
General thread regarding the service development life cycle for professional services. Reusable PS assets or IP is a central topic here. |
PS |
|
PS Market Rates |
Topic deals with pricing and pricing management practices for professional services. |
PS |
|
PS Pricing Management and Performance |
Thread has to do with global PS market rates and pricing management practices that drive better price performance. |
PS |
|
PS Project Performance |
Thread has to do with benchmarking the performance of PS projects, along with project management practices and measurement of project performance. |
PS |
|
Renewing Subscriptions |
Best practices in renewing software subscriptions. |
SRG-R |
|
Resource Management: PS |
Optimizing the mix of resources to delivery services. |
PS |
|
Revenue Recognition |
Changes in revenue recognition rules. |
ES, FS, PS, SS |
|
Selling Models for PS |
How embedded PS organizations structure the sales motion. Roles, responsibilities, reporting, compensation, etc. |
PS |
|
Selling Non-Attached Services |
Best practices in selling service offerings that are not directly attached to a product sale. |
SRG-R |
|
Service Business Model |
Tracking and benchmarking margins and investment levels for a service line. |
ES, FS, PS, SS |
|
Service Level Agreements |
Standards for SLAs. |
FS, SS |
|
Service Revenue Generation |
Attaching services. Minimizing discounting. |
ES, FS, PS, SRG-R, SS |
|
Subscription Pricing for Education Services |
How education service organizations can implement subscription-based pricing models. |
ES |
|
Support KPIs |
Best practices for the KPIs a support organization should use to manage the business. |
SS |
|
Support Pricing |
How to price support offerings. |
SRG-R, SS |
|
Support Scheduling Optimization |
Tools used to create schedules for multi-channel support environments using interaction volume history and employee skills. |
SS |
|
Support Services Optimization |
Optimizing overall cost structure associated with delivering support services. |
SS |
|
Support Services Resource Optimization |
How to optimize the allocation of resources across partners, Level 1, Level 2, etc. |
SS |
|
Talent Management: Support Services |
Developing support services employees. Retooling support employees with new skills for the world of Consumption Economics. |
SS |
|
Technologies of Social Media/Social Service |
How to optimize the allocation of resources across partners, Level 1, Level 2, etc. |
SS |
|
Talent Management: Support Services |
Technology used to track and automate customer interactions via social media channels such as Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. |
SS |
|
The Changing VAR Business Model |
How cloud consumption models will impact the business model of service delivery partners and value-added resellers. How OEMs are helping their partners adjust to these new business models. |
FS, PS, SS |
|
The ES Business Model |
Industry averages and trends in ES financial business models. |
ES |
|
The ES Sales Model |
The sales models used by embedded ES organizations. |
ES |
|
The PS Business Model |
Work to update the benchmark framework for tracking/monitoring PS financial performance. |
PS |
|
Unassisted Support |
Tactics for helping customers support themselves without direct assistance from support service staff. |
SS |
|
Vertical Go-to-Market |
Restructuring the company to take products and services to market by vertical industry. |
ES, FS, PS, SRG-R, SS |
Click here to read more about TSIA’s 2012 Research Agenda and the industry trends that are impacting technology services.