SUPPORT SERVICES RESEARCH REPORTS

Annual overview of industry trends, industry topics, the research reports TSIA will be publishing in the upcoming year and the research studies TSIA will be conducting in the upcoming year.

The Technology Services Industry Association (TSIA) began awarding STAR Awards to member companies in 1990 to recognize exceptional service and support operations. Over the years the categories have continually morphed to reflect the always-evolving strategies and practices within the industry, and to include all service disciplines served by TSIA: support services, field service, professional services, and education services.

The most frequently asked question regarding STAR Awards is, “Why did they win?”, and this report will answer that question, highlighting the success stories behind the most recent round of awards, Fall 2011.

TSIA identifies service revenue and profitability trends, and provides critical observations based on the current quarterly update of 50 of the largest global providers of technology services. TSIA aggregates the financial performance of these fifty companies each quarter from the public record.

For the Fall 2011 TSIA Recognized Innovator Awards, categories were selected that best represent the partners in the TSIA partner ecosystem: Products, Services and Consulting.

Innovation in Products highlights 'bleeding edge' technology available to streamline operations, capture knowledge, generate incremental revenue, or improve the customer experience.

Innovation in Services provides an opportunity for service provider partners to showcase how their innovative people, process and technology are dramatically changing service operations, and forcing companies to constantly re-evaluate core verses context.

Innovation in Consulting provides a look into the forward-looking advisory projects partners deliver to members, improving efficiency and margins. Member companies should stay abreast of innovation in the service industry and look for ways to leverage these new approaches to improve efficiencies and satisfaction, lower operational expenses, and increase services revenue.

TSIA's leadership has just released their latest book, Consumption Economics, which documents the rapidly changing world of technology services, as on premise technology moves to the cloud, and as up-front application and user license fees are replaced by micro-transactions. Consumption Economics is a must read for everyone in the technology services industry, serving as a rallying cry for service leadership to take action now to avoid being classified once again as a “cost center” as the market evolves.

As TSIA's service technology expert, I advise member companies on available technology to improve specific operational, quality and financial metrics, as well as help companies select the ‘best fit’ vendor for their needs. Consumption Economics has clear implications for technology buyers, and this report is an attempt to expand upon the trends and recommendation in the book in regard to services technology. In particular, the enormous responsibility that comes along with technology decisions as buying power shifts from IT to the business user, and a look at how companies are leveraging data analysis tools in early attempts to capitalize on user-level behavioral data, as the book recommends

This report is based on the groundbreaking book Consumption Economics: The New Rules of Tech, by J.B. Wood, Todd Hewlin, and Thomas Lah. The book describes the significant shift that is occurring in the services industry in response to the growing worlds of cloud and managed services, and how today's services organizations must completely re-think how they build products, how they drive revenue, and what services they need to offer in order to succeed in this new age of tech.

The focus of this paper looks at the implications Consumption Economics has for support and field services organizations.

Video is an incredibly powerful medium that is already changing the face of service operations, but the impact will be even greater in the future, as video becomes even more widely adopted, including the enablement of face-to-face customer service interactions. This report evaluates how early adopters are leveraging video effectively for knowledge management, education, and support interactions.

October kicks off the annual budget cycle for many companies, and based on TSIA member inquiries and other conversations, 2012 is shaping up to be a stressful year for technology services. Innovative technologies involving mobile and video are forcing changes—and introducing revenue opportunities—across education services, field service, professional services and support services. The customer channel mix continues to evolve, with growth expected in Web chat volume and issues resolved in online discussion forums. And after surviving the economic downturn of 2009 fairly unscathed, early indicators are 2012 will be another tough year for technology firms, and this time, service may be in the cost-cutting cross-hairs. Support executives should be aware of emerging trends to help with 2012 planning, and to have answers prepared if and when the CEO comes calling with possible budget cuts.

Over the last month multiple TSIA members have submitted inquiries regarding targets for percent of issues escalated beyond Level 1. When incidents are not resolved on the initial contact, and ultimately need to be escalated to a more experienced technician, incident resolution times stretch out, higher paid Level 2 resources become involved, sending incident cost soaring. If your escalation averages are higher than your peers, identifying issues that could be resolved at Level 1 by additional training or knowledgebase content can help reduce escalations, lowering operational costs for the support organization. TSIA Research recommends companies audit issues escalated beyond Level 1 to identify patterns of issues, then create a plan to move resolution of those issues to front line support.

The single most important element in determining the success of a new technology project is strong business process. All of the innovative software bells and whistles in the world will not create business value if your underlying processes are broken. In this report, TSIA Research discusses common problems with customer support business processes, including the top two reasons poor processes create technology project failures. Whether you are able to refine and improve your processes on your own, or whether you need to involve an expert consultant, service management must be sure that processes are documented, understood and followed consistently before implementing new knowledge management, CRM, or other service-related tools.