Transforming business from a outsourcing center to a strategic partner

Client: UK-based IT-enabled outsourcing company with an offshore center in Kathmandu. The client performs back-office transactional processing services in Supply Chain Management. The nature of work is rule-based which has a direct impact on the customer-facing side of the business for its London Office.

A change in the business model requires increased collaboration across the customer-facing teams across both Nepal and London. This means Nepal’s offshore location will be structured to handle tactical and other strategic activities of customer relationship management.

This change requires offshore location resources to use CRM tools and engage directly with account executives, in fulfilling logistic services for its end customer. The activities performed in offshore locations will now have a direct impact on the business – directly responsible for customer satisfaction and revenue.

First Avocado helped in establishing cross-functional work such that there is a seamless integration of onshore and offshore work activities. Additionally, all areas of customer-facing tasks including campaign management and escalations are seamlessly stitched.

An important aspect of this case is to ensure responsive customer service wherein there exists an operational time difference of 5 hours (between Nepal and London Office). By focusing on appropriate SLAs, notification triggers, process automation, and creating a collaborative problem-solving climate through tagging – the operational time delay has been managed well.

First Avocado helped the offshore location to improve cross-functionality and responsiveness via
1. Process Reengineering – such that the workflow is attuned to the strategic directions of the company – the focus was on ensuring a seamless transfer of data to desired stakeholders at both locations

2. A singular tool for all customer and intra-department interaction, including feedback and contact from customers – the focus is to trigger the right individuals and teams by role tagging for any unresolved query/ escalations (Beyond SLA) that automates war room creation and collaborative problem-solving.

3. Real-time reporting and notification for automated CRM tasks and feedback tagging – provides a 360 perspective on service excellence and product development.

4. Exception reporting and triggering to the right set of individuals with appropriate SLA notification – to strengthen accountability and dependencies between various teams.

First Avocado helped in a year-long Business Process Re-engineering intervention and automating the newly created cross-functional processes.

This also includes process sanitization, standardization, and consolidation prior to Process Engineering. The automation was intended to deliver seamless communication and transparency of data in real-time across all customer-facing activities. Additionally, First Avocado Consultants worked with London Based HR consultants in mapping the desired competencies of the resources and preparing for online-based training from London Office.
Through this, the client was able to sync up with strategy change to its London Office and develop a more responsive process for its end customer.

Internally, this change has also helped improve service levels for those teams that are dependent on CRM.