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June 17, 11:30 AM - 12:30 PM U.S./ET (GMT-4)
Larry Bonfante, CIO of the U.S. Tennis Association, will discuss the skills and approaches that your rising IT leaders must learn to be effective in an executive capacity.
How to Handle Your New CEO: Managing Turnover at the Top
June 18, 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM U.S./Eastern (GMT-4)
Turbulent times have increased turnover at the top. Find out what Council CIOs have done to "break in" new CEOs—build relationships, set expectations, educate on the role of IT.
Mid-Market CIO Panel: Tips and Techniques for Improving Vendor Relationships
July 15, 4:00 PM - 5:00 PM U.S./Eastern (GMT-4)
We'll highlight relationship priorities and best practices identified in a Council study, and we'll interact with a CIO panel on the approaches they've used to improve strategic vendor partnerships.
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Assess Your Business Leadership Skills with the Council's new benchmarking tool. Rate yourself in change leadership, strategy, customer focus and more.
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November 01, 2001 — CIO —
When Marconi went on a shopping spree and acquired 10 telecommunications companies over a three-year period, it faced a serious challenge: How could the $3 billion manufacturer of telecommunications equipment ensure that its technical support agents knew enough about newly acquired technology to provide quick and accurate answers to customers on the phone? And how could Marconi bring new agents up to speed on all the company’s products?
Marconi’s technical support agents?500 engineers scattered in 14 call centers around the globe?field approximately 10,000 questions every month about the company’s products. Before the acquisitions, agents had relied on Tactics Online, an extranet where they and customers could search for frequently asked questions and text documents. As new agents and products joined the company’s ranks, Marconi wanted to supplement the website with a more comprehensive knowledge management system. As engineers from the newly acquired companies came on board, however, they were hesitant to share their knowledge about the products they had been supporting. "They felt that their knowledge was a security blanket that helped guarantee their jobs," says Dave Breit, director of technology and R&D for managed services in Warrendale, Pa. "With all of the acquisitions, it was essential that we all avoid hoarding knowledge and share it instead."
At the same time, Marconi wanted to streamline its customer service organization by making more of its product and systems information available directly to customers and shortening the length of customer calls. "We wanted to leverage the Web for customer self-service versus increasing the number of agents," Breit says. "We also wanted to provide our frontline engineers [who interact directly with customers] with more information more quickly so that they could resolve more calls faster."
When Marconi began evaluating knowledge management technologies in the spring of 1998, the concept of sharing knowledge among agents was nothing new. Agents were already accustomed to working in teams of three or four people, gathering in war room fashion to solve customers’ technical issues. And a year earlier, Marconi had started basing a percentage of agents’ quarterly bonuses on the amount of knowledge they submitted to Tactics Online as well as their involvement with mentoring and training other agents. "Each agent was expected to teach two training classes and write 10 FAQs to earn their full bonus," says Breit. "When we brought new companies online, the new agents received the same bonus plan. This approach allowed us to build a very open knowledge-sharing environment."