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Spreadsheet Supplement for Product #'s 602099 and 602111.

Basic telecommunication services in India, provided by the government as a natural monopoly service, have over the years seen drastic changes in terms of competition, service offerings and technology used. This case highlights the technology, marketing and financial strategies adopted by Bharti Airtel, a leading private telecom service provider in India. While Bharti succeeded in carving a niche for itself in its fixed line service offering, the case brings out Bharti's need for agility as it confronts the competition of the cash-rich government operators and the strong emergence of mobile services and related technologies. The case can also be used to study India's evolving telecom regulations and the effects of migrating from a monopoly to a perfectly competitive basic telecom service in an emerging market. Government Monopoly, Business Strategy, Telecom Services, Fixed Line Services, Telecom regulations, Market penetration

Tamago-ya is a family-owned business located in Tokyo, Japan. The company has captured a unique position in the market of selling pre-packaged lunch boxes to business professionals by maintaining high quality and reliable delivery. In order for Tamago-ya to guarantee such a high level of customer service, it has created an operational culture wherein those who deliver orders also engage in judging customer demand and feedback, those who supply food materials must be able to respond to variation in demand on a daily basis, and those who plan the production and distribution schedule must forecast and adjust on a real-time basis. Tamago-ya competes with convenience stores, which offer less variety in their menu options throughout the month, can stock-out on popular choices, and tend to have long lines during the lunchtime rush. However, Tamago-ya is faced with many challenges--including demand forecasting, supply planning, and long-term strategic planning.

Explores how the purchase of services is managed within the organization, the risks associated with current services purchasing practices, and how to improve the professional management of services purchases. Survey data obtained from benchmarking research performed by CAPS Center for Strategic Supply Research reveal that purchasing services is viewed as more difficult than purchasing goods. In addition, while purchasing of services is growing in importance and magnitude, the resources to manage it are not. Accordingly, there are huge opportunities for organizations to improve their services purchasing in terms of cost and value by dedicating more, and perhaps different, resources to services purchasing. Developing an outstanding capability to purchase services, and to manage that purchase, could truly be the next frontier for improved supply chain and organizational performance.

This case series explores the issues faced by the key account manager appointed to handle one of the company's major accounts, but one that is just about to walk out the door. The cases demonstrate efforts to turn the situation around, including improved knowledge of the client's business and industry, cross-company team building, and a governance process for continual improvement. Learning objectives: The learning objective is to demonstrate how key account management can be the most productive way to increase sales and profits: sell more to existing customers. This requires well coordinated and sometimes difficult actions from the business units and divisions. The case emphasizes the need for the whole team, and not just the key account manager, to invest time in building relationships with the client and become more customer-centric. There are some interesting issues as to who should make decisions, have power, and where the P&L should reside. These depend, in the end, on the history and culture of the organization.

This case series explores the issues faced by the key account manager appointed to handle one of the company's major accounts, but one that is just about to walk out the door. The cases demonstrate efforts to turn the situation around, including improved knowledge of the client's business and industry, cross-company team building, and a governance process for continual improvement. Learning objective: The learning objective is to demonstrate how key account management can be the most productive way to increase sales and profits: sell more to existing customers. This requires well coordinated and sometimes difficult actions from the business units and divisions. The case emphasizes the need for the whole team, and not just the key account manager, to invest time in building relationships with the client and become more customer-centric. There are some interesting issues as to who should make decisions, have power, and where the P&L should reside. These depend, in the end, on the history and culture of the organization.

Should service firms show clients their inner workings or keep their cards close? Recent research touts the benefits of letting customers know how firms operate.

The owners of the Novotel Suvarnabhumi Airport Hotel planned a grand 4+ star hotel in a prime location, just a five-minute walk from the airport terminal. It would feature 612 guest rooms, multiple food and beverage outlets, meeting facilities and the largest ballroom in eastern Bangkok. The property was co-owned by three Thai government corporations and was set to open on 1 October 2006. Bangkok hotel operator Universal Hospitality Group and French hotel and leisure company The Accor Group submitted a joint bid for the management contract when it was opened for tender in September 2004. In February 2005, the hotel's owners awarded the management contract to the Accor-Universal management group. This was after the hotel's design had been finalized and construction had begun. The management consequently felt they had no meaningful input in the development process. Furthermore, the hotel had been built on a turnkey basis. Hence, when the management group assumed responsibility for the hotel in April 2006, they discovered many operational challenges stemming from what they felt was a misalignment of the hotel's development, construction and operation. The management group spent the first few months grappling with those challenges and seeking solutions.

New research confirms that the bigger the employees' smiles, the happier the customers.

For many senior executives, shifting from selling products to selling solutions--packages of products and services--is a priority in today's increasingly commoditized markets. Companies, however, aren't always structured to make that shift. Knowledge and expertise often reside in silos, and many companies have trouble harnessing their resources across those boundaries in a way that customers value and are willing to pay for. Some companies--like GE Healthcare, Best Buy, and commercial real estate provider Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL)--have restructured themselves around customer needs to deliver true solutions. They did so by engaging in four sets of activities: Coordination. To deliver customer-focused solutions, three things must occur easily across boundaries: information sharing, division of labor, and decision making. Sometimes this involves replacing traditional silos with customer-focused ones, but more often it entails transcending existing boundaries. JLL has experimented with both approaches. Cooperation. Customer-centric companies, such as Cisco Systems, develop metrics for customer satisfaction and incentives that reward customer-focused cooperation. Most also shake up the power structure so that people who are closest to customers have the authority to act on their behalf. Capability. Delivering customer-focused solutions requires some employees to be generalists instead of specialists. They need experience with more than one product or service, a deep knowledge of customer needs, and the ability to traverse internal boundaries. Connection. By combining their offerings with those of a partner, companies can cut costs even as they create higher-value solutions, as Starbucks has found through its diverse partnerships. To stand out in a commoditized market, companies must understand what customers value. Ultimately, some customers may be better off purchasing products and services piecemeal.

Cleveland Clinic is consistently ranked among the nation's most eminent hospitals, and for decades has been a leader in pioneering cardiac care. Explores the methods, processes, and personnel that the hospital has cultivated over the years in order to develop its track record of excellence. In light of this, three expansion opportunities are explored and the operational fit of each is investigated.

An abstract is not available for this product.

Anyone who has signed up for cell phone service, attempted to claim a rebate, or navigated a call center has probably suffered from a company's apparent indifference to what should be its first concern: the customer experiences that culminate in either satisfaction or disappointment and defection. Customer experience is the subjective response customers have to direct or indirect contact with a company. It encompasses every aspect of an offering: customer care, advertising, packaging, features, ease of use, reliability. Customer experience is shaped by customers' expectations, which largely reflect previous experiences. Few CEOs would argue against the significance of customer experience or against measuring and analyzing it. But many don't appreciate how those activities differ from CRM or just how illuminating the data can be. For instance, the majority of the companies in a recent survey believed they have been providing "superior" experiences to customers, but most customers disagreed. The authors describe a customer experience management (CEM) process that involves three kinds of monitoring: past patterns (evaluating completed transactions), present patterns (tracking current relationships), and potential patterns (conducting inquiries in the hope of unveiling future opportunities). Data are collected at or about touch points through such methods as surveys, interviews, focus groups, and online forums. Companies need to involve every function in the effort, not just a single customer-facing group. The authors go on to illustrate how a cross-functional CEM system is created. With such a system, companies can discover which customers are prospects for growth and which require immediate intervention.

Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) service provider, Tecnovate eSolutions Pvt. Ltd, was set up in India as a captive to provide contact center services, BPO services, and IT services to its parent company in the travel services sector. Outsourcing is a complex phenomenon and involves formal evaluation and planning before companies can take the leap. Can be used as a vehicle for understanding the risks and challenges involved in a real life outsourcing scenario. Focuses on the critical transition sub-phase of the outsourcing lifecycle and the evolving growth strategies of business process outsourcing.

This is an MIT Sloan Management Review article. Early research in e-commerce projected that online retailing would spiral into a never-ending price war. But recent research has shown that customers are more likely to pay higher prices to online retailers of high quality that they trust. But how do customers evaluate quality in online retailing? What are the specific aspects of an online transaction that customers value and use to distinguish one site from another? The authors explored these issues by surveying customers who had recently engaged in an online retail transaction to determine how they evaluate the quality of their experiences with online retailers. The results demonstrated that customers' perceptions of quality and satisfaction with online purchases depend on three things: interaction with the Web site, delivery of the product, and how prepared retailers are to address problems when they occur. Of the three, product delivery has the strongest influence on customer satisfaction and future purchase intentions. The authors further break down each of the three aspects of quality to create a complete picture of what it takes to build a trusting relationship with customers in an e-commerce environment.

Discusses the challenges currently facing the U.S. health care delivery system. These challenges frame the problems managers of delivery organizations are currently facing. They include a burgeoning gap between demand and supply. Demand for health care services is increasing as the population ages, chronic diseases become more common, and medical technology increases. Yet, the supply of nurses and physicians is decreasing. Moreover, as both regulators and the general public become more interested in the quality of care delivered, there is evidence of substantial quality failures. In response to these challenges, regulators have introduced new forms of payment and financial incentives for doctors and delivery organizations, and managers have experimented with several new service models and delivery organization designs. They include the use of new professionals and other assistive personnel, such as nurse practitioners and physicians' assistants, in-store clinics, focused factories and concierge care.

With 26 casinos in 13 U.S. states and $4.5 billion in revenue in 2003, Harrah's Entertainment Inc. was one of the leading brand names in the casino entertainment industry. Bill Harrah, the founder of Harrah's, was passionate about getting to know his customers and had instilled a deeply rooted commitment to customer satisfaction into Harrah's corporate philosophy. In 2003, Harrah's was focused on building loyalty and value with its target customers through a unique combination of great service, excellent products, unsurpassed distribution, operational excellence, and technology leadership. Through innovative customer relationship management strategies, effective management of its service supply chain, and sizable investments in enabling information technology, the company was at the forefront in attracting, serving, and retaining its customers.

Quality Wireless has received customer complaints about long hold times at its call center. To address these complaints, it put into place certain process changes at its call center. After one month, the company will now decide whether improvement has taken place.

An abstract is not available for this product.