Importance of Systems and Processes

Hello,
As many of you know, Vital Link has been faultlessly delivering to clients over past 7-8 years.
On any given day we process more than  100,000 images and files. Since we deliver them correctly and on time, our clients keep on giving us regular business.

We used to be ISO certified, but gave up getting ourselves certified some years back, when we found that the process of certification did not add any value to us.

Why am I telling you all this?

This is because, without a faultess system process design and operations team in place, none of this could happen. I see so many businesses struggling to deliver every day and failing.

Last week I was given an opportunity to present the important of  "System design and processes " to a group of about 30 Entreprenuers at the platform provided by TiE - Mumbai Chapter, of which I am a Charter Member

https://mumbai.tie.org/event/3/tie-institute-knowledge-series-managing-operations

I believe the presentation was well received. After the talk on the lunch table many start ups could come over and discuss their individual issues which I had the pleasure of offering suggestions to.

A good time was had by all...and here is the ppt that I used

http://slidesha.re/NblS6N

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Location, Location and Location

They say in the Realty business that what matters is Location, Location and Location.

This point was driven home to us last week in a rather emphathetic manner.

To go back a little, our earlier Delivery Center in Pune was on a main bus route and within walking distance from a Railway station. In a country where the dominant mode of access is Public transport, these things matter.

When we decided to move to a  new Delivery Center, we definitely wanted it to be in the center of town. The new premises now shares a common compound wall with the Pune Public Bus terminus and is within walking distance from the Pune Main railway station.

One of our clients who left us a few years back to move operations to China is now coming back to us ( but that is another story )...so we needed to hire about 40 transaction associates for their process. We put out an Job advertisement and the response was overwhelming....we got all the good team members that we wanted.

Nothing else has changed..so it can mean only one thing that has changed. The new location.

Driving the point home...location, location and location :-)

     

Barefoot Ted visits us

Barefoot Ted is a leading figure in the world of Barefoot / Minimalist running. Those of you who have read the bestseller book "Born to Run" by Chris Mcdougall know that he is extensively featured in that book. He is also the Founder / CEO of http://www.lunasandals.com

He was in Pune recently at the invitation of our CEO P. Venkatraman, who is himself an avid runner. He visited our facilities and studied our Content Aggregation process with considerable interest.

At the end of his visit this is what he had to say. We couldn't have put it better ourselves.












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A serious 'disconnect'

At Vital Link Outsourcing we are happy to be NOT in the call center business.  We have often felt that there is a serious 'disconnect' between what the ultimate customer wants ( satisfactory service, a soft factor ) and what the immediate customer ( Ops manager ) wants ( productivity based on numbers, a hard factor ).

This kind of a business only results in unpleasantness all around. To the ultimate customer making the call, to the Company whose customer it is and to the service provider who is constantly pounded by clients who are barking up the wrong tree.

This cartoon from Dilbert puts it so succintly.

http://www.dilbert.com/2012-02-12/

Long term client visits us from USA.avi

Bhairavi, Project Manager with long term client of ours came visiting from Sunnyvale CA. We already provide them services centered around Data Capture and Data Validation. She learnt of our offerings in areas of Internet Research and Content Aggregation etc...
We hope to work with each other in an increased range of service offerings.
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UK Visit

Two weeks back, I was in UK for about 4 days. I used the opportunity to visit some of our existing UK Accountant clients ( CA / ACCA ) from whom we regularly outsource Accounting and Book Keeping work. I also visited couple of new prospects who are seeking to outsource their Book Keeping / back office function.

My meetings were very interesting with each one  of them. Almost all of them wanted to give work to us. Besides the cost factor, which was obvious they realised that they were getting more value for money since we employ career accountants who are dedicated to their work, whereas they were using work at home moms, or entry level employees to get their work done, who were lacking in a certain resolve to do their best.

But one of the things that is foxing me is that even though they accept the benefits of changing their approach to client delivery, there is the human resistance to change that makes them drag their feet, so to speak.

     

A rural BPO - 2

The rural BPO being set up by Wipro in Manjakudi is fully complete. Two Team Leaders have been deputed from elsewhere to kick start the location. The physical infra is all in place and I was told that the first batch of 300+ associates have already been recruited and training is going on. This photo could have been taken in any of our locations.  I was informed that the process was a voice process from US. Given the strong challenges in accent nuetralisation, I would have thought that it might have been a domestic process. Achieving client satisfaction metrics is going to be an issue, unless it is a  B2B process and client expectations have been appropriately set :-)