Benchmarking the Delivery of Technical Support

Abstract

Technology must serve two masters. First, it must serve the forward end of the business, assuring advance in products and processes for now and the future. Equally important, it must serve the operating units with their innumerable technical support requirements--from manufacturing to engineering to marketing to customer support. The quality and sophistication of response for these latter needs are becoming ever more demanding. The trick is serving both masters well from a virtually pool of technical resources. Technical support, in its broadest sense, is far from routine. It includes, for example: * Helping a customer overcome product deficiencies when used in more hostile environments. * Preventing the spread of corrosion in new or modified process operations. * Skipping the pilot plant stage in order to be first to market. * Applying advanced information technology to process controls, or to store and retrieve technical information. * Assuring that environmental investments are sound and do not threaten the integrity of products and processes. Furthermore, technical support must be delivered in a changing industrial order and structure. Competition is keener and more global. The consumer is more discerning and demanding. Control of fixed costs including staffing prevails. Decentralization of resources quickly follows the business unit bandwagon. At the same time, identifying and managing core competencies is making headway as a counterforce. Technical resources must be managed as a worldwide resource. Quality must be dealt with just to play in the game. Environmental issues are being addressed--not just debated. How can companies deal with all these concerns and at the same time make best use of their technical resources as an integrated competitive weapon? There is no pat solution; each organization must find its own answers. Foremost, there must be a focal point within the organization for dealing with the competing demands for technical talent and resources. Someone, or some entity, must set priorities and decide on tradeoffs among strategic imperatives, customer and supplier interfaces, environmental and safety requirements, and new products and processes. There is a pressing need for technology accountability at the corporate level, including setting priorities for the use of technical resources. A chief technology officer should be a statesman, conscience and traffic cop. (See Functions of the Chief Technology Officer, next page.) The proper setting of priorities contributes to competitive advantage through effective application of engineering and scientific skills in every facet of business activity. As a major Japanese auto maker boasted: During the next decade, quality and productivity will be givens. The winners will be those companies that best apply technology to innovation, operations and customer satisfaction. We have been doing just that for the last quarter of a century. SHELL OIL BENCHMARKING STUDY In 1989-90, SRI International undertook a study for Shell Oil Company's downstream operations to determine the effectiveness of technical support delivery. The premise was that the right technology had to be delivered to the right place at the right time--a simple but powerful premise. It is necessary to understand that the implications for technology response and support are broad, affecting every function and every business activity. The relationships between technical response and support shown in Figure 1, if viewed from the standpoint of transactions between providers and receivers, could run as high as 10,000 in a large corporation. (Figure 1 omitted) SRI's approach was to look at Shell Oil internally and then to benchmark company performance by ranking it with other companies within its industry, as well as with technical support leaders from other industries. Companies participating were from the United States, Japan, and Western Europe. …