Every
day people at businesses
around the world connect
with customers, answering
questions, making sales,
and closing deals.
The call comes
in. It’s one of hundreds
that this customer service
agent will answer today:
calls to confirm an order
for a new computer,
calls to order accessories,
calls about confusion over
something listed on the
Web site. All are opportunities
to assist a customer, make
a sale, and add to the overall
success of the business.
The ability
to provide the highest level
of service depends on a
number of factors, two of
which are access
to the right information—what
the customer has bought
before, tracking numbers
and updates from the shipping
company, information on
current pricing and bundles—and
the ability
to act quickly on that information
to help the customer
at that moment. For many
companies today, access
to relevant information
in millions of data records
and multiple data stores
is difficult or impossible,
never mind being able to
easily do something with
that information.
But not for
this customer service agent
at Dell.
She works
for a company that empowers
her to take action on the
customer’s behalf,
and offers her the right
tools and information to
do so effectively. A few
years ago, she would have
had eight or nine applications
open on her computer, and,
switching between them,
may have been able to track the
progress of a package or
update an order. Now, because
the technology has adapted
to the way she works, she
uses one application that
reaches into 40 separate
applications or stores of
data—enabling her
to update an address, add
a bigger hard disk drive
to an order, track a package,
or answer a question about
an old service order.
At this moment,
this particular customer
service agent is the voice
of Dell. And at this moment,
she is helping Dell succeed.
Business
success, business results
Business success
has been exhaustively studied.
People go to school to discover
its secrets. Consultants
offer to help others attain
it. Talk of “business
success” at this level
can be dry and academic.
Those
running businesses, however,
have to deliver success:
grow revenue and profits,
satisfy customers and stakeholders,
and successfully navigate
the perpetual winds of change.
For each business—and
for every employee—the
particulars may differ,
but the outcomes that drive
business success tend to
remain the same: creating
loyal and profitable customer
relationships, inventing
and enhancing products or
services, managing a business
in the most efficient way
possible, and building high-value
connections with partners
and suppliers.
The emphasis
may vary, but every business
must focus on these outcomes.
Whether closing a sale,
designing the next great
product, or discovering
a way to squeeze inefficiency
out of the supply chain,
success depends on the people
in a company.
Rarely in
business does total victory
or complete catastrophe
stem from a single decision.
Rather, success or failure
is based on the cumulative
impact of a myriad of decisions
and actions by a broad range
of people.
Are the systems,
tools, and culture of the
business enabling people
to make better decisions?
Does the business get its
people the right information
so they can delight customers,
create new products, or
work with business partners,
whether they are at a desk
or on a cell phone thousands
of miles away? Does the
business culture help break
down barriers so people
can work more easily with
each other? With partners?
With customers? Are the
right priorities, organization,
motivation, and leadership
in place to drive success?
Does the technology that
supports your business adapt
to change so that your people
don’t have to?
In short,
is your business people-ready?
Even though
many of today’s tasks
are automated, people remain
the heart of any business.
People develop relationships
and close deals. People
make insights and improve
products. People work together
to make the thousands of
small decisions that collectively
add up to success. Finding,
developing, and retaining
the right people is a crucial
and increasingly difficult
task for today’s businesses.
The
revolving door
Every
business is confronted with
the increasingly difficult
challenges of hiring, developing,
and retaining talented employees.
A recent survey of human
resources (HR) professionals
by the Institute of Management
and Administration found
that among the “critical
issues” that they
expected to face in 2006,
retaining and developing
their people was at the
top of the list (74 percent).[1]
Why? Because job markets
are more competitive and
the costs associated with
filling vacant positions
continues to escalate.
The
notion of holding one career
at one employer for a lifetime
is a fading memory to most
baby boomers and unknown
to younger generations.
The new average length that
employees remain in a job
before leaving for another
has dropped below five years.[2]
More than half (53
percent) of workers in an
August 2004 survey in the
United States reported that
they are or may be considering
leaving their jobs. The
costs of temporary replacements,
advertising for open positions,
signing bonuses, moving
expenses, and the like add
up. “Experts estimate
turnover costs range from
a conservative 30 percent
of annual salary plus benefits
to as much as 150 percent
of a worker's yearly pay,”
according to the Indianapolis
Star.[3]
The costs,
however, may not be the
greatest impact. When people
leave, they take with them
their knowledge—knowledge
that can be unique and irreplaceable.
Knowledge that is crucial
for a business to succeed.
Although
these issues may seem formidable,
they also represent an opportunity:
Businesses that can find
a way to become a “destination
workplace,” one that
provides a stimulating,
rewarding work environment
and in turn attracts the
right people, will have
a distinct competitive advantage
now and in the future as
the knowledge-based work
force of the developed world
ages and the new connected
work force of the developing
world comes online.
The
global work force
From reading
x-rays to filing tax returns
to taking catalog orders
over the phone, every day
thousands of highly educated
men and women enter the
new global work force. They
live in such places as India,
China, and the Dominican
Republic, but the impact
can be felt everywhere.
With the emergence of broadband
Internet communications
and the ubiquity of the
personal computer, information
work spreads, making it
possible for workers in
Bangalore and Beijing to
work with colleagues in
Boston and Brighton.
This poses
new opportunities and challenges
for businesses and workers
as markets enlarge, new
competitors emerge, and
the competition for talent
and jobs begins to transcend
geography.
From
the lathe to the laptop
The
tools of the modern business—laptop,
cell phone, and PDA—stand
in sharp contrast to the
predominant tools 100 years
ago: plow, wrench, and pen.
Over the past 50 years,
in the United States, the
percentage of manufacturing
and farm jobs has dropped
by nearly 70 percent (to
13 percent of the total
work force), while the professional,
business, and information
work force has nearly doubled
(to 15 percent). That trend
is expected to continue
strongly into the next decade,
with nearly 30 percent growth
in professional, scientific,
and technical jobs and 12
percent growth in information
industry hiring.[4]
As national
economies mature, knowledge-based
jobs increase as well. Consider
that the service sector
is responsible for nearly
a quarter of all jobs in
India, with hundreds of
thousands of new jobs created
every year in one of the
world’s fastest growing
economies.
When Peter
Drucker originally articulated
the idea of a “knowledge
worker” in 1959, he
described people who applied
knowledge to their tasks
in a direct and unique way.
One important differentiator
of the knowledge worker
is that he or she owns the
means of production. Unlike
blue-collar workers who
do not own the factory equipment
that they use to produce
products, knowledge workers
own the knowledge and skills
that they apply to data
to create information.
Knowledge
workers—for some,
a term now synonymous with
“professionals”—as
a segment of the work force
accounts for 25 percent
or more of such industries
as financial services, high
tech, healthcare, pharmaceuticals,
and media and entertainment,
“in some cases, undertak[ing]
most typical key line activities.”[5]
As the PC
revolution took hold, it
became apparent that work
itself was changing. The
percentage of people working
with data was increasing,
and was no longer limited
to the creation, collection,
and forwarding of that data
to knowledge workers. Data
was staying local and being
used to help workers of
all types make better decisions.
With the help of software,
these workers could filter,
organize, and garner insight
from the data most relevant
to them. These workers became
known as “information
workers.”
![Text Box: “[Toyota] encourages every worker, no matter how far down the production line, to consider himself a knowledge worker and to think creatively about improving his particular corner of the organization.”
—Takis Athanasopoulos,
Toyota Motor Europe](images/image019.gif)
Information
workers exist from the shop
floor to the top floor.
The assembly worker of yesterday
is the process technician
of today. He uses information
and insights to make decisions
that dramatically affect
today’s and tomorrow’s
business results. The ability
to decide whether to alter
a production schedule, update
a process, or stop the manufacturing
line to make an improvement
is one of the ways that
businesses now expect people
to contribute. Responsible
for millions of dollars
in specialized manufacturing
machinery, the business
must rely on the information
worker to use his or her
expertise and judgment to
meet and set production
goals.
The
demographic crunch
Demographic
trends show an aging, shrinking
work force in most of the
developed world over the
next 50 years. As the work
force matures, businesses
will have to maximize the
productivity of their remaining
workers while retaining
them in the face of increasing
competitive pressure. As
competition heats up for
talent, businesses will
have to increasingly cater
to the desires of all their
people, increasing focus
and resources on HR functions
while ensuring that the
culture of the business
is one that attracts and
retains the best people.
In addition, it’s
important for businesses
to capture as much knowledge
as possible before the experts,
the fonts of wisdom, and
the masters of process retire.
At the other
end of the demographic curve,
the “Net generation”
that is coming into the
work force today has lived
its entire life in the digital
era. These people have never
known a time without computers,
cell phones, and the Internet.
E-mail, the Web, interactive
video games, instant messaging,
and mobile devices are as
natural to kids today as
the wired telephone, television,
and ballpoint pen were to
the previous generation.
They are fluent in the most
current technologies used
to trade information and
collaborate, and they communicate
around the clock. They expect
their work to be as connected
as their play.
Businesses
that understand and embrace
this new “digital
lifestyle” will certainly
enhance their ability to
attract and keep this new
generation of employees,
while benefiting from the
increased connectivity and
communication.
Most
businesses are drowning
in data. Some suggest that
this data “nearly
doubles every 12 to 18 months”
and the larger of the data
stores—“those
at or near the 100-terabyte
mark—probably triple
every three years.”[6]
As more systems have been
added to businesses, more
data has been captured.
Moreover, with increased
government regulations to
retain information, this
trend has only escalated.
Clearly, this
data would be valuable if
you could find the most
appropriate information
to inform a particular decision.
In an age where competitive
advantage is more fleeting,
how you harness data—by
making it accessible or
more thoroughly studying
it through analytics—is
becoming more and more important
for overall business success.
Consider
the amount of information
generated around automotive
warranties and repairs.
In 2004, J.D. Power and
Associates ranked the Hyundai
Sonata highest in initial
quality for entry midsize
cars. Attaining this level
of quality is a matter of
work and proper use of information.
Hyundai Motors of North
America, through the Hyundai
North American Quality Center,
tracks information supplied
from warranty claims. The
center works with engineering
and design teams to quickly
address issues in the field,
communicates with the manufacturing
groups to make necessary
changes on the assembly
line, and conveys the problem
to design teams in an effort
to prevent the same problem
from appearing on new models.
Through advanced analytics,
Hyundai is working to better
predict issues before they
arise—combining seemingly
isolated points of data
to predict a problem before
it becomes too costly.
Another place
where large volumes of up-to-the-minute
information are harnessed
and transformed into critical
knowledge is Zurich International
Airport. One of the top
10 European airports in
terms of passengers, Zurich
International is a busy
and complex operation, with
180 partners and roughly
20,000 employees. When one
group of people—whether
baggage crew or food service—runs
late, the entire business
starts to fall behind. Unique,
the private company that
runs the airport, understands
that. So it created a software
system called Zeus
to keep everyone
on track. Developed in only
three months, Zeus collects
and displays information
from across the airport,
including flight data, on-time
statistics, baggage-handling
status, and more.
For
all the parties involved,
it is crucial to have the
real-time information needed
to make key decisions and
take appropriate action—instantly.
For example, the control
tower can instantly know
which planes are running
late for takeoff, and that
the baggage handlers in
one part of the airport
are behind schedule. Because
of this information, the
tower can quickly move planes
to load and unload at other
points at the airport, decreasing
the delays and getting the
entire airport back on schedule.
Businesses
that depend on knowledge
for their success need to
consider how their organizational
structure supports or obstructs
information flow—between
people and their systems.
Today’s pace of business
is decidedly faster than
that of 50 or even 10 years
ago. With the advent of
the personal computer, the
Internet, e-mail, bar-code
scanners, and radio frequency
identification (RFID), the
volume of information and
the opportunities to act
on it have required businesses
to push decision making
farther down the management
chain.
According
to researchers at MIT, companies
that have developed systems
that support the decentralization
of decision rights have
higher stock-market valuations
than their industry
peers.[7]
As the pace of change continues
to grow, companies that
empower their people to
act in the most informed
manner will continue to
put themselves at an advantage.
As the time
frame for making decisions
decreases and the amount
of information at hand continues
to increase, companies
must deploy the tools to
enable their people to succeed:
tools to help turn the noise
of constant information
into the music of knowledge.
Software has
the unique ability to amplify
people’s efforts,
capitalizing on their skills
and knowledge while providing
the flexibility that helps
companies adapt to change.
Software is a key component
of any people-ready business.
While organizational structure,
a clear understanding of
priorities, and engaged
and effective leadership
are prerequisites for a people-ready
business, providing people
with the right information
at the right time—and
the tools to act on that
information—is key
to turning business culture
into business results.
Software provides
the infrastructure, the
foundation for the most
important systems of any
business. Software also
makes the difference in
how useful those systems
are. Software captures
the relationships, intellectual
property, and processes
that underlay a business,
linking the ways that customers
interact with employees
and connecting the line-of-business
applications that they depend
on with various other systems
and information.
One
example of people using
familiar software as well
as connecting an application
to numerous data sources
comes from Microsoft. Like
many large companies, Microsoft
invested significantly in
customer relationship management
(CRM) to better understand
its customers. Microsoft
needed to make the customer
data in its multiple systems
more accessible and actionable
to the company’s 8,000-member
sales force. So Microsoft
developed Customer Explorer,
an application that brings
together multiple CRM systems
to provide a 360-degree
view of each customer. Salespeople
now can access and manage
customer data from the same
Microsoft®
Outlook®
messaging and collaboration
client that they use every
day.
By bringing
together the corporate systems
with the way that individuals
work, Microsoft helps its
salespeople spend more time
with customers, reduces
training time, and improves
the quality and quantity
of sales data as usage increases.
Salespeople are better
informed about their customers,
and Microsoft has a better
picture of its sales pipeline.
Over the past
30 years, Microsoft has
empowered people around
the globe with software,
making it increasingly easy
for them to use computers.
Today, our solutions are
helping companies such as
Dell, Hyundai, and Zurich
International Airport exceed
by empowering their people
in new and powerful ways.
Microsoft
is dedicated to developing
products that are manageable,
cost-effective, familiar,
and easy to use. Widely supported
by technology partners around
the globe, Microsoft software
is designed to work together
seamlessly as well
as be able to integrate
with other platforms and
applications.
Moving
forward, Microsoft is improving
on the ways that people
interact with software—from
the more intuitive user
experiences in the next
version of Microsoft Office
and the Windows Vista™
operating system to advances
in how system administrators
can securely and easily
update and maintain hundreds
of systems. Additionally,
Microsoft has worked with
industry leaders to develop
and promote computing standards
that ease the computer-to-computer
interactions and integration
that help drive the flow
of information throughout
business.
At Microsoft,
we are committed to developing
software products that help
people and businesses reach
their full potential. We
will continue to create
new products that push the
boundaries of what’s
possible. Having spent more
than U.S. $6 billion on
research and development
in the most recent fiscal
year (FY05) and with a commitment
to spend more than $40 billion
over the next five years,
Microsoft continues to lead
the industry in software
research. We are committed
to advancing technology
to better support and empower
the way that people work,
live, and play.
At
Microsoft, we are committed
to making outstanding software
and systems that connect
and inform, that can integrate,
evolve, and be customized
with the way you work and
the way your business works.
Software that
is, above all else, ready
for people. Software that
helps you, and your company,
realize your potential.
To
learn more about software
for the people-ready business
and to find out how people-ready
your company is, visit
www.microsoft.com/peopleready.
