Call Centres R Us — Company information
Table of contents
Company background
Strategic plans and business goals
IT strategy
Company structure
Managers’ roles
Other staff
Current staff list
Head Office (Sydney) staff list (incl.senior staff)
Current list of user accounts
IT systems
Telecommunications support
Business services support
Call Centre support
Operations support
Computer workstations
Workstation hardware
Operating systems
Networks
Naming convention
Companybackground
Judy Jones founded the company about five years ago. Judy had been a call centre manager for a large insurance company and saw the potential for developing call centres for the SME (Small/Medium Enterprises) market. She approached three smaller insurance companies and persuaded them to finance her business and become shareholders in the company. The first call centre was opened in Sydney and was an instant success.
Judy was able to sell the concept to many other organisations and now there are over two hundred clients using Call Centres R Us.
The company has always exploited the services that the Telco companies provide and call centres have been opened in Hobart and Darwin, as infrastructure and staff costs are cheaper in those cities. The first call centre has remained in Sydney partially for sentimental reasons but also to supply marketing and head office services. All future telecommunications equipment growth is expected to be in Tasmania and the Northern Territory.
There are also marketing offices in Melbourne and Brisbane. Judy has recently been travelling to Singapore and New Zealand to evaluate the call centre market in these countries.
Strategic plans and business goals
Call Centres R Us has been fortunate to be involved in an industry that has seen double-digit growth over the last decade. The company has seen growth rates of 50% during the last few years. However, this growth can only be sustained with careful planning and by ensuring that they provide customers with the products and services that they require.
Recently the senior management team met to formulate the business strategy for the company for the next three years. Management has set the goal of trebling the customer base within three years but quadrupling the profit. This will be achieved by:
- providing call centre services overseas
- becoming more efficient
- offering additional services to existing customers, and
- increasing the number of Australian customers.
When the company achieves this target it is its intention to become a public company and seek a listing on the stock exchange.
IT strategy
In order to meet these challenging goals management recognises that the business infrastructure must be sound and can support the increased business. There will be a need to invest in new IT systems to ensure that core business systems are effective and to provide new and improved services. They will be looking at e-commerce services and other methods to improve communications with customers, staff, suppliers and carriers.
In addition they will be investigating the way they can make use of new developments and technologies in telecommunications and call centre areas. The strategy requires them to stay abreast of developments in technologies such as VOIP (Voice Over IP), virtual call centres, CTI (Computer Telephony Integration) and to identify commercial opportunities.
Company structure
The company believes in a flat management structure. Staff are encouraged to seek out senior management to voice any concerns or problems. The following organisation chart shows the responsibilities of senior management at head office.
Organisation chart for Call Centres R Us
Managers’ roles
The roles and areas of responsibility for some of the key managers are as follows:
Manager / Title / Roles and ResponsibilitiesJenny Brown / Financial Director /
- All the accounting and financial reporting for the company.
- Approvals of all major expenditure.
Cathy Young / Services Director /
- All corporate services and administration services.
- Works closely with all Directors and managers to ensure that the company has the appropriate resources in place to meet its objectives.
- Both the Information Technology (IT) Manager and Human Resources Manager report directly to her.
Daniel Zhou / Telecommunications Director /
- All research into emerging technologies that could be used by the business
- Research into strategies associated with the networking and infrastructure required for the organisation.
- Works closely with the IT department who is responsible for the technology once it is adopted by the organisation.
- Works closely with Sales & Marketing
Sam King / Marketing Manager /
- All sales and marketing activities.
- Development of new markets, identification of prospective clients and promotion of services is also included in Sam’s area.
- Works closely with Daniel Zhou to highlight emerging client needs and thus enable Daniel to address strategies to meet these needs.
- Oversees the staff in two interstate Marketing offices—Melbourne and Brisbane. He travels regularly to meet with these people
Other staff
The following table summarises the distribution of staff in the various offices of the organisation.
Function / Location / Manager / StaffHead office—Core management and operations / Sydney / (see organisation chart) / 17
Marketing / Sydney / Sam King / 8
Call Centre / Sydney / Lisa Thorn / 60
Call Centre / Hobart / Greg Hinds / 240
Call Centre / Darwin / Pat Violoski / 100
Marketing / Melbourne / Sam King / 5
Marketing / Brisbane / Sam King / 3
The Call Centres run twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week (24/7) and there are three or more shifts.
Current staff list
Head Office (Sydney) staff list (incl.senior staff)
Name / Date leftJudy Jones
Jenny Brown
Daniel Zhou
Cathy Young
Sam King
Chris White
Joan Tyler
Lisa Thorn
Greg Hinds
Pat Violoski
Mike Aherns
John Alderson
Sou Asfour / 31/3/02
Eddy Bastian
Jenny Bell
Kay Blake
Joan Campbell
Suguna Chetsang
Harry Cowling / 28/2/02
Sanjeev Dhingra
Bill Dymble
David Egan
Mat Erickson
Sally Evans
Liz Fattore
Brian Ferry
John Flemming
Henry Ford
Neil Gabb / 30/10/02
Aristofanis Georgiou
Barry Gleeson
Brenda Grainger
Mark Hackett
Jo Hammond
George Harrison
Karen Hayes
Gary Hewitt
Reg Hollis
Bob Hope / 25/12/01
Jei Huang
Stephan Inglis
Mick Jagger
Billie Jeans
Jeff Johnson
Brian Jones / 12/5/01
Current list of user accounts
NameAdministrator
Suguna Chetsang
Aristofanis Georgiou
Barry Gleeson
Bill Dymble
Billie Jeans
Bob Hope
Brenda Grainger
Brenda Granger
Brian Ferry
Brian Jones
Cathy Young
Jenny Bell
Chris White
Chris Young
Contractors
Daniel Zhou
David Egan
Eddy Bastian
Gary Hewitt
George Harrison
Greg Hinds
Guest
Harry Cowling
Mark Hackett
Henry Ford
Jeff Johnson
Jei Huang
Jenny Brown
Jo Hammond
Joan Cambell
Joan Campbell
Joan Tyler
John Alderson
John Flemming
Judy Jones
Kay Blake
Karen Hayes
Lisa Thorn
Liz Fattore
Mat Erickson
Mick Jagger
Mike Aherns
Neil Gabb
Pat Violoski
Paul Jones
Stephan Inglis
Reg Hollis
Sally Evans
Sam King
Sanjeev Dhingra
Sou Asfour
Test
IT systems
IT systems are critical to the smooth running of Call Centres R US. There are two main categories of system as shown in the figure below. These are telecommunications support and business services support.
Organisation chart for IT systems
Telecommunications support
Telecommunications support is in the form of Switches, Automatic Call Distributors (ACD), and Voice Response Units (VRU), which are used to gather call statistics and to program the relative devices. The software used is very specialised and usually supplied by the vendor of the communications equipment.
Business services support
The business services support also falls into two main categories—Call Centre Support and Operations Support.
Call Centre support
The software in the Call Centre allows the staff (referred to as agents) to view and update details about their callers. For example, an insurance company customer may call with a query about a claim. The agent taking the call can see the claim details on their computer and discuss the problem with the caller. Additional information can be added and details of the call recorded.
Some of this software is provided by the customer and it links back to their IT systems, Some of the smaller companies are happy to let Call Centres R Us select the appropriate software and share a database with other customers.
Operations support
Call Centres R Us also requires software to run the business. This includes office suites of software and a specially written billing system that links to a standard accounting package.
Computer workstations
The distribution of PCs in the organisation is as follows:
Location / Number of workstationsSydney Head Office and Marketing / 32
Sydney Call Centre / 26
Darwin Call Centre / 41
Hobart Call Centre / 101
Melbourne Marketing / 5
Brisbane Marketing / 3
Note that:
- All managers, head office, and marketing staff have a PC on their desk.
- All Call Centre agents require access to a PC.
- Since the Call Centres are staffed 24 hours a day, seven days per week, the number of workstations required in the centres is far lower than the total number of staff.
Workstation hardware
There is a range of PC hardware throughout the organisation. Most are in the range of Pentium II to Pentium III computers, with a minimum 166MHz. Older machines may only have 64MB of RAM, some have 128, but all newer computers have 256MB of RAM. Disk sizes range from 2GB to 40GB with again the newer computers having the larger capacity. All disks have over 700 MB of free space. However, all staff are encouraged to store files on the network server where this is available.
Operating systems
There is also a variety of operating systems throughout the whole company. This includes Windows 98, Windows NT Workstation, and Windows 2000 Professional. They are distributed as follows:
Operating system / No of PCsWindows 98 / 20
Windows NT Workstation / 90
Windows 2000 Professional / 100
Networks
To support Head Office operations there is an NT network running in Head Office with a single file server. This is a PIII 750MHZ with SCSI disks and a total capacity of 50GB. There is a tape backup unit in the server. Connection is 10BaseT Ethernet.
The Sydney Call Centre has a separate network to support its operations, and has a duplexed-pair file server.
In all, the Call Centres are supported by seven Windows NT Servers.
The computers in the Melbourne and Brisbane sales offices run Windows 98 and are linked in a peer-to-peer network.
Naming convention
To identify all hardware and resources on the network, a standard naming convention is used. The table below describes this convention.
Part of Name / Description / ExamplesFirst 2 characters / Type of device / FS – File Server
WS – Work station
PR – Printer
Next 2 characters / Location / SY – Sydney
HO – Hobart
DA – Darwin
Next 2 characters / Department / AC – Accounts
HR – Human Resources
CC – Call Centre
Following characters / Depends upon item. For file servers and workstations there will be a 3-digit number. For printers, up to 8 characters can be used to uniquely describe the type of printer. / WSSY001
PRHOLJ001
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