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Ralph’s blog helps team-working
Monday June 16th 2008. Posted: 09:50
A BT Operate senior manager’s visit to India to further develop the already highly successful working relationship between lead-to-cash’s UK and offshore teams, was closely followed in the UK on a daily basis thanks to his innovative use of a ‘blog’ or online diary.
Managing director of lead-to-cash Ralph Steffens’ most recent trip to India involved a lot more than his regular operational reviews with suppliers Wipro, Infosys and Tech Mahindra, which are an integral part of BT Operate’s ‘offshore’ service delivery team. While there Ralph led a number of ‘simply . . . the start’ events: BT Operate’s programme of employee engagement, designed to help people better understand the four key strategic objectives - competitiveness, excellence, pride and innovation - and how to improve the right first time and cycle time objectives. He also hosted a special event to recognise the offshore teams’ efforts in driving BT Operate’s service delivery backlog down to below ten per cent by the end of March, from a high of 47 per cent last September. “The event was a great success with the vast majority of the team attending. They are now already looking forward to the next such event which we’ve promised will happen if we can achieve a zero backlog, which I am convinced we will do in 2008-09,” wrote Ralph in his blog. And thanks to these daily updates the flow of information about the offshore teams’ work quickly became a two-way dialogue, with UK team members asking their managing director some searching questions, such as: “I wanted to get a flavour for the issues raised by our folks in India. Do they think we could do things better to help them achieve greater levels of customer service?” Ralph said that people’s initially negative views about lead-to-cash’s offshore operations have now given way to a desire for better team-working across the world - to really deliver improved customer service. “It was great to be able to get the ‘Simply’ message across first hand and to be there in person to recognise the efforts put in by our offshore teams in Pune and Bangalore - they really appreciate and respond to such events. I was also able to share their success in real time with colleagues in the UK via my blog,” he added.
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Last updated:
08:55