- Major industry restructure – Definition, negotiation and delivery of service level agreements to support water industry transformation in Ireland
- Consortium major UK Telcos – Delivery of an independent assessment of cost impact of regulatory proposals for industry change to ensure correct decisions taken and appropriate budgets allocated
- Neareast Telco - Business plan and market entry strategy for Turkey to become the ‘location of choice’ for the offshore contact centre outsourcing and grow GDP by 3-4%
- Ofgem – Provided assurance to the government and industry that preparations for the introduction of competition would result in a smoothly customer and market operations
- HMG – Energy/FS – Delivering a detailed design for partner relationship and other business functions to accelerated delivery of a complex multiparty start up
- Altnet/Mobile, ESAT – Facilitated planning for a joint venture, subsequently executed, to use railway telecoms assets in Ireland to establish a national SDH network, working with senior technical, marketing and financial managers
- Major utility – Accelerating an outsource transaction, informing decision making with best practice prior to a 2,500 seat outsource.
- Major Telco – Provided advice to reduce risk after assessing the operations, cost base and key contracts of Panamanian customer operations, for business operating in a highly competitive market
- Major Telco, UK – Review of value - for-money and operation of customer service outsourcing contracts to assess scope for reducing operating cost through price reduction or more rigorous application of service credit regimes in the contracts
- nPower – Reducing the risk of repeat multimillion pound fines by the regulator for mis-selling by advising on new supplier and contract
- HMRC – Researched experience in FS and outsourcing organisations with front and back office integration, to apply it to its problems in delivering a reasonable customer experience efficiently and lower cost
- Premium TV – As part of a start up to deliver tax benefits, seconded to run customer services to ensure compliance to tax effcient model, also delivering £2m cost saving in outsource contract
- Utility – Resolved resource issues caused by business preparation workload from major change programme by procuring flexible outsourced service with guaranteed quality at costs 60% below more risky UK internal options
- HMG – Emergency intervention to assess failing outsource provider, identify and recommend improvement actions and provide a view on long term prospects to inform contractual decisions
- Barclays/GHL – Completed integration of Woolwich & Barclays mortgage customer operations, reducing cost. Led team to deliver data conversion, improved processes and new servicing, direct debit and other applications
- HMG Department of Heath – Advised on the definition, procurement and contract negotiation of a solution to meet volatile, large scale, pandemic-driven demand
- HMG Department of Health – Improved customer service through competition and innovative service design, leading strategy development and advising on procurement of £50m contract for outsourced contact centre services
- BBC – Advised the BBC on integration of BskyB services, customer and operational processes to enable it to use digital satellite broadcasting within its delivery infrastructure
- Major Tech retailer – Repairing a failing outsource deal and preparing for a future replacement solution
- Fraud investigator – Design of commercial model and contract schedules to support the replacement of incumbent service providers of outsourced ICT and contact centre services
- Ingeus – Design of target operating model to drive cost out and performance up in outsourced probation services
- Emergency intervention to assess failing outsource service provider, identify and recommend improvement actions and provide a view on long term prospects to inform contractual decisions
- Call centre change
Government agency
Controlling the outfall from a failing outsourcer
A government agency administers a number of means tested awards to enable less fortunate members of society to develop their skills and competencies. A poorly performing outsourcer, responsible on behalf of the Agency for application processing and provision of Helpline call centre services over the phone, was delivering a very bad service and customer experience. PwC needed to provide advice on actions required for turning the service around, decision support on whether to terminate the contract and advice on a ‘step in’ strategy, in case insolvency of the outsourcer drove a need for an emergency intervention.
David was responsible for reviewing call centre operations, visiting five sites, interviewing key staff and reviewing the use of operational tools, for example on operational demand forecasting and resourcing. He identified serious weaknesses across the operations. David prepared a report with the three objectives: (1) provide clear recommendations for input to a joint planning workshop to mobilise the outsourcer to improve; (2) provide a baseline description of the current situation, ‘for the record’ in case a view was required as part of contractual discussions or legal proceedings; and, (3) provide guidance on the actions required should it be necessary to ‘step in’ and replace Outsourcer management.
David’s report and workshop with the outsourcer and the Agency resulted in a commitment from the outsourcer to deliver the required improvements across five action prongs. However, David’s assessment of the call centre, along with PwC assessments of application processing and the business solvency resulted in a decision to terminate and migrate the current operations to the management of a new outsourcer. Upon taking control, the outsourcer was able to use David’s recommendations and advice to make rapid service improvements.
