OTISLINE

SOLUTION 1 - Elevator service market accounted for a significantly higher portion of profits as
compared to elevator manufacturer as they often accepted low margin to have an edge over
competitors. Otis being the leader had to innovate in the area to capture the future market share.
Elevator Service Company was selected on the basis of responsiveness, quality and price and
hence OTISLINE was a viable option to innovate and lead the market in these key criteria.
One of the major advantages of OTISLINE was the increase in focus of resources on the key
problem areas. OTISLINE divided the reporting of calls to various levels depending upon their
frequency, so higher the number of issues the higher will be the authority it will be reported to.
This system helped in highlighting the problem installations and has enhanced the ability to
quickly diagnose the problems.
The OTISLINE system had a potential of significant improvement in all the functions. In the
area of information systems it expanded the service management systems (SMS) by expanding it
to include all maintenance activity for elevators under a service contract which. It also reduces
the response time of the dispatcher to less than a second by engineering optimum data paths to
information.
In the area of customer service it provides a variety of statistics which helps in measuring the
dispatcher performance. The application also makes it easier to identify the building and the
elevator needing service through a series of questions.
Due to storage of data in a central database the quality and timeliness of information available to
management increases significantly.
OTISLINE also helps marketing through New Equipment Sales (NES) by providing the data on
elevator sales prospects. It also improves the responsiveness by automatically transferring the
call to an alternative person if the first one is unable to take the call which leads to a guaranteed
response time and increases the reliability of the service.
OTISLINE is a new information management system adopted by Otis that responded to
customer callbacks throughout the day (24 hours). It was implemented by a project team from
many functional areas including information services.
SOLUTION 2 - With OTISLINE, Service Management system of North American Operations
was expanded to include data about all the maintenance activity for elevators under a service
contract in addition to customer details and also improved service price estimation and added
new applications such as billing. OTISLINE application reduced the response time by providing
the dispatcher a local display and by engineering short data base paths to necessary information.
37 local terminals had been installed at the OTISLINE Service center which increased the
operations budget significantly
To accommodate customers with different backgrounds, languages and issues efficiently,
OTISLINE Service Centre was staffed by highly skilled dispatchers and about half of them had
college degrees and many spoke two languages. In spite of that they also receive four to six
weeks of in house training which includes, OTISLINE software handling, operation of phone
system, dealing with customers, organization structure and elevator terminologies and possible
problems to handle different circumstances. They were also trained to be courteous, sensitive,
and efficient and to speak clearly. With OTISLINE customer details are updated in the central
system which made the process easier during subsequent calls.

To increase dispatchers efficiency, each dispatcher was usually assigned only one function
during a shift in OTISLINE Service Center, say either accept calls, page service mechanics or to
handle new equipment sale etc., so, each callback request involved four OTISLINE dispatchers
to complete the process.
Despite the written callback reports and manual records, with OTSLINE, service mechanics
carried a pocket notebook, in which they recorded information on each service call and which
also consisted of list of questions they would need to answer to maintain history logs. All these
information were stored in a central computer, so the local offices need not keep manual records.
Elevator sales process was also modified through OTISLINE, where sales representatives
accessed the New Equipment Sales application by calling OTISLINE which eased the process.
SOLUTION 3 - Otis management has various ideas to further enhance its marketing of service,
Its plan to launch Remote Elevator Monitoring will increase the responsiveness and will
definitely differentiate it from its competitors. But at the same time it has to be careful about the
technical excellence, which may spoil the brand name if it fails. So, Otis should go for it but with
proper technical testing.
The company should go for a sequential implementation of proposed future applicationsas per
Mcfarlans strategic gridAPPLICATION
REM
In car phones
Hand held terminals
New equipment ordering

Contract management
Telemarketing

IMPACT ON CORE
OPERATION
High
High
Low
Low
Low
Low

IMPACT ON CORE CATEGORY

STRATEGY
Low
Factory
High
Strategic
Low
Support
Low
Support
High
Turnaround
High
Turnaround

Otis Elevators plan to introduce In Car phones though seems interesting, it adds less value to
the service and it is very complex to implement, so it should be implemented only if it can be
done with little effort. Replacement of Service Pagers with hand held terminals also seems
expensive (1980s) and it has little advantage, where pager can do the same work, so the
management should analyze its advantages completely before implementing it. New equipment
Ordering can be expanded which will reduce the delivery time and which will eventually
increase the brand image. Keeping a close eye on installation process is extremely important, so
placing a personal computer in the construction site will serve this purpose well. Telemarketing
of service will help to build better relationship with the customers, which is extremely important
to succeed in long run, so it must be implemented.
Apart from this, they can also use online services (present situation) to have better reach and to
compete with the competitors. But as of now, Otis management should not look for massive
expansion at a go, it should implement its most advantageous ideas initially and implement the
rest sequentially to avoid the risks