Managing Technology:

The case of RusticAmerican

Edited by Mihdi Kholrow, D.B.A.

You have been selected to be the acting CIO for a subsidiary of Largo Corporation
called RusticAmerican. Its primary products include arts and crafts that reflect the
history, geography, folklore and cultural heritage of the United States. It specializes in
direct marketing and sales through its call center. Sales are through a web store, a brick
and mortar store, and a direct mail catalogue. All services are housed under one roof
that include warehousing, order fulfillment, shipping, corporate management and
operations, and the call center. The success of the company hinges on its eye-catching
direct mail catalogue and the unique product line.
Unfortunately, annual sales have declined over the years due largely due to internal
issues. The previous CIO was terminated some say due to incompetence primarily
related to the underperforming call center. In addition, speculation swirled around the
activities of the CIO. He was often absent from the building. He secluded himself behind
the closed door of his office. Associated rumors mounted, and it was believed that he
was running a consulting business on company time. When the RusticAmerican CEO
asked him about this during a formal review, the CIO answered that it was a weekend
hobby that kept him abreast of emerging technologies. The CEO asked him if one of
their competitors was a client and he vehemently denied the accusation. Yet her gut
reaction was that the CIO was not being entirely truthful with her.
Call Center Mismanagement
Managing a call center demands a wide range of skills including managerial,
troubleshooting, patience and being cool under pressure. Knowledge of computer and
communications skills is helpful but most call centers have a technical support division.
The call center manager is Anita Chegen she has been in the job for about 2 months.
The customer service representative (CSR) in the call center responds to a call for
product. On the customer management system (CMS), the CSR collects and directly
enters customer information; on a separate inventory management system (IMS), the
CSR looks up the product, and verifies if the warehouse has it in stock. If it does, the
order is entered on the CMS, and the CSR decreases the inventory on the IMS. On the

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CMS, the CSR creates an order fulfillment ticket that is automatically shuttled to the
warehouse processing clerk who prints it and then generates the shipping label. The
shipping label is prepared through a web-based system through either UPS or USPS,
which also produces a tracking number used by both the company and the customer.
The processing clerk enters the shipping costs and tracking number into the CMS. The
customer is billed when the order ships.
The warehouse crew uses bar code scanners to track merchandise; once the order is
selected, it moves along a conveyor to a shipping clerk who packages the order, affixes
the shipping label, scans the bar code, and places the package into a bin for delivery
pick-up. The final scan automatically enters the dollar amounts into the system for
billing.
An old UNIX system is used to manage inventory. Data input clerks entered information
on new merchandise into it, CSRs referred to it for product data, and if the product was
on hand, it produced an order processing form which was sent to the warehouse for
processing. The CSR could reduce the inventory through the terminal on their desk. The
problem they experienced was a refresh rate on volatile inventory. It was a common
occurrence that a customer would be told the product would ship when it was in fact
depleted by other CSRs.
There were conflicting views on the party responsible for upgrading the systems. The
former CIO believed the call center manager needed to take the lead on upgrading
operations, while the call center manager complained that this was an IT problem and
she could not tolerate downtime. To add to the fray, the Chief Financial Officer balked at
the cost associated with this investment. The CEO did not feel the urgency and leaned
to the CFO for advice.
Staffing the call center is the responsibility of the call center manager. Ms. Chegen uses
past volume experience to make sure there were sufficient CSRs on hand. She kept a
list of on-call CSRs for unanticipated business. Her staffing limit was the number of
stations with computer access to the servers. The call center uses a Cisco Voice over
Internet Protocol (VoIP) phone system. The phone system runs on two standalone
servers -- one for call routing and the other for voicemail. There is a dedicated toll free
number into the center, and the system is programmed with an auto-attendant to direct
calls. The volume of calls is a problem, and the number of lines is less than the number
of agents available to take calls during high volume periods. This is because there is a
per-trunk monthly service charge and the call center cannot adjust the number of trunks
based on periodic demand. When the caller is placed in queue, the standard practice is
to limit the length of the average call to six rings. The phone system requires a local
coaxial cable Internet service to supply broadband. Phones are connected to the

Copyright 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written
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network architecture using standard Cat5 copper cabling which routes phone traffic to
the call center.
Under this approach, there have been issues with quality of service. The former CIO
was fond of saying problems with the cable company when things went wrong. There
was no effort to track downtime. During these downtimes the entire call center
becomes idle and revenue is lost. Because the Internet is tied to the same cable
service, web services were also down. The RusticAmerican CEO felt that the lack of
access discouraged new customers, but no data was collected to indicate a correlation
between downtimes and sales decline.
Inside the building there is an application server, a server for Microsoft Outlook email,
the web server, and the typical complement of routers and switches. The former CIO
used a variety of hardware from different vendors. When broadband cable services are
up, bandwidth is not a problem, except when the former CIO allowed employees to
stream movies during their breaks to boost morale. Employees routinely used their
workstations to check personal email, and to manage their social networking accounts.
There was a problem with one employee posting unflattering comments about the
company that resulted in a severe reprimand.
The data systems for the call center are setup as follows. The center has two data
servers. One data server has a UNIX operating system, and it runs Oracle database
technology. The second server is a Microsoft operating system, and it runs SQL
database technology. The two data servers are accessed via 40 workstations in the call
center. It is staffed 24/7 but is closed on major holidays. The call center also contains
10 additional older workstations, which are used by data input clerks to update inventory
when ordered and upon arrival this inventory was verified and bar code tagged with
local stock inventory labels.
CSRs use a "homegrown" customer support application developed in house which uses
a generic Oracle Forms interface. The former CIO did not believe in "bells and whistles"
of modern Customer Resource Management (CRM) systems -- besides, the Director of
Marketing did not understand the value of CRM, the CFO was not persuaded to make
the software and hardware investments, and the RusticAmerican CEO held
stereotypical, non-strategic views of customers. The inability to do their required work
was a constant complaint of agents. Moreover, there is no technology infrastructure in
place to support mobile computing such as staff use of tablets or (more critical) a
wireless interface on bar code scanners used in the warehouse.
Opportunity for a new manager
Understanding technology management is important to an IT professional because in
this environment, as would be true of most corporate environments, computer-based

Copyright 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written
permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.

information systems are at the core of an efficient and competitive service delivery.
Effective leadership requires the identification of problems, the resolution of those
problems, an eye on the future of the corporation and its profit, and transparency
through communication with peers and subordinates. You have been asked by the
Corporate CEO to fix the problems created by the former CIOs perceived
mismanagement of the IT operations and resources. In particular, you need to address
the numerous complaints about the call center regarding its poor service such as
delayed shipping and failure to notify when a product is out of stock.
The CEO asked that a plan be prepared and presented for effectively managing the
companys IT operations specifically its call center. The plan should strive for an
alignment of technology with the business needs. Within RusticAmerican, there is a
Chief Financial Officer, a Director of Marketing, a Direct Sales Director and the usual
departments. You are the acting CIO, and as such, you have your own staff of ten
which includes an assistant who handles staff management and equipment orders, a
network engineer for each of the three critical systems, a systems analyst, a web server
programmer, and four desktop support technicians.
This plan focuses on what it takes to manage technical operations. You plan will be
about creating reliable feedback mechanisms for difficulties at all levels of enterprise
Information Technology interface. This includes timely discovery of technology related
issues, resolution of these issues, creating a culture of trust and dependence, informing
staff of your activities, and developing strategic plans for reducing bottlenecks in the
future.

Copyright 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written
permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.