Increasing Productivity in the Customer-Facing Environment

Abstract

This chapter describes one of the three case studies designed to evaluate and exploit novel information management technology from the ACTIVE project. The applications are designed to support professionals working in telecommunications to respond to customer requirements, for example to create customer proposals. The quality and timeliness of those proposals, and of their response to customers in general, are key to success in a very demanding business environment. Our goal in this case study was to determine how ACTIVE technology can help these people to help their customers better. A main task of the prospective users, who interact directly with customers, is to understand customer requirements and translate those requirements into customer proposals. AKWS, a tool for managing information, was recognized to include effective context-based information delivery features, including the use of machine intelligence, which the users consider valuable in helping to combat information overload and mitigate the disruptive effect of changes of task focus. The Bid Unit Wiki was designed for a team in a central bid proposal unit whose job was to coordinate the creation of large business proposals, i.e. proposals which were too complex for the first group to create on their own. The users found the SMW valuable as a tool for collaboration between the bid team and the technical specialists who contributed to the proposals.