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Ticked Off at Tick the Box Mentality 04/02/2008 13:01:15
Does your executive search firm know the difference between an MIS manager and a CIO, and if it does, can it explain that difference to its corporate clients?Does your executive search firm know its MIS managers from its elbow? Does it even know the difference between an MIS manager and a CIO, and if it does, can it explain that difference to its corporate clients? - +
Strangers in a Strange Land 11/12/2006 13:40:29
James Brown sang it so long ago: It's a man's, man's, man's world! Can it still be so? In IT, absolutely - +
Close Fast, Close Smart 26/02/2007 11:24:37
When it comes to closing the books, the benefits of speed are undeniable. And CIOs are uniquely positioned to help their organizations reap themAs long as they're meeting their regulatory reporting deadlines, most enterprises don't think a lot about closing their books more quickly.
Maybe they should start.
Increasingly, the speed with which an organization closes its books and reports its financial results is being looked at by practitioners, analysts and investors as a defining metric for evaluating whether the organization possesses the best possible processes and enabling technologies. And it turns out that many companies don't, even those making huge IT investments and supporting equally large IT departments. - +
The Subsidiary Sandwich 03/04/2007 13:57:53
CIOs in subsidiary offices of global corporations often report to both the local CEO and the international CIO. Serving two masters can be liberating or a liability. A look at the chance and challenge of running a subsidiary’s ITFor most CIOs the buck stops with them when it comes to delivering appropriate, robust information services for the business. But for the CIOs of subsidiaries of multinationals, many IT decisions and deals are nutted out overseas by global CIOs. Subsidiary CIOs are left to execute and operate - +
When Egos Dare 05/06/2007 10:17:02
For some observers and practitioners, the federated model brings the best elements of centralization and decentralization to the IT table. Others aren’t so sure . . .The monarch was dead. Demoralized and shaken, the organization spent time mourning for a popular and high-profile CIO who had reigned for many years. Then, with time starting to dull the pain, the young princes began sharpening their knives, sensing their best opportunity in years to seize power
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Telecom New Zealand has implemented new-generation speech recognition IVR technology with a $40,000 pilot project aimed at streamlining call centre operations.
Overlaid speech recognition technology replaces touchtone IVR, enabling call routing based on identification of predefined phrases extracted from freely spoken requests. It aims to minimize zero-outs (callers leaving the system to talk to an agent) and reduce incoming call centre requests.
The company's channel strategy manager, Hamish Stewart, said the system has handled about 75,000 calls since going online, used skills-based routing to reduce transfer calls by half, and improve stability in the contact centre rather than lower headcounts.
"The back-end information in the old IVR was good, but the customer still had find their own way around a complex IVR and this created routing issues" Stewart said. "This is typical of many traditional IVRs and is the motivation behind speech recognition."
To ensure "grandparents could use the system", thousands of pre-recorded phrases recognizing linguistic request variations were built in, while the option to speak to an agent at any time was maintained.
The system, implemented by Genesys, Gen-i and Tuvox has since reduced agent-bound calls by 10 percent, is delivering the expected ROI, and increased self service by about 20 percent.
"If transfers were to drop by 50 percent [the system] would pay for itself," Stewart said, adding departments have stopped receiving misdirected calls. IVR technology is becoming mainstream as telecommunications providers, government agencies and pizza franchises begin to pilot speech recognition software in the call centre.
With some 50 local enterprises embracing speech-enhanced IVR, including Telstra, Centrelink, the Australian Tax Office and Dominos Pizza, Stewart said a notable exception is the banks which have been slow to adopt speech recognition even though the sector pioneered basic touchtone IVR.
"They have been slow to adopt speech [overlaid] IVR because they are confident they have self-service nailed," Stewart said, adding that IVR needs meet constantly rising consumer expectations.
Genesys Asia Pacific senior vice president James Brooks agreed, saying while speech technology adoption is three times that of recent years, he "has not seen any banks in Australia embrace speech overlaid IVR".
Stewart said the technology could see local call centres agents migrate to technical positions, with general zero-out agents offshored.
Computerworld Member Login
Beyond Virtualisation - The Roadmap to 2012
CIO Breakfast Briefing
8:30am - 10:30am
Brisbane | 22 July | Sofitel Brisbane
Sydney | 23 July | Four Seasons Hotel
Canberra | 24 July | The Hyatt
Attend and discover:
- What happens after virtualisation
- The benefits automation drives
- When automated infrastructures will emerge
- What the roadmap to 2012 looks like
- How to deliver an automated architecture
- How to maximise your investment in virtualisation
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Computerworld Live Podcast #96: Security at the Edge 11/06/2008 09:22:22
CW Live speaks with Amol Mitra, HP ProCurve Director of Marketing for Asia Pacific and Japan. Today's topic: how enterprises are starting to shift away from simply controlling security via server logins, firewalls and moving to more adaptive security frameworks. - +
Data Management Edition #10: Multi-Petascale Systems 02/05/2008 09:12:33
This week we look at sustainability and the development of multicore technologies to build multi-petascale systems. - +
IT Security Edition #11: How to poison the Storm botnet 01/05/2008 08:51:55
This week CW Live presents a case study on how to poison the notorious Storm botnet . Plus we take a look at Cisco's plans for Ironport. - +
IT Security Edition #10: Cyber-battles fought and won 24/04/2008 11:09:47
Vendors bow to end user pressure to improve product security, and we take a look at the latest concepts shaping the cyber-battlefield of the future. - +
Data Management Edition #9: Data centre makeover 24/04/2008 07:43:06
This week CW Live looks at the death of the old style data centre which is undergoing its first makeover in more than 30 years.
Ballarat Grammar Improves Student Access to Computer Based Learning with HP ProCurve 2008-07-04 16:49:00+10
Media release: 40 Per Cent of Australian Businesses Do Not Validate Their Data 2008-07-04 10:29:00+10
Kaseya helps turbo charge BlueFire’s service delivery model 2008-07-03 17:23:00+10
Computershare Selects Symantec for Data Loss Prevention Globally 2008-07-03 14:52:00+10
DST International moves to new Shanghai office 2008-07-03 13:21:00+10
How to Protect Business from Malware at the Endpoint and the Perimeter
Financial motives are triggering a massive explosion of malware variants and spam designed to evade traditional signature-based detection mechanisms. Protect your organization against Malware with four essential tips and best practices from independent industry research analyst firms worldwide.
