Harvard Business Review

MAY 2, 2012

A few years ago, toy maker Lego worked with engineers at MIT to develop software and motor inserts that would allow customers to propel the toys they built with the firm's building blocks. As MIT engineer Eric von Hippel wryly commented, "I'm from MIT so I can do the math. In effect, they could now build robots.

Company 14

Company Software Call Center Innovation 14

Harvard Business Review

DECEMBER 18, 2013

New businesses are cropping up to reinvent the recruiting process, blending data from social media sites to create profiles of coders, programmers and software engineers so that companies hoping to hire can search for candidates that have the skills they desire. People Analytics . Mobile Recruiting Apps.

Company 12

Company Media Engineering Software 12

Terry Starbucker

SEPTEMBER 6, 2015

That customer’s trouble call got escalated, correctly, to one of our engineers in the NOC. The engineer did the requisite troubleshooting, and determined that they needed to reverse some of the network programming that was done the night before to fix it. We can’t fire that engineer Terry”. “I The bottom line was this –.

How To 150

How To Leadership Engineering Bottom-up 150

Harvard Business Review

AUGUST 5, 2015

The median age is 24, and local universities produce over 130,000 graduates in information technology and engineering each year. Generations of Filipinos have been raised on Hollywood movies, Friends , the NBA, and of course, Facebook. Most are skilled in the more ubiquitous programming languages and producing iOS and Android apps.

Outsourcing 8

Outsourcing Technology B2B GDP 8

Harvard Business Review

OCTOBER 30, 2014

The hope, at least for cutting-edge bosses, is that technology will enable them to measure, predict, and manage employees’ job performance, not just in call centers and manufacturing plants, but also in creative, complex, and knowledge-intensive jobs. We created them to extend ourselves, and that is what is unique about human beings.”

Talent Management 11

Talent Management Human Resources Taylorism Taylor 11

Harvard Business Review

JANUARY 17, 2013

Most IT professionals have engineering, computer science, and math backgrounds. They also spend time in the field with inspectors (who conduct tax investigations) and call-center staffers (who negotiate with taxpayers). Accordingly, it's crucial to understand how people create and use information.

Project 8

Project Call Center Information Retail 8

Harvard Business Review

NOVEMBER 7, 2014

I started in the call center,” a CEO from a financial services business unit told us. “I When we talked to a leader in an engineering department about why he thought he was regarded as an engaging leader, his thoughtfulness about human relationships came through. Formative early experiences.

Workshop 14

Workshop Restructuring CEO Morale 14

Harvard Business Review

NOVEMBER 7, 2014

I started in the call center,” a CEO from a financial services business unit told us. “I When we talked to a leader in an engineering department about why he thought he was regarded as an engaging leader, his thoughtfulness about human relationships came through. Formative early experiences.

Workshop 14

Workshop Restructuring CEO Morale 14

Harvard Business Review

MAY 3, 2018

In fact, the bulk of the calls was the farmers’ inquiring about the operator’s family, personal interests, and other life events. Over time, many farmers had built close relationships with the call center operators; the calls were something of a ritual that they looked forward to.

Simon 8

Simon Call Center Motivation Metrics 8

Harvard Business Review

DECEMBER 6, 2012

One success story occurred when a front-line associate in a call center posted online she didn't like a new process. Google's engineering culture is a good example of a management system geared for speed. The senior leader saw the comment on their social platform and asked "why not?"

Process 8

Process Examples Strategy Six Sigma 8

Harvard Business Review

NOVEMBER 13, 2013

From engineer to call center employee, people loved being at Zappos. Maybe, but there is no doubt that an embedded engineering hierarchy and an intrinsic appreciation for jumping ship to pursue the next big idea will make it more challenging. For example, Tony Hsieh built a family at Zappos.

Entrepreneur 8

Entrepreneur Venture Funding Finance Engineering 8

Harvard Business Review

JUNE 16, 2016

Since 2011, General Electric has publicly stated it would spend more than $1 billion on developing sensors, wireless devices, and related software to install on its aircraft engines, power turbines, locomotive trains and other machinery. The call center logs customer complaints.

Productivity 8

Productivity Products Wireless Technology 8

Harvard Business Review

FEBRUARY 9, 2011

Even the internet search engine I use is not very smart — it's just a fancy look-up mechanism. The iConsumer generation will become increasingly intolerant of complex user interfaces, no matter where they are located — a car's GPS system, a call center, or even a household appliance.

CIO 14

CIO System Project Call Center 14

Harvard Business Review

APRIL 17, 2015

We also found that the professionals we spoke with at Accenture, in offices on three continents, consistently lauded the firm for its willingness to support innovations, from Accenture Development Partnerships to professional programs for First Peoples in Canada and support for call centers in native communities.

Innovation 8

Innovation Company Supply Chain Open-book 8

Harvard Business Review

JUNE 26, 2015

For example, the skills and knowledge required to be a good neurosurgeon are quite different from those needed to be a good lawyer, banker, or software engineer.) Large call centers are pioneers in this area — for years, they’ve tracked the number of calls and breaks employees take and the customer ratings for each call.

Ethics 8

Ethics Emotional Intelligence Benchmarking Hotels 8

Strategy Driven

DECEMBER 3, 2019

These new capabilities connect to the work we’ve done over the past several decades inside our enterprises to automate processes with tools — such as accounting systems, supply chain, call center, and such. That requires a new way of thinking about people and leadership.

Agility 65

Agility Banking Supply Chain CTO 65

Harvard Business Review

APRIL 7, 2016

The geofilters combined amusing visuals and messages with the web address of Snapchat’s job page, all in the hope that a Twitter engineer taking a quick Snapchat break might come across the targeted “Fly Higher!” ” message and think, Hey, maybe it’s time for a change.

Marketing 8

Marketing Strategy Hammer Media 8

Harvard Business Review

MAY 8, 2017

On a separate track, he launched the device and content ecosystem, starting with iPod and iTunes, that would become the company’s new growth engine. In this way, Nadella was unlike his predecessors, in that he built his reputation as a hands-on engineer, not as a visionary like Bill Gates or a Type-A salesman like Steve Ballmer.

Franchising 15

Franchising CEO Business Model Strategy 15

Harvard Business Review

NOVEMBER 6, 2015

The FTC saw this happening already in 2007 and proposed “to create a national Do Not Track List similar to the national Do Not Call list.” Soon Microsoft and Apple built support for Do Not Track in their Web browsers.

Advertising 8

Advertising CRM Long-term Short-term 8

Harvard Business Review

JUNE 20, 2014

When Deborah DiSanzo took over as CEO of Philips Healthcare in May 2012, she knew that engineering would continue to drive innovation. But she also realized that the company needed to develop greater marketing muscle to drive a commercial transformation. As she put it, “Our markets are going through dynamic change.

CEO 8

CEO Marketing Hotels Long-term 8

Harvard Business Review

JUNE 11, 2012

Khoja recalls his chief technology officer, Eric Chapman, announcing a week into the search that they were going to have to choose their engineers in a different way. Four million subscribers later, Khoja was running the largest company in Afghanistan and still marveling: " Those were our engineers."

Innovation 15

Innovation Chief Technology Officer Engineering Disruptive Innovation 15

Harvard Business Review

JUNE 7, 2017

With automated pricing engines, insurers and banks can roll out new offers as fast as online competitors. Artificial intelligence systems make a huge difference when unstructured data such as social media, call center notes, images, or open-ended surveys are also required to reach a judgment.

Company 13

Company Telecommunications Retail Supply Chain 13

Harvard Business Review

JUNE 11, 2012

Khoja recalls his chief technology officer, Eric Chapman, announcing a week into the search that they were going to have to choose their engineers in a different way. Four million subscribers later, Khoja was running the largest company in Afghanistan and still marveling: " Those were our engineers."

Innovation 11

Innovation Chief Technology Officer Engineering Disruptive Innovation 11

Harvard Business Review

AUGUST 23, 2017

For computing, he relied on Amazon Web Services and Google Compute Engine. The company got its start after Jack Abraham, a former eBay executive and entrepreneur, founded ZenReach, a Phoenix company that connects online and offline commerce, in part through extensive call centers.

Company 12

Company Training Technology Wireless 12

Harvard Business Review

SEPTEMBER 18, 2015

and China, it has a large population of engineers and factory workers, its intellectual property is widely respected, and it is easy to find English-speaking managers there. company Cummins does manufacture its engines, generators, and turbochargers there to export across the globe. Courtesy of Abbott.

Supply Chain 8

Supply Chain Decentralization Automotive Globalization 8

Harvard Business Review

MAY 28, 2014

It’s an old-school idea common to technology companies as far back as the 1980’s, akin to “we know more about the engineers that work for our competitors than they do.”.

Supply Chain 8

Supply Chain Policies Sample Human Resources 8

Harvard Business Review

AUGUST 19, 2013

In collaborations systems, for instance, don''t overly engineer processes so that they constrain a system''s ability to adapt. That means not just finding serendipity in the business, but examining your own shop for new value that can''t be found in lines of code per day or the speed of a call center response.

CTO 8

CTO Franchising CIO Short-term 8

Harvard Business Review

DECEMBER 2, 2013

This listening engine has generated over 10,000 requests and led to over 600 product improvements. Retailers have stores, call centers, and e-commerce. Jonathan’s team created Idea Place , where SAP’s community of over two million visitors per month can vote, rate, and rank suggested changes.

Marketing 13

Marketing Teamwork Technology Information Technology 13

Harvard Business Review

FEBRUARY 17, 2015

Souping up the presales engine can yield a five-point improvement in conversion rates, a 6–13% improvement in revenue, and a 10–20% improvement in the speed of moving prospects through the sales process. call-center agents based in the Philippines. Such tactics helped one U.S. tenure and claims record).

Call Center 8

Call Center Telecommunications Engineering Quality 8

Harvard Business Review

JUNE 7, 2016

It also means that everyone believe that those who deliver value to customers—from call-center reps to the highest-level product engineer—are the front line and that if they’re not on the front line, their job is to support those who are.

Bureaucracy 8

Bureaucracy Short-term Budgeting Long-term 8