SUBSCRIBE TO TMCnet
TMCnet - World's Largest Communications and Technology Community

CHANNEL BY TOPICS


QUICK LINKS




SOA Web Services

SOA/Web Services

 

SOA/WEB SERVICES FEATURE ARTICLES


November 17, 2006

Overcoming System Incompatibilities Brought On By M&A

By Alan Rosenberg, BlueNote Networks


Using your Telephone’s Touchtone Keypad, Please Enter Your 16-digit Account Number Followed by the # Key
 
Para instrucciones en español aprieta por favor uno.
 
The lineage of my cable company reminds me a bit of a cartoon from my childhood in which a small fish is eaten by a larger fish, which has a big smile on his face until he is promptly swallowed whole by an even larger fish, which in turn is quickly devoured by a shark. The entire scene transpires in about two seconds.

 
Some time ago the small cable company serving my town was acquired by a larger outfit. A couple years later that company was acquired by one of the large national cable concerns. About the same time the national cable company also acquired the consumer data business from one of the inter-exchange carriers. In the midst of these corporate takeovers broadband Internet service became available in my area.
 
I, of course, couldn’t wait to get high-speed Internet access. For years my morning routine consisted of firing up Outlook, then taking a shower and getting dressed while my e-mail downloaded.
 
After hearing all kinds of horror stories from early DSL and cable modem adopters, I was amazed by the speed and ease of my installation. My service was up and running just a couple of days after I placed the order. I slept well that first night knowing I would wake up to virtually unlimited bandwidth.
 
The next morning, much to my chagrin, I was unable to access the Internet. In a panic, I recycled the cable modem, rebooted my PC, yelled at my dog, and recycled the cable modem again for good measure, all to no avail.
 
Here’s where the fun begins. I called the customer care number listed on my cable bill. It was a local phone number so I assumed I was contacting the cable office in my town, but who knows? I was immediately connected to an IVR system, and was prompted to enter in my last name, home telephone number, and the last four digits of my social security number.
 
I sat on hold for a while, and listened to some exciting offers to get five new HBO channels that rotate the same movies as the HBO channels I already received, but at different times. I was then connected to an operator, who asked me to repeat the information I had just painstakingly keyed in from my kitchen phone with the # key that tends to stick and can sometimes land you in an IVR abyss.
 
The operator patiently listened to my story and explained that she would need to transfer me to the headquarters support center. I sat on hold for a while, and listened to some more exciting offers, interspersed with some reassurances of how important my call was.
 
A new agent eventually answered the phone, and asked me to repeat all my account information and explain my problem again. He proceeded to inform me that broadband service was handled directly from the old IXC support center. He was sorry he could not transfer me to them because they were on a different system, but they could be reached via an 800 number.
 
I called the 800 number, and encountered a different IVR system that did not recognize my account number and transferred me to the “unwashed masses queue” where I sat for a good twenty minutes until a human picked up the phone. After I repeated my account information and explained my problem for the third time, the agent said she could not help me, and asked me if I had a pen and paper to write down the number I needed to call.
 
I could feel the blood rushing to my head as she read off the local customer care phone number on my cable bill. The loop was closed. An hour later I was right back where I started.
 
Eventually I did find someone to help me, and a couple truck rolls later my cable service was restored. But like an accident victim who can’t recall the events immediately following his trauma, to this day I honestly don’t remember how I ultimately reached the right support line.
 
As this tale so poignantly shows, mergers and acquisitions can introduce system incompatibilities and discontinuities that wreak havoc upon the unsuspecting customer. If left unchecked, user dissatisfaction can quickly turn into customer churn and lost business.
 
Mergers and acquisitions are by no means limited to the cable TV industry. Be it financial services, the airlines industry, or the technology sector, practically no industry is immune to corporate restructuring. Service Oriented Architectures (SOAs) are helping IT departments in virtually every industry adapt more quickly to rapidly changing business environments.
 
SOAs enable repeatable business tasks to be realized as flexible software services that are rapidly assembled and reassembled to address changing business requirements. With SOAs, organizations can integrate virtually all of their IT resources, including isolated data silos and incompatible legacy applications. Furthermore, SOAs help shorten development cycles, reduce risks, lower project costs, make more efficient use of developer resources and improve customer satisfaction.
 
Forward-looking CIOs are including telecommunications services in their SOA initiatives. By delivering voice communications as reusable Web services, IT organizations can adapt quickly to system changes brought on by mergers, acquisitions, and restructurings. SOAs can simplify integration efforts and help reduce incompatibilities and discontinuities introduced when dissimilar systems are tied together, so end users — including customers — enjoy smoother transitions when businesses change hands.
 
By incorporating voice services with their IT architectures, CIOs can improve the user experience, increase customer satisfaction and retention, and make my cable modem incident a thing of the past. Furthermore, IT organizations can quickly add differentiating features to business processes, distributed software applications or Web sites to streamline operations and process flows, improve productivity, capture new customers, and tap new revenue streams.
 
Alan Rosenberg is director of Product Line Management for BlueNote Networks (News - Alert). With BlueNote SessionSuite platforms, enterprises, ISVs and partners can quickly and easily embed interactive real-time communication services into a range of commercial or custom software applications, Web sites and internal business processes using industry-standard interfaces and technology. He can be reached at [email protected].

SOA/WEB SERVICES





Technology Marketing Corporation

2 Trap Falls Road Suite 106, Shelton, CT 06484 USA
Ph: +1-203-852-6800, 800-243-6002

General comments: [email protected].
Comments about this site: [email protected].

STAY CURRENT YOUR WAY

© 2024 Technology Marketing Corporation. All rights reserved | Privacy Policy