With the world at large in recession, several companies have succumbed to bankruptcy, or at the very least, have taken cost cutting measures in order to stay afloat. Shortening the workweek, freezing salaries, and lessening work hours – these are just some of the measures considered by companies to save on operation costs. Sadly, these options can only do so much, and some companies will unavoidably hand out pink slips.
Large telecom companies like the BT Group (formerly British Telecom) and AT&T, have shaved off thousands from their workforce in the past year, and this is expected to continue in the coming months. BT Group chief executive officer Ian Livingston said, after reporting that BT’s job cuts will continue until March this year, “It will get worse before it gets better.” (London AFP, November 15, 2008)
A deficiency in a company’s workforce can lead to reduced quality of service, and this may cause your customers to start looking at what your competitors have to offer. That said, what steps can a company take to prevent demand from plummeting? How can telecom operators maintain good quality of service in the face of major job cuts?
Train your employees. Re-training employees may require a substantial amount of money, and it is often not practical to pull employees out of their work stations. Albeit the cost, training might provide benefits that can be very valuable for a company. An upgrade in the knowledge of the staff can lead to positive changes: a considerable turn around in the time it takes to solve problems, employees are able to resolve issues independently, help desk personnel are able to quickly provide answers to client concerns, and an over all increase in the quality of work done in the office.
Maintaining a lean and efficient workforce is imperative for companies looking to sustain and improve the quality of service that customers demand.
Consolidate and outsource. As far as operating costs are concerned, running several branches and small sites can nibble at your annual budget. While it is smart to have small branch offices that cater to specific subscriber groups, it may be smarter to outsource some services to smaller contractors, as they provide cost-effective and efficient service.
A company can consolidate branch offices to cover a larger area. But it is of course critical to correctly weigh the demand you have for each area. When you close down a number of offices in a region where demand is large, you may essentially be cutting off opportunities in the said area.
Cut down work hours. If you’re running 24-hour support for your products, it might be best to keep minimum shifts during odd hours and days, or even cut them down completely for practicality reasons. Conduct a simple study to determine the peak hours when most clients call in their problems and shave off work hours accordingly to save on operation costs. Always make sure that customers are notified whenever such changes are made.
If you’re working with a small workforce, you’re always in danger of spreading yourself too thin, and it would be in your best interest to consider other means to improve network efficiency to compensate for job cuts – this brings us to the topic of Network Business Intelligence.
Acquire Network Business Intelligence solutions. More and more companies are turning to Network Business Intelligence (NBI), in order to improve network efficiency. NBI can provide specific solutions that help address weak points in many operators’ systems.
For example, limitations to your workforce won’t necessarily hurt efficiency if your network solution allows you to anticipate problems based on historical trends. The ability to predict system faults will allow you to assign employees where they are most needed. The principles of NBI promote a proactive approach towards solving network problems, thus allowing companies to redirect their workforce to where it counts: building creative new services for clients instead of wasting time troubleshooting bugs in the system.
Another area operators can look into is decreasing the lag between error alerts and the actual time the errors occur. Emerging NBI solutions emphasize on real-time alerting, which allow users to detect and address problems as they arise. Quick and accurate error alerting can help make up for the reduction in the personnel assigned to monitor these problems. This is important for network providers who aim to dramatically reduce system downtime. We all know that customer loyalty, for the most part, is dependent on service availability.
For most companies, the prospect of implementing, let alone choosing a relevant NBI solution can be a daunting task, especially at a time when cost-cutting measures are needed. It cannot be denied that some network solutions are costly and time consuming to test and implement. Even when a solution has been set in place, it may take a few months to fully realize its utility. But the promise of NBI solutions is not a quick fix to common recurrent issues, but long-term benefits as a result of fundamental changes in the way network business is done. You know that an investment in a solution was worth it when you begin to ask “How did we survive without this?”
If recent economic forecasts are to be believed, the recession might go for at least twelve more months. For most companies that have already resorted to job cutting, NBI might provide an alternative means to maintaining the quality of network performance.
Job cuts as of April 2009
Sprint Nextel – 8,000 job cuts (April 1, 2009)
Zain Kenya – 141 job cuts (Match 31, 2009)
O2 UK – 160 job cuts (March 31, 2009)
Nokia Corporation – 1,700 job cuts worldwide (March 17, 2009)
Vodafone – 60 job cuts (Netherlands), 500 job cuts (UK), 26 job cuts (Turkey)
(February 25-March 16, 2009)
Motorola – 4,000 job cuts (January 15, 2009)
BT Group – 10,000 job cuts (December 2008)
The telecommunications industry has announced 60,691 planned job cuts this year.
