Delwarca Software Remote Support Unit

ROY D. SHAPIRO

PAUL E. MORRISON

Delwarca Software Remote Support Unit

Jack McKinnon stood up from his desk to stretch for a moment and take a break from writing his

analysis and proposal to his boss. In front of him and to his left and right he could easily see the

workstations and employees of Delwarca Software's Remote Support Unit, separated from each other

by low partitions and configured like his in the open office layout of Delwarca's corporate

headquarters in Waltham, Massachusetts. It was a comfortable, busy, and orderly scene with a

murmur of voices and frequent ringing phones. However, McKinnon was deeply concerned that

customer service performance in his unit was getting worse, not better.

Delwarca Software

In May 2012, McKinnon had been the manager of Delwarca's Remote Support unit for nearly a

year, responsible for day to day operations, training, and supervision. McKinnon reported to the

head of Software Support, who reported in turn directly to the president. In November 2011

McKinnon had responded to a customer service problem that seemed to be slowly eroding

Delwarca’s customer base. He changed the way incoming calls were handled in an effort to reduce

customer waiting time on the telephones and improve their perception of customer service, while at

the same time trying to reduce Delwarca's costs. Now it was time to analyze the results of the new

procedure, called "Rapid ID," and make recommendations.

Delwarca provided supply chain management software globally to large, sophisticated corporate

clients that had chosen to assemble their systems from various "best of breed" software programs.

These independently operating systems usually supplemented and were integrated using software

written and supported in-house by the corporation's own IT departments. This choice contrasted

sharply with the popular corporate strategy of sourcing large and complicated Enterprise Resource

Planning (ERP) systems from giant ERP...