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The Efficient Organization
When the going gets tough, outsourcer TechTeam Global gets Lean.
Other companies may be
waiting out the tough
economy, but not TechTeam
Global. The $260 million (revenue)
outsourcing firm is in the midst of a
bold three-year effort to both expand
its market presence and deepen
relationships with its customers.
Southfield, Mich.-based TechTeam is
powering this effort with an equally
bold Lean approach. “We’ve got to
double-down on our opportunities
to be more efficient,” says Gary
Cotshott, TechTeam’s President and
CEO. “That’s where Lean comes in.”
TechTeam could easily rest on
its laurels. The company, now in its
third decade of business, delivers IT
support in more than 30 languages
and has a direct presence in more
than 15 countries. But Cotshott is
not one to rest. His three-year plan
involves adding new capabilities
to the company’s infrastructure,
expanding geographic coverage and
increasing TechTeam’s visibility in
the global market.
Cotshott and his colleagues
use Lean throughout the business
to improve service to customers
and to drive efficiencies that help
the company invest to achieve its
three-year plan. An important part
of this is Lean IT for optimizing
and automating the processes
and systems that support IT’s
value to the business. “Lean has
evolved inside TechTeam Global
very aggressively over the past 18
months,” Cotshott says.
TechTeam’s CIO, Armin Pressler,
says his IT organization looks at
Lean from a big-picture perspective.
“We’re 100 percent aligned with our
business goals,” Pressler explains.
Since his team actually serves two
sets of clients — external customers
and TechTeam staffers — “Lean
IT is absolutely critical to the
company’s overall value delivery,”
Pressler adds.
TechTeam is steeped in what
Cotshott terms a “global factory”
model of doing business. This
means deploying a standardized
single-point-of-contact (SPOC)
model delivering services from
locations in North America, Europe,
the Asia-Pacific region and soon,
Latin America. The results: greater
efficiencies and cost savings
because of global consistency and
integrated self-service, service desk,
remote infrastructure management and onsite support solutions.
Cotshott joined TechTeam
in early 2008, and one of his
first projects involved deploying
an array of CA Enterprise IT
Management solutions. He says
this has given TechTeam Global
an ITIL®-based foundation for all
of its business processes, and an
integrated service-delivery platform
the company can deploy on a
consistent and global basis. What’s
more, having a robust, feature-rich
service-delivery platform
lets TechTeam deliver a customer
experience that is markedly more
satisfying than the competition’s,
Cotshott says.
Cotshott’s claim is backed by
independent customer satisfaction
research. In a 2009 Survey on
Top Infrastructure Management
Outsourcing Vendors, Orbys Black
Book of Outsourcing, named
TechTeam No. 1 globally in help
desk out sourcing across both
Tier 1 and Mid-Tier customers,
and No. 1 globally in overall IT
infrastructure outsourcing for
Mid-Tier customers.
Today, more than 1,000
TechTeam agents, analysts and
technicians use CA technology
to support customers. “We’re
globalizing and we’re standardizing
wherever we can,” says Bob
Gumber, TechTeam’s VP of Global
Client Service Management. “And
we are always working diligently on
workforce optimization, first-call
resolution, average handling time,
problem avoidance and remote
resolution — these drive efficiency
and effectiveness. This means
higher value for our customers,
higher customer satisfaction — and
ultimately, increased profitability.”
Now that’s Lean IT. – L.L. |
