BCO216 Management Information System Task brief & rubrics

Task

Read the case that you are assigned to and answer 3 open questions at the end of the case. Make reference to the theory studied in class and provide examples to support your opinion.

Formalities:

Wordcount: 1000 words
Cover, Table of Contents, References and Appendix are excluded of the total wordcount.
Font: Arial 12,5 pts.
Text alignment: Justified.
The in-text References and the Bibliography have to be in Harvard’s citation style.

Submission:Week (7) Via Moodle (Turnitin). Sunday 20^th Nov 2022 23:59 CET

Weight:This task is a 40% of your total grade for this subject.

It assesses the following learning outcomes:

understand what an information system is and its main components;
distinguish between the main types of information systems and innovative methods of reducing costs and improving service through management information systems.
discuss ethical, privacy and security issues related to the use of data and technology in today’s business environment.
assess challenges related to (1) the adoption of new technology by employees and customers, and (2) the implementation strategy and processes

The Case

In October 2016 the British multinational telecommunications company Vodafone achieved an unwelcome milestone – the single biggest fine for “serious and sustained” breaches of consumer protection rules in the UK. It was the result of a troubled CRM and billing consolidation project.

UK telecoms regulator Ofcom slapped a £4.6 million fine on Vodafone, payable within 20 working days. The fine was made up of two chunks – £3.7 million for taking pay-as-you-go customers money and not delivering a service in return, and £925,000 for failures relating to the way that the carrier handled complaints.

In a checklist of shame the regulator found that:

10,452 pay-as-you-go customers lost out when Vodafone failed to credit their accounts after they paid to ‘top-up’ their mobile phone credit. Those customers collectively lost £150,000 over a 17-month period.
Vodafone failed to act quickly enough to identify or address these problems, only getting its act together after Ofcom intervened.
Vodafone breached Ofcom’s billing rules, because the top-ups that consumers had bought in good faith were not reflected in their credit balances.
Vodafone’s customer service agents were not given sufficiently clear guidance on what constituted a complaint, while its processes were insufficient to ensure that all complaints were appropriately escalated or dealt with in a fair, timely manner.
Vodafone’s procedures failed to ensure that customers were told, in writing, of their right to take an unresolved complaint to a third-party resolution scheme after eight weeks.

For its part Vodafone has admitted to the breaches. It has also reimbursed all customers who faced financial loss, but for 30 it could not identify, and made a donation of £100,000 to charity.

The events have led to a £54m crash in sales from April to June 2015, and Vodafone said that “continued operational challenges” with the mobile customers’ billing system that was introduced in 2015 had led to the 3.2% drop in sales to £1.55bn due to a customer exodus.

Adding the £4.6 million penalty on top of that, we are talking about a £59 million loss without taking the costs of the project itself into account.

Timeline of Events

2012

Vodafone first selected the Siebel CRM system back in October 2012, an implementation which was intended not just to service mobile customers, but also customers for fixed-line telecoms, data networking, TV subscriptions and other services.Siebel CRM is a product originally created by Siebel CRM Systems. The company was founded by Thomas Siebel and Patricia House in 1993. At first known mainly for its sales force automation products, the company expanded into the broader CRM market. By the late 1990s, Siebel Systems was the dominant CRM vendor, peaking at 45% market share in 2002. On September 12, 2005, Oracle Corporation announced it had agreed to buy Siebel Systems for $5.8 billion. “Siebel” is now a brand name owned by Oracle Corporation.Vodafone planned to integrate Siebel CRM with Oracle BRM (Billing), Prepaid, Provisioning, ERP, DWH, etc. in order to cover the mission-critical Sales, Service and Marketing operations.It was a hugely ambitious migration and consolidation of billing and CRM systems involving moving more than 28.5 million customer accounts from seven billing platforms to the new system. It was the largest IT project that Vodafone had undertaken, The main business challenges addressed in the context of this project were:

Create a single, centralised, 360 degree Customer View that can be accessed by the various front-end systems and channels.
Achieve more efficient & effective Customer Service, minimising handling time, call transfers and logging incident tickets and service requests.
Empower the Call Center Agent to become a Universal Agent, able to handle any Sales, Service or Marketing related issue.
Use Siebel as the main front-end system at the Contact Center and drastically reduce the use of all other systems at the front-end.
“Keep customers happy” while reducing time and cost to serve.

2013

The migration and consolidation program began in 2013.

2015

In April 2015 the migrations to the new system were completed. But in addition to suffering from downtime, the system has also led to a flood of customer complaints about bills, including some who have continued to be billed even after contracts had been cancelled, others who have had their direct debits mysteriously cancelled, or have been shut out of online accounts.Vodafone was the most complained about telecoms provider in the three months ending in December 2015, due network failures that meant many users could not make and receive calls or were billed incorrectly.

2016

Telecoms regulator Ofcom launched its own formal investigation into Vodafone in January following a spike in complaints during 2015 over the new system. Based on the results of this investigation the regulator slapped the £4.6 million fine on Vodafone in October.

What Went Wrong

In a statement, Vodafone said:

“Despite multiple controls in place to reduce the risk of errors, at various points a small proportion of individual customer accounts were incorrectly migrated, leading to mistakes in the customer billing data and price plan records stored on the new system. Those errors led to a range of different problems for the customers affected which – in turn – led to a sharp increase in the volume of customer complaints.”

The problems resulted in the pay-as-you-go issues:

“From late 2013 until early 2015, a failure in our billing systems – linked to the migration challenges explained above – meant that customers who had topped up a PAYG mobile which had been dormant for nine months or more received a confirmation message that the credit had been added to their account; however, the mobile in question continued to be flagged as disconnected on our systems.”

Although this impacted 10,452 customers, the situation caught Vodafone unaware:

“Unfortunately, as the circumstances of the IT failure in question were very unusual (at the time, less than 0.01% of all Vodafone UK PAYG customers’ phones were inactive for more than nine months before being reactivated), the teams responsible for the day-to-day operation of the relevant areas were not fast enough in identifying the issue and did not fully appreciate its significance once they did so.”

The migration and consolidation program began in 2013 and was completed in 2015.

“The IT failure involved was resolved by April 2015 – approximately 11 weeks after senior managers were finally alerted to it – with a system-wide change implemented in October 2015 that – as Ofcom acknowledges – means this error cannot be repeated in future.”
“More broadly, we have conducted a full internal review of this failure and, as a result, have overhauled our management control and escalation procedures. A failure of this kind, while rare, should have been identified and flagged to senior management for urgent resolution much earlier.”
“Our new billing and customer management system is designed to give our customers the best experience possible. It puts the customers in control of every aspect of the Vodafone products and services upon which they rely. It also enables our customer service and retail employees to respond quickly and efficiently to changing customer needs and swiftly put things right if they go wrong.”

“All of our consumer customer accounts have now been migrated successfully to the new system with a number of positive effects as a consequence. For example, there has been more than 50% reduction in customer complaints since November 2015 and our Net Promoter Score – which measures the extent to which our customers would recommend Vodafone to others – has increased by 50 points.”

Vodafone has suffered for its failings commercially in the process. In the three months to the end of June 2015, UK sales fell 11.4%. At the time, Vittorio Colao, Vodafone CEO, admitted that the IT program’s problems were having a wider impact:

“The UK is more a mixed picture. On one hand, we have a very good performance of the network in London, where, actually, we have really 99.9% coverage and a very good performance on dropped calls and video speed. In the rest of the country we still have to do a little bit of work. There is still improvement but we have to do a little bit of work.”

“The real issue has been billing migration problems in the UK which has caused disruption to the customers and to our commercial operations. We still have reached 7 million 4G customers, we still have activated 20,000 new homes in fixed broadband, but, clearly, we have got more churn than what we wanted and less commercial push until we fix the problems.”

“The problems are being fixed. I would say 75% of them are out of the way. We have reduced the extra calls to the call centers by more or less 0.5 million but we still have a little bit to go. We believe we will have resolved everything by the summer and then we will resume full commercial strength in the second half of the year.”

How Vodafone Could Have Done Things Differently

There are some good lessons to learn from Vodafone’s troubles.

Understanding Your Problem

Vodafone had a lousy reputation for customer service for some time, coming out as easily the most complained about UK mobile provider in Ofcom’s 2015 market survey. It had more than three times the industry average of 10 complaints per 100,000 customers in the last three months of 2015.

So Vodafone clearly had lessons to learn about the way it deals with customers before starting their CRM implementation. And if you start such a project with the mindset that customers are a pain in the ass, then all the CRM software in the world won’t make things better; it’ll just make it easier to anger your customers.

Internal Controls

Vodafone should have better internal controls in place. Since these incidents Vodafone has conducted a full internal review and overhauled its management control and escalation procedures, noting that the problem should have been spotted and flagged much earlier than it was.

“Unfortunately, as the circumstances of the IT failure in question were very unusual (at the time, less than 0.01 percent of all Vodafone UK PAYG customers’ phones were inactive for more than nine months before being reactivated), the teams responsible for the day-to-day operation of the relevant areas were not fast enough in identifying the issue and did not fully appreciate its significance once they did so.”

Employee Training

The best CRM system in the world will have no value if your employees are not willing and empowered to help your customers. Improving customer services teams’ ability to respond to questions and problems is key to a great customer service.

“We fully appreciate the consequences for our customers of various failures in the migration process over the last three years,” it said. “We have sought to remedy these through an additional £30m investment this year in customer service and training, including hiring an additional 1,000 new UK-based call centre personnel and more than 190,000 hours of training to improve how we identify and resolve individual customer problems.”

Vodafone said that since doing this, it had seen a 50% reduction in complaint volumes and a significant improvement in its net promoter score.

Closing Thoughts

Ofcom Consumer Group director Lindsey Fussell said:

“Vodafone’s failings were serious and unacceptable, and these fines send a clear warning to all telecoms companies. Phone services are a vital part of people’s lives, and we expect all customers to be treated fairly and in good faith.”

Vodafone replied with:

“Everyone who works for us is expected to do their utmost to meet our customers’ needs,” it said. “It is clear from Ofcom’s findings that we did not do that often enough or well enough on a number of occasions. We offer our profound apologies to anyone affected by these errors.”

It is sad state of affairs that we need a regulator to make companies realize this.

Questions

What led to the Vodafone CRM failure (main reasons)? How could they have prevented it?
What is the role of a CRM system in building a better relationship with customers?
Why intro-operability between different information systems is crucial. How Vodafone wanted to achieve it?

Rubrics

Learning Descriptors

Fail Below 60%

Marginal Fail 60-69%

Fair 70-79 %

Good 80-89%

Exceptional 90-100%

Content

KNOWLEDGE & UNDERSTANDING

30%

Contentisunclear,inaccurateand/or incomplete. Brief andirrelevant. Descriptive. Onlypersonal views offered.

Unsubstantiated and does notsupportthepurpose,argumentor goals of the project. Readergains no insight through thecontent of the project.

Limited content that does notreallysupportthepurposeofthereport.Very poor coverage.

Displays only rudimentaryknowledgeofthecontentarea.Readergainsfewifanyinsights

Presents some information thatadequately supports the centralpurpose, arguments, goals, orresearchquestionsoftheproject.Although parts missing, itdemonstrates a level of partiallyproficient knowledge of thecontent area. Reader gains someinsights.

Presentsclearandappropriateinformation that adequatelysupports the central purpose,arguments, goals or researchquestions of the project.

Demonstratessatisfactoryknowledgeofthecontentarea.Readergainsproficientinsights.

Presents balanced, significant andvalid information that clearly andconvincingly supports the centralpurpose, arguments, researchquestions or goals of the project.Demonstrates in-depth andspecialisedknowledgeofthecontentarea. The reader gains importantinsights

Written Communication Skills

COMMUNICATION

10 %

The written project exhibitsmultiple errors in grammar,sentence structure and/orspelling.Inadequatewritingskills(e.g., weaknesses in languagefacility and mechanics) hinderreadability and contribute to anineffective research project.

The written project exhibitserrors in grammar, punctuationandspelling.Thewrittenprojectcomes across as untidy and notproperly checked for mistakes.Errors present in writtencommunicationmakereadabilityfrustrating.

Written research project displaysgood word choice, languageconventionsandmechanicswithafew minor errors in spelling,grammar, sentence structureand/orpunctuation.Errorsdonotrepresent a major distraction orobscuremeaning.

Readabilityoftheprojectisgooddue to the clarity of languageused. Grammar, spelling andpunctuation is without error.

Spellingandgrammarthoroughlychecked.

Readabilityoftheprojectisenhancedby facility in language use/wordchoice. Excellent mechanics andsyntactic variety. Uses languageconventionseffectively(e.g.,spelling,punctuation, sentence structure,paragraphing, grammar, etc.).

Analytical / Critical Thinking Skills

CRITICAL THINKING

30%

Research problem, concept oridea is not clearly articulated, orits component elements are notidentified or described. Researchinformation is poorly organized,categorized and/or notexamined; research informationisofteninaccurateorincomplete.Presents little if any analysis orinterpretation;inaccuratelyand/or inappropriately appliesresearch methods, techniques,models, frameworks and/ortheories to the analysis. Presentsfew solutions or conclusions;solutionsorconclusionsareoftennot well supported, areinaccurate and/or inconsistent,and are presented in a vague orrudimentarymanner.

Research problem, concept oridea is not clearly articulated attimes and confusing. Researchinformation is badly organized,categorized, and/or onlysuperficially examined; researchinformation is often incomplete.Presents limited analysis orinterpretation;inaccuratelyand/or inappropriately appliesresearch methods, techniques,models, frameworks and/ortheoriestotheanalysis.Presentssome solutions or conclusionsbut they are often not wellsupported, or logical.

Adequatelyidentifiesanddescribes(or sketches out) the researchproblem, concept or idea and itscomponents. Gathers andexamines information relating tothe research problem, concept oridea; presents and appraisesresearch information with someminorinconsistencies,irrelevanciesor omissions. Generally appliesappropriate research methods,techniques, models, frameworksand/or theories although withinaccuracies. Outlines solutions orconclusions that are somewhatlogical and consistent with theanalysis and evidence; identifiesand/orlistssolutionsorconclusionsalthough not always clearly.

Formulates a clear description oftheresearchproblem,conceptoridea, and specifies majorelementstobeexamined.Selectsinformation appropriate toaddressingtheresearchproblem,concept or idea; accurately andappropriately analyses andinterprets relevant researchinformation. Effectively appliesappropriate research methods,techniques, models, frameworksand/or theories in developingand justifying multiple solutionsor conclusions; solutions orconclusions are coherent, wellsupported and complete.

Effectively formulates a cleardescription of the research problem,concept or idea, and specifies majorelementstobeexamined.Selectsandprioritizesinformationappropriatetoaddressing the research problem,concept, or idea; accurately andappropriatelyanalyzesandinterpretsrelevant research information.

Precisely and effectively appliesappropriate research methods,employs advanced skills to conductresearch. Uses techniques, models,frameworks and/or theories indeveloping and justifying multiplesolutionsorconclusions;solutionsorconclusions are insightful, coherent,well supported, logically consistentand complete. Displays a mastery ofcomplex and specialized areas.

Integration Skills

APPLICATION & EVALUATION

30%

Shows little ability to employtheory and practice across thefunctional areas of business intheassessmentofissuesrelatingto the research problem,concept, or idea. Does notrecognize or correctly identify cross-functionalorganizationalissues relevant to the researchproblem, concept or idea. Doesnot adequately evaluate theresearch problem, concept oridea in light of relevantprinciples,theoriesandpracticesacross the business functionalareas. Few if any solutions,recommendations for action, orconclusions are presented,and/or they are notappropriately justified orsupported.

Shows some ability to employtheory and practice across thefunctional areas of business intheassessmentof issues relatingtotheresearchproblem,conceptor idea. Recognizesorganizational issues relevant to theresearchproblem,conceptoridea but does not showunderstanding. Does notadequatelyevaluatetheresearchproblem, concept or idea in lightof relevant principles, theoriesandpracticesacrossthebusinessfunctional areas. Some solutionsoffered but difficult tounderstand.Recommendationsfor action, or conclusions arepresented,buttheyareoftennotwell supported, or logical.

Exhibits application of principles,theories and practices across thefunctionalareasofbusinesstotheanalysis of the research problem,concept or idea. With someexceptions,outlinesanddescribes(or sketches out) some cross- functional organizational issuesthatarerelevanttotheresearchproblem, concept or idea.

Adequatelyidentifiesanddescribes(or summarizes) solutions,recommendations for action, orconclusions that are, for the mostpart, appropriate, but which needto be more aligned with principlesand concepts in the functionalareas of business.

Demonstrates an ability tointegrate and apply principles,theoriesandpracticesacrossthefunctional areas of business tothe analysis of the researchproblem, concept or idea.

Identifies,examinesandcriticallyevaluates important cross-functional organizational issuesassociated with the researchproblem,conceptoridea.Clearlyjustifiessolutions,recommendations for action, orconclusions based on analyticsand an insightful synthesis ofcross-disciplinary principles andconcepts in the functional areasofbusiness.

Demonstrates well-developed abilityto integrate and apply principles,theories and practices across thefunctional areas of business to theanalysis of the research problem,conceptoridea.Effectivelyidentifies,examines and critically evaluates importantcross-functionalorganizationalissuesassociatedwiththe research problem, concept, oridea. Clearly and effectively justifiessolutions, recommendations foraction, or conclusions based onstrong analytics and an insightfulsynthesis of cross-disciplinaryprinciples and concepts in thefunctionalareasofbusiness.Canlinkthinking across disciplines andcontexts.