• Who did Spark Digital, Ministry of Education, Vodafone, Gen-i, ANZ, ACC, Transpower & Racing Board turn to when they needed a hard-hitter to assist in their IT Service Management initiatives !

     

    Strategy, Design, Architecture, Requirements, Procurement, Transition, Implementation & Measurement

    Large enterprises, complexity, multiple suppliers, demanding customers, simplification, transformation, clarity, control, performance, cost service, new systems

    Common themes:

    • Large enterprises  
    • With inherently complex inter-related solutions
    • Comprising multiple internal & external suppliers 
    • Servicing many, enterprise (& retail) customers, all  demanding better service (or else)
    • Heading down the path of simplification & transformation
    • Wanting further clarity & demonstrable control 
    • Mandated to improve performance, reduce cost and of course improve service at the same time 
    • Governed by stringent industry and government covenants and regulations
    • And implementing new systems at the same time

  • Their problems - similar to yours?

     

    Service delivery, service management, supplier management, performance management, future state model, requirements, procurement, SLAs, selection, implementation, transition, handover to BAU, process improvement, optimisation

    Some real customer pain points ...

    • The service delivery is not working for us, what should we do

    • We have two distinct service management models, how do we integrate them

    • We are moving to a new supplier, what should we want

    • We need to quickly establish credibility with a demanding new customer can you help us

    • We are negotiating a contract, we need someone who understands service management & procurement

    • Our service delivery needs improvement, can you perform a maturity assessment and help us improve

    • Our customer is in intensive care, can you help in recovery

    • Our auditors have identified process shortcomings; can you help us resolve them

    • We are rolling out new technical solutions to our clients all the time, every day, we need them to be handed over to BAU support in an orderly manner please !

    • Our customers satisfaction needs to be improved, can we look at our processes

  • SERVICE 1: Improving Service Delivery

     

    Current state evaluation, future state development, identify gaps, develop requirements, create RFI/RFP, perform evaluation, selection, contract negotiations, SLAs, project management, business analysis, implementation, transition, handover to BAU

     

    Resulting in improved processes, improved customer satisfaction and higher staff engagement

    Consulting, Project Management, Business Analysis

    Covering:

    • Reviewing vendor service delivery & performance  
    • Developing future state models, strategy & options 
    • Procurement, creating requirements for RFI/RFP to go to market 
    • Evaluating responses & vendor selection 
    • Contract negotiations 
    • Project managing transitions & implementations 
    • Creating, reviewing, accepting, mapping, documenting & implementing new processes, plans & artefacts for successful handover to BAU

    Business Outcomes:

    • Reduction in costs from re-negotiated contracts
    • Business efficiencies on account of new service management models and processes
    • Very high supplier and process control
    • Meeting IT security, risk & compliance covenants
    • Remediation for successful audit
    • Supportability and handover to BAU
    • Customer satisfaction
    • Project, customer & business success 

    Typical Artifacts:

    • Maturity Assessment
    • Options & Recommendations
    • Improvement Road-map
    • Costing & Pricing
    • Requirements & RFI/RFP documents
    • SLAs
    • Lean Processes
    • Process Maps & Documentation 
    • Metrics, Measurements & Service Reporting
    • Service Catalog
    • Service Readiness Checklist
    • Roles & Responsibilities, Demarcations, Organisation Structure
    • Service Management Plan
    • Continual Improvement Register

  • SERVICE 2: Using the Service Business Life Cycle as holistic way forward

     

    An 8 step guide from inception, through to growth, maturity, optimisation & exit. 

    Service Business Life Cycle with the overall business philosophy, strategy & drivers in the centre, surrounded by business case, technology, people, customer, finance, operations, excellence through to mergers, acquisition & exit

    8 Step Service Business Lifecycle

    A virtual service catalog to pick and chose the elements most relevant, depending on where you are at in your service life cycle or to resolve a specific issue.

    Dictated by the overall business philosophy, strategy & drivers, these are the high-level activities and the elements within them that need to be put in place to set up and run an effective & successful service delivery & support organisation.

     

    0. Business Philosophy, strategy & drivers

    Business case, business plan, overall strategy & model

     

    1. Initiation

    Location, hiring, infrastructure, core systems & processes, telephony

    2. Technology
    Support platform, call logging, telephony, call routing, multi-channel support

    3. People
    Effective teams, appraisals, goal setting, compensation, incentives, rewards, rostering, career planning & growth, retention, succession planning, knowledge management, training & development, team dynamics & staff morale, energising, transforming & invigorating the team, internal comms

    4. Customer
    Segmentation, relationship, key accounts, customer communications, new customer onboarding, customer satisfaction benchmarking, measurement, improvement, proactive service, escalations, intensive care, reference customers, marketing communications, customer loyalty, user groups

    5. Finance
    Billing, renewals, retention, budgeting, forecasting, new business dev, new offerings, support & service programs, service & support models, contracts, grand-fathering & retiring old versions and superseded contracts, (multi)-vendor & alliance management

    6. Operations
    Reporting, KPIs, scorecards, capacity planning, escalations, critical situations, call flow models, service delivery, continual improvement, alliances, external providers, offshore providers, 3rd level support, organisational readiness for new products, versions & releases, 24 hr support

    7. Excellence
    Customer satisfaction measurement, benchmarking & improvement, matrixed organisations, local vs global, ITIL, Lean, ISO20000, frameworks, standards

    8. Mergers, Acquisition, Exit
    Integration of operations on account of mergers & acquisitions, divestitures & spinoffs, exits

  • SERVICE 3: Growth Hacking, Disruption, Innovation & Lean Startup

     

    Using Lean Startup Principles, the Lean Startup Canvas, and some real life business experience to drive business growth

     

    Here are some of the accelerators & start-ups I work with;

    Question: is your enterprise ready for growth hacking ?

     

    Business Innovation Strategies, business startup advice, entrepreneur, ideas for business growth strategies, lean innovation thinking, lean startup business model, Lean startup methodologies, Lean Startup Methodology, lean thinking, lean training nz, minimal viable product, Minimum viable product, new business innovation, New Zealand startup, startups

    R9 Accelerator 3+

    R9 Accelerator is a govtech accelerator. Teams of innovators develop products and services that make it easier for people to interact with New Zealand government.

    Problem: Simplify the final affair(Department of Internal Affairs) - Help reduce the administrative burden and stress placed on others when a loved one dies.

    Kiwibank FinTech Accelerator

    A three-month business growth programme powered by New Zealand’s premier startup accelerator brand, Lightning Lab.

     

    This programme is designed to help FinTech companies compete on a global scale.

    Eight teams have been accepted, gaining access to NZ’s largest network of financial services experts and a high-quality pool of startup mentors.

     

    Teams will work directly with Kiwibank, Xero and other financial industry partners.

    R9 Accelerator v2.0

    Team MiBiz - Giving migrant businesses an expert network

    Problem: People new to the country often don’t have access to networks. MiBiz is a platform to help New Zealanders overcome common hurdles when starting a business by assessing where they’re at and linking them with appropriate local industry experts and service providers.

    StartUp Weekend Wellington

     

    Startup Weekend is where startup enthusiasts get together to form new businesses in a 54-hour marathon of inspiration, perspiration, collaboration, and fun

     

    What can you do in 54 hours? Share ideas, meet a team, and be mentored by the industry's finest at Startup Weekend Wellington; where you’ll find the tools to design and build a new product, service or business in the space of a single, fast-paced weekend.

     

    Tap into Wellington’s startup community for a high-energy weekend you won’t forget.

  • SERVICE 4: LeanIT Operations

     

    If you are already using Agile & Scrum, you may want to improve your BAU IT Processes using Lean Principles

     

    Training & Coaching for organisations interested in applying Lean Principles to improve their operations

     

    Lean – LeanIT – LeanITSM – ISO 20000 – ISO/IEC20000 – ITIL – ITSM – Training – Lean Training – Quality – Improvement – Customer Satisfaction – Continual Service Improvement

    Improve your Customer Satisfaction.

     

    Apply Lean Principles & Techniques to your IT Processes and bring the ITIL Framework, the ISO/IEC 20000 Standard & Continual Service Improvement together.

    These courses are easily translated to meet your requirements particularly if you are providing services in sectors such as banking & finance, utilities, telecommunications, healthcare or government

     

    Courses can be modified to suit your particular industry or requirements. Course 3 is best run as a workshop. Course durations indicative.

     

    Many organisations well down the path of having “done” ITIL are still wondering why the benefits they sought are still not delivered.

     

    ITIL provides a framework of processes and functions that need to be in place. These need to be applied pragmatically depending on the maturity of the organisation.

     

    This series of courses will introduce you to the origins of Lean Thinking, introduce you to Lean Principles and Concepts, will go into Lean Techniques, will show you how to use them in real life, will outline the steps you and your organisation need to take to undertake the Lean Journey, and show you how to bring the ITIL Framework, the ISO 20000 Standard and Continual Service Improvement together – to improve your processes, to improve your customer satisfaction, and improve your staff engagement.

     

    The course will provide you time to think about who your customers are, what are the touch points, identify problem areas and take away enough knowledge, tools & techniques to go back to your work place to start on your journey.

    • Course 1: Introduction to Lean
    • Course 2: Hands-On Application of Lean Techniques to IT Service Management Processes
    • Course 3: Leading & Implementing Lean to Improve Customer Satisfaction – Lean Techniques to bring together the ITIL Framework, ISO 20000 and Continual Service Improvement to Improve Customer Satisfaction

    Download course details here

  • Course 1: Introduction to Lean

    Duration: 1 Day
     

    Course Contents:

    • Introduction to Lean, its history and origins
    • Concept of Waste
    • Lean Toolsets
    • Lean Techniques
    • Understanding the Lean vocabulary

  • Course 2: Hands-On Application of Lean Techniques to IT Service Management Processes

    Duration: 1 Day
     

    Course Contents:

    • Value Stream Mapping
    • Kaizens
    • The Ishikawa Fishbone Diagram to perform root cause analysis
    • 5 Whys
    • Law of Pareto
    • Kanban
    • FIFO
    • Takt Time

  • Course 3: Leading & Implementing Lean to Improve Customer Satisfaction

    Lean Techniques to bring together the ITIL Framework, ISO 20000 and Continual Service Improvement to Improve Customer Satisfaction

    Duration: 1 Day
     

    Course Contents:

    • Identifying the Customer, Customer Touch Points, Moments of Truth
    • Customer Satisfaction
    • Customer Complaints
    • Service Catalogue
    • Process Maturity Assessment
    • Continual Improvement Register
    • Steps to implement and drive the change

    Courses can be modified to suit your particular industry or requirements. Course 3 is best run as a workshop. Course durations are indicative.

  • 7 Steps to becoming a Successful IT Service Provider

    CASE STUDY ON DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION TO BECOMING A SUCCESSFUL IT SERVICE PROVIDER - a multi-part blog based on real life experience

  • Strategic Lean Service

    ... a business case study of how a global IT service delivery organisation used Lean to drive organisational transformation and achieve customer satisfaction

    Strategic Lean Service; Amazon, Authors: Robert Oh & Sunit Prakash

    Strategic Lean Service

     

    A case study of how a global IT service delivery organisation used Lean to drive organisational transformation and achieve customer satisfaction

     

    Robert Oh & Sunit Prakash

     

    Click here to go to Amazon (hard copy)

    NEW: Click here to go to Kindle (e-book)

  • In the Press

    Selection of previously published articles and guest blogs including Institute of IT Professionals Techblog, NZ Institute of Director's BoardRoom, ComputerWorld, Reseller News & the Dominion IT Weekly

    Development of New International Education Strategy - inputs to EducationNZ

    “We are setting out to challenge and be challenged – we encourage all interested parties to be involved in strategy development.” - 9 Recommendations; October 2016

    Click here for the 3 pager submission

    NZX Consultation - Diversity on Boards

    Submission to NZX on its Consultation Paper to do with Ethnic Diversity on Boards; September 2016

    Click here for link to NZX Consultation Paper

    Click here for link to Submission

    7 Lessons in Customer Engagement from Australasia's Most Profitable Airline

    Guest Blog: Astute Solutions, July 2014

     

    Social media and brands: for big companies this can often cause panic, fear, and stress because they worry about a negative post going viral, or having no social customer strategy at all. We’ve posted about the negative effects of social media too, but how about turning it on its head and focussing on positive customer engagement instead?

    Lessons in Customer Engagement from Australasia's Most Profitable Airline

    Reaping India's Demographic Dividend

    Guestblog, Institute of IT Professionals Techblog, Dec 2011

     

    Laurence Millar kicked off a whole chain of thoughts when I attended his NZCS session "Agenda for the Digital Economy". He inspired me to write this article, about Indian students coming to study in New Zealand, Indian organisations servicing New Zealand, New Zealand organisations exploring India - and the challenges and opportunities this presents to New Zealand.

    Click here: IITP Techblog

    Opinion: Toyota's 'lean' model tackles IT complexity

    ComputerWorld, October 2007

     

    Many IT companies have learnt that to succeed in business you can not save your way to success - you need to add value to prosper and grow

    Click here: ComputerWorld

    Role of the Indian Diaspora in Building Bridges between New Zealand and India

    The Independent, Aug 2008

     

    India may well prove to be a more accessible and rewarding market than China for New Zealand's export driven businesses.

    Click here: Opportunities abound in India's knowledge economy

    Free Trade Agreement with India; opportunities for New Zealand companies

    NZ Institute of Director's BoardRoom Magazine, July 2008

     

    Can the lessons from New Zealand's FTA with China be applied to India ?

    Click here: Free Trade Agreement with India

    Value Proposition of Support – Supporting the solutions Sales People Sell

    Guest Editorial in the New Zealand Reseller News, October 2007

     

    The business model of Nasdaq listed ERP vendors, and the business of support.

     

    Click here: Value Proposition of Support

    Satellite TV Revolution in India – Time to join the “global village” people

    Guest article on changes in India; The Dominion IT Weekly; September 1994

    Click here: Satellite TV Revolution in India

    PatelNet: The future of IT enabled corner dairies – Corner diary options with PatelNet;

    Guest article on e-enabling and connecting corner dairies with a common infrastructure and network; The Dominion IT Weekly; October 1994

    Click here: PatelNet: The Future of IT enabled dairies

  • Sunit Prakash

    ITIL | ITSM | ISO20000 | TOGAF | COBIT | Strategy | Architecture | Design | Transition | Implementation | Lean | Social Analytics | India | New Zealand | Australia

    Coach, guide & mentor to skilled new immigrants and a sought after mentor to teams at StartUp Weekends, the R9 Accelerator and the KiwBank FinTech Accelerator. Experienced on Not For Profit boards.

     

    Globally and locally experienced professional with core competencies in IT Service Management covering strategy, design, transition, operations & improvement.

     

    Successful outcomes at Ministry of Education, Vodafone, Telecom, Fronde, Gen-i, ANZ, Transpower, Racing Board, ACC and others.

     

    Qualifications include ITIL & Consultant Level ISO20000 certification. Recently completed TOGAF Level 1 & 2; familiar with COBIT, Prince2 & PMBOK.

     

    Previously responsible for running a business unit of USD32M with responsibility for the Asia Pacific Japan region for NASDAQ listed ERP vendor Baan in Sydney.

     

    Used to communicating effectively up to C-level, pulling together and leading high performing teams, and delivering high quality business outcomes.

     

    Published author, writer, reviewer of international service management publications, speaker at conferences, trainer, occasional blogger & tweeter.

     

    Core strengths comprise business, IT operations & lean thinking; add project management, governance and enterprise architecture; garnish with security, mobility, and an understanding of social & digital channels.

     

    A unique blend to assist in simplification and improve the way service is delivered.

     

    Specialisation:

    • IT Service Management - Current State Evaluation, Future Options Development, Requirements, SLAs, Vendor Management, Contracts, Service Catalogs, Pricing, Service Desks, Transition, Process Improvement, Business Analysis, Project Management
    • LeanIT - One of the few globally who has very successfully applied Lean Management principles to IT processes;
    • Asia Pacific Operations - A true local in the region for organisations wanting to participate in the growing market, in particular wanting advice on India, New Zealand or Australia

    Professional Credentials:

     

    MBA, ITIL, Certified ISO20000 Consultant, TOGAF, Member Institute of IT Professionals, Chartered IT Professional

  • Outside Work

    Enjoying & making a difference where I can....

    CSR, Corporate Social REsponsibility, Coaching, Guiding & Mentoring Skilled Migrants

    My own Corporate Social Responsibility initiative: Coaching, Guiding & Mentoring New Skilled Immigrants

    Someone gave me a leg up when I first arrived in New Zealand, many were kind and generous to a fault.

     

    Now in a position to pay if forward, I find myself coaching, guiding & mentoring skilled new immigrants to New Zealand - with very "deep-down-inside" satisfying results.

     

    Currently documenting their stories and successes as case studies; and finding & connecting with like-minded people and organisations.

    Around Outback Australia 4WD

    Gone Walkabouts:

    4WD & Travel

    As a family we decided to pull our son out of school for a term and see some of Australia before we headed home to Wellington.

     

    The result was an epic 80 day, 21,000 km 4WD trip through the centre of Australia from Sydney to Broome, and then back again the long way.

     

    We have seen more of Australia than most Australians and are so much the richer for it.

     

    Here is a link to a clip if you are interested !

     

    Around Oz in 80 Days

    Royal Enfield Bullet Motorbike

    Quality Thinking Time:

    Royal Enfield Bullet

    ... and for quality thinking and to find my peace of mind, I ride my Royal Enfield Bullet motorbike.

     

    Link to article in KiwiRider.

    India NZ Connections

    India-NZ connections

    I believe people like myself who are local in Australia, New Zealand & India have a role to play in building bridges between the countries... I play my small part by informally guiding businesses interested in these markets.

  • Clarity of Thought, Speed of Execution

     

    1. Hone in on key concerns
    2. Develop a pragmatic strategy
    3. See it through to execution

     

    Guaranteed two insights as they apply to your situation, or the coffee is on me

     

     

    Have the quality conversation

    sunit@sunit.co.nz

    +64 21 144 8181 

    +61 415 32 82 72 

    +91 98207 09945 

    @sunitprakash

    nz.linkedin.com/in/sunitprakash

© 2015

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