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September 14, 1998

Better Technology, More Business

Service companies are rebuilding IT infrastructures and revamping business processes to spur growth

By Richard Adhikari

InformationWeek 500 Menu

PROFESSIONAL SERVICES

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With data from Hoovers Online

Companies in every industry are trying to improve customer service, but for those organizations whose business it is to provide services, it's especially critical.

Professional services companies in the InformationWeek 500, including accounting, personnel, consulting, systems integration, and outsourcing firms, are looking for new ways to use IT to better serve customers and expand their own businesses. Many are rebuilding their IT frameworks and restructuring business procedures to lay a foundation for future growth. Others are leveraging data warehouses to share knowledge or are offering ways to measure the value oftheir service. At most companies, Web technologies are playing an increasingly significant role because they enable faster service and improved communications.

Payroll services provider Automatic Data Processing Inc. is building services to let clients view payroll information over the Internet. "We have come to understand as a service company that the only companies shopping are those delighted with our service," says Renato Crocetti, corporate VP for IT at the Roseland, N.J., company. "Delighted clients are the ones that will stay in our fold and will be a source for additional clients."

Likewise, Interim Services Inc., a $1.6 billion Fort Lauderdale, Fla., employment placement firm, established an intranet to help clients recruit senior executives worldwide. Comdisco Inc., a $3 billion high-tech services company in Rosemont, Ill., employs a worldwide intranet to let its employees keep track of customer accounts.

Overhauling the technology infrastructure and business processes is fundamental for continued growth. Aramark Corp., a $6 billion company in Philadelphia that provides catering, cleaning, and uniform-rental services, is spending about $100 million over the next two years on such an overhaul for its food catering and support services.

Aramark is standardizing its IT infrastructure, and is setting up extranets over which customers can place orders, according to John Kallelis, VP of IT. Extranets, which will speed the order-placing process for customers and minimize mistakes, will let Aramark extend its reach to new customers.

A solid IT framework can minimize the disruption to business when service companies merge or acquire new firms as part of their growth. Managers at Interim Services are eyeing strategic acquisitions worldwide to maintain an annual 30% to 40% rate of growth. To support this, VP and CIO Bob Evans is replacing existing centralized legacy systems with a distributed client-server infrastructure that will let the organization easily assimilate or convert acquired systems.

Interim Services is standardizing operating systems, databases, encryption software, and other must-have items-but leaving branch offices worldwide some leeway to get the business applications that best meet their needs. "We standardize only what we need and no more," Evans says.

A corporate intranet lets Interim's staff search for candidates companywide, extending its reach globally. If a client in Paris wants a CFO for its U.S.-based subsidiary, for example, the company's Paris office staff will send a query over the intranet and get back information about the closest Interim office with a suitable candidate.

Overhauling the technology infrastructure is not a one-time move for Greg Sabatello, VP and CIO at Comdisco. He has set up a team to constantly evaluate the architecture and modify it to maximize business benefits. The lessons learned from that work support Comdisco's business strategy of having a deep and broad understanding of technology so staff can recommend the best solutions to clients.

Comdisco also relies on information sharing through data warehouses and a corporate intranet to strengthen customer service. With proper clearance, a staff member anywhere in the world can log on to the company's intranet and get crucial information such as human resources policies, customer contracts, and financial data.

"The more knowledge your organization has, the better solutions you can offer your customers, in the most cost-effective manner," Sabatello says.

For major accounting and consulting firms such as like Deloitte & Touche LLP, knowledge sharing is essential. Its consultants need access to the latest information about trends and industry events to serve their clients better. To make its data sharing more efficient, Deloitte & Touche consolidated its 800 servers distributed among 112 offices throughout the United States into three server farms, in Nashville, Tenn., New York, and Los Angeles.

Deloitte & Touche also upgraded its wide area network and gave each office two private virtual circuits, one dedicated to data and the other to Lotus Notes mail and Internet access.

The moves give consultants quicker access to fresh information. The servers run around the clock, seven days a week, so consultants can access information at any time, CIO Doug Greenleaf says.

Deloitte & Touche is working on a system called Universal Desktop that will let consultants access all information the firm gets from all sources-80 internal and external databases and several news services-by clicking a button. This is based on the Lotus Domino Web server and will have either a Domino or a Windows 98 browser-enabled front end. Once it's implemented by the end of the year, consultants will have access to even more information more easily.

Because it allows for almost instantaneous communications, the Web can provide services companies with a huge competitive edge, especially when used with other technologies, such as workflow.

Take DynCorp, a $1.4 billion government contractor in Reston, Va., for example. When it won a contract to hire employees for the Department of Justice, DynCorp set up an extranet that cut the time required for the hiring process from weeks to days.

That's the type of customer service that makes a company stand out, and CIO Hank Philcox is working Web technology hard. "The Web lets you cross functional boundaries, particularly where clients don't have the same systems as you do, but do have browsers," he says.

DynCorp has built several critical applications using intranets to link various databases. One is a marketing intranet that has information about projects such as cost and contract summaries and bid and proposal procedures. Marketing staffers can re-use that information when bidding on new contracts and check resumés to see if DynCorp has staff with the required skills for the contracts.

"We basically sell people and their time, so we have to enhance our corporate knowledge base to increase the capabilities and productivity of our people," Philcox says.

DynCorp also builds systems to support new contracts. For example, it won a bid from the U.S. Army to work on vaccines to inoculate troops against biological weapons. DynCorp staff will develop the vaccines, take them through clinical trials, get FDA approval, and then stockpile and hold the vaccines. Corporate IT has built an intranet to let everyone involved in the project share documents and manage them through the clinical trial and FDA approval process.

It's all very well to sell services to clients; the trick is in getting them to agree with you on the value of your services. That's especially important for a company such as ADP, which sells information services to businesses in four areas: employer services such as payroll; brokerage software; outsourcing packages for auto dealers; and auto insurance claims.

"We're constantly bombarded by business owners who want to know what they're getting for all the money they spend with us on information services," VP of IT Crocetti says. ADP has developed a "basket of factors" that defines the market requirements for these services. This, Crocetti says, is "a combination of all the factors within the business that define the actual need to get the product out."

That includes how long it takes to define the product and get development funds; development time; implementation time; the cost of the project; quality as measured by the client once the product is released; and how satisfied clients are with the functionality ADP has provided.

ADP is also building services that let clients handle functions such as viewing paychecks or pay stubs over the Internet themselves, instead of calling ADP and paying for these services. "We want clients to call us for items that deliver additional value, not for things they can do for themselves," Crocetti says.

Giving clients IT-based solutions to make their jobs easier is what service is all about.

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