Streamlined customer modification request system brings project management and MIS (Management Information System) benefits to Xibis
31th January 2007
It can easily be forgotten that, in addition to building externally-facing commercial web sites, web technology can be used to build new business systems to streamline business processes; the benefits of which can have significant impact on efficiency and profitability by delivering improvements in the way you work with your employees, partners or customers.
A point in case is our very own Extranet, which we developed just over a year ago, primarily to handle modification requests from customers. The system enables our customers to submit and track their modifications online, allowing our developers to work in a more structured and efficient way. Prior to this customers would send change requests in via email, often only one or two at a time, or some even 50 at a time. This became messy and difficult to manage, sometimes resulting in assignments going "missing". Consequently some very unhappy customers whose work was not getting done to expectation.
The development and adoption of the Xibis Extranet has almost eradicated the frustrations of our development teams and customers alike by proving a clear process and set procedure that is easy to follow, with modification requests going directly to the developer. Virtually overnight it transformed our modification process and helped to greatly improve our customer relationships.
After it was initially launched Xibis recognised a further two opportunities to make life easier for the development team and to provide a better service to customers. So we had a further two phases of development to get our Extranet to the system it is today.
Firstly, we adopted it for internally-assigned work too, by developing the facility for our project managers to assign and manage customer projects to the individual developers in their team. This allowed the systems analysts to project manage their teams' work much more efficiently and ensuring that tasks did not get lost or forgotten. This system has been a great boon to our business practises and all employees now use it to keep track of their work tasks, not just the development team.
Secondly we saw the obvious capability to develop a management information system, allowing individual developers to keep time logs and to assign hourly rates to their work. This means that they, and their project managers, know exactly which customer tasks each developer is working on at any one time. In addition, it means that we know the time and cost associated with every project and modification we undertake, and the impact on profitability. In addition, although most of our work is done for a fixed cost, on those occasions where we charge an hourly rate for specific modifications or support, it means that we can accurately bill customers the end of the project, and keep them updated of costs when needed.
The Xibis Extranet has allowed us to streamline our business processes and has proved invaluable in helping to keep our customers much happier with the service we offer.