Covering IT and Telecom from a Canadian Viewpoint

February 2018, Volume 5 Issue 1

FirstNet: National Public Safety By Peter Aggus

On top of the horror of the event, 9/11 was a communications disaster. When the first plane struck, emergency services personnel flooded into New York with their fire trucks, police cars and ambulances. Unfortunately, the primary way that the out-of-towners could communicate was by shouting at each other. Their radios relied on radio frequencies that didn’t work in Manhattan. Similar examples abound, including the Pine Lake tornado in Alberta for which we conducted the evaluation. Since this is a common story, and communications disasters can happen at any time, FirstNet was created. It’s a US story, but how long will it be until the pressure builds for Canada to follow suit?

Read More

Electronic Records Fiasco: What Now? By Guy Robertson

You expected your new electronic records management (ERM) system to work well. The marketing literature promised efficiency, security, and convenience. Your employees were enthusiastic when you announced plans for the new system. Implementation went well - the test data was filed properly and could be found easily. Then departments began to use it for their everyday work, and problems began to arise. So what went wrong? How do you fix it now that everyone hates it?

Read More

The Death of Moore’s Law and Other Big Trends By Ellen Koskinen-Dodgson

Global spend on digital transformation technologies in 2017 was forecast at $1.2 trillion (IDC per TechTarget) with annual growth at 18%. While it sounds like a nice problem to have, CIOs are faced with the problem of how to spend their new money. If they choose well, they could help their company win the business disruptor game. The risk of choosing poorly can cause them to delay their decisions. Here are five big trends that need consideration when making these decisions.

Read More

C-Suite Cyber Risk Perception By Lee-Ann Dittrich

This month, Marsh-Microsoft published their Global Cyber Risk Perception Survey with responses from 1,300 senior executives with more than half at the C-suite or board level. They all agree that cyber-attacks are a serious risk, particularly because the majority of corporate value is in intangible assets such as data and intellectual property (up from 17% in 1975 to 84% now). Unfortunately, this survey shows a great deal of magical and contradictory thinking. Here’s what stood out to us.

Read More

Contact Centre Assessment

Customer service has come a long way over the past few decades. Customers used to put up with a poor level of service because the bar was set low - choices were few and limiting technology and corporate policy meant that complaining didn't help. Now, customers have more choices and complaining can be much more effective. In fact, a complaint posted on Facebook or Twitter might go viral and a viral complaint can cause more damage to a company than a multi-million dollar advertising budget can repair.

If you focus on making callers feel valued, you spend time to select your system and plan the configuration very carefully. You also improve your policies and procedures.

TMC can compare your reality to:

• Customer expectations
• Your own stated goals
• Your peers
• Best practices

and recommend changes so that you can meet your desired scorecard. For no-obligation information on how TMC can help you improve, contact Ellen at 604-506-2905 or ellen@tmcconsulting.ca.