Browsing by Author "Smith, Marisa K."

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    Enablers and barriers to innovation activities in call centres
    (2009-06-15) Smith, Marisa K.; Ball, Peter D.; van der Meer, Robert
    Call centres have an operating model that aim to reduce costs - this has led to both customers and employees having issues with the current model. This has led to the view that contact centres are not entities in which innovation would occur. This paper identifies the barriers and enablers to innovation activities within call centres and discusses the implications of these to the wider service context.
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    Factors influencing an organisation's ability to manage innovation: A structured literature review and conceptual model
    (Imperial College Press, 2008-12-31T00:00:00Z) Smith, Marisa K.; Busi, Marco; Ball, Peter D.; van der Meer, Robert
    Management literature prescribes innovation as a stimulus for sustained competitive advantage in companies; however, the nature of the development in this field has resulted in the literature being broad and fragmented. This paper focuses on the body of literature concerned with the factors which influence innovation management in organisations. The aim of this research is to present a holistic view of the factors that affect innovation management. Using a systematic literature review approach, using over 100 papers, this research identifies nine key factors that impact on an organisation's ability to manage innovation. These nine factors have been identified as management style and leadership, resources, organisational structure, corporate strategy, technology, knowledge management, employees and innovation process. This paper then discusses the inductively derived model that presents the important relationships identified between the factors to present a holistic view of innovation management. From this, we open up the debate on innovation management as a systemic approach rather than being focused on the singular factors. We can therefore conclude that a number of dominant relationships exist between the factors with the innovation process being the only endogenous factor within the model.
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    Transforming mass production contact centres using approaches from manufacturing
    (MCB University Press, 2010-12-31T00:00:00Z) Smith, Marisa K.; Ball, Peter D.; Bititci, Umit S.; van der Meer, Robert
    PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to identify theories from manufacturing which can be applied to alleviate current issues within contact centre organisations. As contact centres currently adopt a mass production approach to customer service, this paper aims to examine the key issues currently facing contact centres and investigate how manufacturing has overcome some of its issues with the mass production approach. Design/methodology/approach The research employs a qualitative case study approach using a cross section of different types of contact centre to identify the current issues with contact centres. Interview and direct observation are the chosen methods for data collection and the data is analysed using a series of deductive and emergent codes. FindingsFrom empirically investigating the issues that contact centres are currently facing it would imply that they have the same issues as manufacturing historically faced. Therefore, we can conclude that if manufacturing can develop from an industry founded on scientific management principles then so can the contact centre industry. Research limitations/implicationsThe findings of this research provide a useful starting point to discuss the ability of theories developed in manufacturing to be adapted into the contact centre context. This research is a starting point for further work into the applicability of manufacturing theories into the contact centre environment and as such it is deliberately discussed at a high level of abstraction. Practical implicationsMany of the techniques employed in contact centres originate from manufacturing's past but little of the research focuses on how contact centres can learn from manufacturing's future therefore this paper has practical implications in identifying which concepts can be transferred from manufacturing to contact centres. Originality/valueThe value of this paper is that it looks to the future of contact centre operations and discusses which techniques can be transferred from manufacturing to alleviate some of the current issues with contact centres.
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    Understanding how organisational characteristics of UK contact centres impact their scope for innovation
    (2008-06-16T00:00:00Z) Smith, Marisa K.; Ball, Peter D.; van der Meer, Robert; Taco, van der Vaart; Dirk, Pieter van Donk
    Advances in information and communications technology (ICT) has allowed the location of contact centres to be disjointed from the country they are providing service to, resulting in the UK having to compete with other countries as a location for contact centres, but the UK industry cannot match the low labour cost of many offshore locations. This means that the UK contact centres have to now compete on other factors rather than cost. There are many ways in which organisations can compete but one of the key ways for developed economies to compete is through increased innovation. Therefore the aim of the research is to examine how UK contact centres approach innovation. The research is carried out through a structured methodology of a systematic literature review and comparative case studies. The main findings of the research are that UK contact centres approach innovation in two main ways, either structured or ad-hoc and that they are involved in a range of different types of innovation, with the aim innovation type being process innovation.