Inside Dell's global command centers
By James A. Cooke, Editor | From the Quarter 3 2012 issue
The technology giant's global command centers coordinate parts logistics and field
technicians to respond swiftly to customers' requests. They even monitor potential
problems like natural disasters and work with customers to develop contingency plans.
When a manufacturer sells its products worldwide, its customers expect that it will
also service those products on a global scale. It's not easy to meet those expectations
in a consistent and timely way. But thanks to "global command centers" that oversee
delivery of parts and field service, the technology giant Dell Inc. is able to ensure that
its enterprise customers worldwide get the service they need when they need it.
A global command center provides companies with visibility that allows them to
monitor supply chain activities and make adjustments in real time as events occur.
Although command centers are a relatively new supply chain initiative for many
companies, Dell opened its first one nearly 10 years ago for service parts. (Dell also
operates several command centers on the fulfillment side.)
Dell, based in Round Rock, Texas, USA, makes and sells personal computers, servers,
data-storage devices, network switches, and computer peripherals. The company
outsources much of its on-site technical support for those products to outside field
engineers; it also contracts with third-party logistics companies to handle the storage
and delivery of service parts to customers.
Adopting the command-center concept for parts and service delivery has helped Dell
to work more closely with its service providers and be more proactive when it comes
to customer service, thereby strengthening customer loyalty. A peek inside one of the
command centers shows how they work and why they've been successful.
What do Dell's Global Command Centers do?
Dell's command centers are located in Austin, Texas, USA; Limerick, Ireland;
Kawasaki, Japan; Xiamen, China; and Penang, Malaysia. According to the technology
giant, these customer-focused command centers provide:
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Critical situation procedures for analyzing and recommending solutions during
major crises
Critical management teams that include Dell experts and experts from partners
such as Microsoft, Oracle, and VERITAS
Mapping programs that may be used even during a natural disaster, power
outage, or virus attack to efficiently mobilize and route emergency resources
Real-time tracking for management of incidents, technicians, and service parts
Live news and weather feeds to proactively identify national problems that
might cause customer service delays
Source: Dell Inc.
Aligning with customers' priorities
Dell reported US $61.5 billion in revenue from its operations in 2011, one of the most
successful years in the company's history. The bulk of that revenue derives from
product sales, but after-sale support plays an important role, as service quality has
become crucial for maintaining customer loyalty.
"In the last decade the perception of [information technology] for many customers
began to shift from being viewed as just a cost center to being viewed as a key
strategic advantage," explains Steve Sturr, executive director of global services at Dell.
"Customers expected faster response and resolution times from their vendors in order
to assure the continuity of critical business processes and to manage costs. It was
imperative for Dell to acknowledge the changing customer needs and align our
support model appropriately. The global command centers were born from this
evolution in customer priorities."
Dell's service parts command centers are located in Austin, Texas, USA; Limerick,
Ireland; Kawasaki, Japan; Xiamen, China; and Penang, Malaysia. At each center,
experts in various subject areas closely monitor service developments and direct
Dell's service providers. The command center in Austin, Texas, for example,
resembles a "war room" staffed with experts who sit at computer consoles arranged
auditorium-style, so they can see an array of huge, wall-mounted screens displaying
service requests, maps, news, weather, and other live information feeds. "It looks like
a NASA command center," says Sturr, comparing it to the U.S. National Aeronautics
and Space Administration's rocket-launch control room.
The five command centers' staffers monitor service requests from customers. In
addition to offering assistance over the telephone, they route spare parts from more
than 600 parts depots across the globe and dispatch technicians to a customer's site if
needed. The centers, in turn, are supported by 30,000 technical experts worldwide
who provide tech support to customers and the field engineers who perform on-site
repair.
Given businesses' dependence on information technology, Dell's customers often need
help right away. If the Austin troubleshooters, for instance, can't resolve the
customer's problem over the phone, they can arrange the delivery of parts and
dispatch of a technician, often within two hours.
A clear view in real time
Real-time supply chain visibility plays a key role in ensuring Dell's ability to respond
quickly to customers' requests. The real-time information depicted on the computer
monitors and displays are enabled by Dell's custom-designed technology platform,
called Clear View monitoring. That platform allows Dell to monitor service dispatch
activity as it occurs.
Clear View monitoring is actually a combination of business-process management
software and business-activity monitoring software. Together these applications take
data feeds from Dell's partners and the company's own internal systems and then run
that data through a rules engine, which has preset conditions to flag a commandcenter staffer about when to act on an issue. The rules engine software can detect
simple exceptions in a single customer service request or recognize complex patterns
emerging from multiple requests. "It establishes thresholds for when there's a
problem," Sturr says.
The Clear View platform interfaces with a geographical data system. That makes it
possible for the system to match a service dispatch with the optimal parts location in
Dell's supply chain network. It can also take into account current weather information
to determine whether an event like a storm might impact a parts shipment. The
command centers also evaluate the potential impact on parts deliveries of flight delays,
traffic congestion, local events, and news developments and help customers develop
contingency plans.
Because the center is monitoring weather developments, Dell can, for example,
forewarn a customer of an impending storm and advise precautions. Sturr cites the
example of a tornado ripping through part of the U.S. Midwest. Dell could contact a
hospital in that area about setting up a command center of its own to track health
information for patients who are injured by the tornado. To assist the hospital during
that emergency, Dell could pull computers off its factory floor and fly those machines
and a team of engineers to the hospital to set them up.
To coordinate emergency response, Dell would have to work with its network of
third-party service providers. The command center plays a key role in scenarios like
this one and other, everyday events because it enables data integration between Dell's
information systems and those of its service partners. That's critical, Sturr says.
"When you operate a heavily outsourced facility, you want visibility into what
happens inside your partners' [operations]."
There also have to be flawless exchanges of information when multiple parties are
involved in providing service, often in extremely short order. "There has to be realtime data feeds to make command centers work," says Sturr.
Proactive support
The global command centers have enhanced Dell's customer service in a number of
ways. For one thing, they enable a swifter response to customers' service needs. For
another, they help to ensure that routine service calls and emergencies alike are
addressed through the most effective processes. In fact, Sturr says, Dell sees the
command centers as centralizing "a process-assurance capability that acts as a day-today process-orchestration engine." The centers' expertise also has allowed Dell to
better prepare and mobilize information technology resources to support large-scale
customer events such as political summits and sports competitions.
More importantly, perhaps, is that the command centers make it possible for Dell to
reach out and help customers prepare for disruptions, delays, or other problems that
are outside the computer maker's control. "When there's a disruption in the supply
chain, we can notify customers proactively," says Sturr. "For example, if there's bad
weather in the U.S. Midwest, parts won't get delivered because planes aren't flying.
Customers want to hear from us first and not the next day. Customer communication
is the single most important thing we do."
Along with enhanced customer service, the centers have increased supply chain
efficiency through better coordination with outside vendors and reduced operational
costs in Dell's parts supply operation, thus improving the company's overall
competitiveness and profitability.
"We've realized significant improvements in our overall on-time-performance metric,
and the process improvements driven from within the global command centers have
saved Dell millions of dollars," Sturr says. "But the most unique advantage is the
[centers'] ability to work across all the functional segments of our supply chain and
act as a mortar that seamlessly unites each of those segments."