Customer Support Consortium Becomes Independent Organization; A collaboration of 70-plus leading technology companies continues to define business models for faster, more efficient customer support.SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 15, 1997--The Customer Support Consortium, an alliance of more than seventy leading technology companies, whose mission is to shape the future of support by developing new strategies, business models, and industry standards, announced its creation as an independent, not-for-profit Not-for-profit An organization established for charitable, humanitarian, or educational purposes that is exempt from some taxes and in which no one in profits or losses. organization today. Primus, which develops and markets problem resolution software and services, founded the Consortium in 1992 and has been the managing partner, contributing strategic guidance, staffing and financial support, for the last four years. "Our focus has shifted from developing technology requirements to establishing business strategies and standards for collaboration within the support community," explains Greg Oxton, executive director of the Consortium. "The interests of the Consortium members and the support community will best be served by the Consortium as a not-for-profit, independent organization." "It has always been Primus' vision to transition the Consortium to be an independent, not-for-profit organization," explains Steven Sperry, president and CEO (1) (Chief Executive Officer) The highest individual in command of an organization. Typically the president of the company, the CEO reports to the Chairman of the Board. of Primus. "This proactive move will allow the Consortium to more effectively represent the entire customer support community. Primus is pleased to have initiated this industry forum and with the industry's acceptance of its work." The Consortium's efforts will be funded entirely by its members, which have tripled in number during the past four years. Members include 3M, Bay Networks, Compaq, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, IBM (International Business Machines Corporation, Armonk, NY, www.ibm.com) The world's largest computer company. IBM's product lines include the S/390 mainframes (zSeries), AS/400 midrange business systems (iSeries), RS/6000 workstations and servers (pSeries), Intel-based servers (xSeries) , Intel, Lotus, Microsoft, NCR (NCR Corporation, Dayton, OH, www.ncr.com) A technology company specializing in financial terminal transactions, retail systems and data warehousing. Until the late 1990s, NCR was heavily invested in the hardware side of the industry, known worldwide as a major manufacturer of computers , Novell, Softbank, SHL SHL Shift Logical Left SHL Schweizerische Hochschule für Landwirtschaft (German: Swiss College of Agriculture) SHL Southern Hockey League SHL Silver Haired Legislature SHL Single Hidden Layer (neural networks) Systemhouse and Tandem (Tandem Computers Inc., Cupertino, CA) A former major manufacturer of fault-tolerant computers founded in 1974 by James Treybig and provider of the early 21st century technology for HP's enterprise computing strategy. , and support technology vendors such as Clarify, Inference (logic) inference - The logical process by which new facts are derived from known facts by the application of inference rules. See also symbolic inference, type inference. , Primus, Scopus, ServiceWare, Touchstone touchstone Black, silica-containing stone used in assaying to determine the purity of gold and silver. The metal to be assayed is rubbed on the touchstone, and then a sample of metal of known purity is rubbed on the stone right next to it. and Vantive. Consortium member Tom Best, vice president, world-wide support and product planning Product Planning is the ongoing process of identifying and articulating market requirements that define a product’s feature set. See also
tr.v. sur·round·ed, sur·round·ing, sur·rounds 1. To extend on all sides of simultaneously; encircle. 2. To enclose or confine on all sides so as to bar escape or outside communication. n. support become increasingly complex, the Consortium needs to do everything possible to appeal to the widest cross-section of industry players. By moving to an independent status, they are able to do just that." "Consortium members share a strong financial incentive to solve customer support problems," Oxton says. "Addressing these problems is mission-critical for technology companies to control costs and increase customer satisfaction and loyalty. Participation from the entire support community is critical to the success of the work, and to get that participation the Consortium has to be vendor neutral." The Organization Structure Members may join the Customer Support Consortium as an associate, participant or sponsor member. While associates receive communications and attend conferences, participants or sponsors may also join working groups, which address initiatives and projects. Sponsors are entitled en·ti·tle tr.v. en·ti·tled, en·ti·tling, en·ti·tles 1. To give a name or title to. 2. To furnish with a right or claim to something: to vote for board members and offer recommendations to the board. There are four working groups which address strategic issues, exchange standards, knowledge management and Solution-Centered Processes. The Strategic Issues group explores the business and strategic issues associated with multi-vendor support. The Standards group defines standards for exchanging solutions within an organization or across organizational boundaries. The Knowledge Management group examines the total life cycle of support knowledge, and the Solution-Centered Processes group studies the business processes required for leveraging Solution-Centered Support. The Consortium's overall direction is set by its Advisory Council, whose members are: Tom Best, vice president, world-wide support and product planning, Novell Catherine Lewis, senior director of software service process, Lotus Pat Monaghan, vice president of help desk services, GE Capital Jerry Pay, director of information technologies, 3M Health Information Systems Mark Perry Mark Perry is the name of:
Rich Rinaldi, vice president of customer support, Dell About the Customer Support Consortium The Customer Support Consortium is an industry alliance for shaping customer support by developing new strategies, business models, and industry standards. It has developed and is implementing a new business model for the support industry: the Solution-Centered Support model. The Consortium was founded in 1992 by Primus, when twenty four leading technology organizations joined forces to collaborate on support solutions for industry-wide problems. For more information about the Customer Support Consortium, contact Greg Oxton or Regina Vaccaro at 1601 Fifth Ave. N., Suite 1900, Seattle WA 98101. Phone: 206/622-5200, ext. 442. Fax: 206/667-9181. URL URL in full Uniform Resource Locator Address of a resource on the Internet. The resource can be any type of file stored on a server, such as a Web page, a text file, a graphics file, or an application program. : http://www.customersupport.org . CONTACT: Customer Support Consortium Greg Oxton, 206/622-5200 oxton@customersupport.org or Parker LePla Melanie Hoelscher, 206/285-5280 melanie@parkerlepla.com |
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