Rimini Street Managed Services for Salesforce clients benefit from the responsive, client-centric support model that Rimini Street is known for with its Oracle and SAP enterprise software support. The FTS approach utilizes distributed team members spread across time-zones to achieve a single project outcome with the main objective of gaining speed and reducing the time-to-market of a project [13]. What is the Follow the Sun Customer Support Model? - HubSpot A key observation from this study is that even after decade long progress of FTS, its challenges are not overcome yet and it may be relevant to notice that there are no substantial benefits to FTS, thus FTS achievability is an empirical question for which a necessary first step is a consistent definition. We're committed to your privacy. 0000009498 00000 n mobile handsets, firmware, e-commerce systems, and innovative supply chain management). But in reality not many companies are following this methodology due to a few documented successes and a significant lag in FTS research. Following the sun: Case studies in global software development. IBM Systems Journal 45.4 (2006): 773-783. The University of Dar es Salaam Computing Centre is going to offer you in-class facilitation of all of the openEd 2.0 course modules against a moderate fee.<br /> 28. 0000067119 00000 n Overall it was found that increasing the number of sites in a daily cycle increased the working speed. Time to market is the amount of time it takes from the moment the product is conceived until the product is available for use or sale. z.,'ECC4@ad4pw7?/.iyfhLV%=>=(TvxZN}!p7oN3~4T i+U[8 fZ)6 +r) According to Carmel [1], FTS has challenges such as coordination barriers, cultural differences, and communication difficulties depicted in Fig. Researching into Follow-the-Sun Software Development: Challenges and Follow the Sun is a support model which works best for service desks that work around the clock, i.e 24 hours a day and 7 days a week. IEEE, 2014. Network Security in Theory and Practice. Handoffs management in follow-the-sun software projects: a case study. The. A follow the sun model keeps everyone on the same page, working towards the same project end goal., Lets walk through some best practices for setting up a follow the sun model., While a follow the sun model means teams in multiple locations could be involved, its important to define what the home base is for each project you take on, whether that is your site or another one. Believe it or not, the Covid-19 pandemic certainly influenced the decision to bring this powerful idea to life with local client support branches and personnel on every continent. Organize the data by cloud, region, compute instance, and more., Having this tool in your arsenal transforms project management and puts you in a better position to respond to security risks and downtime., Every piece of your infrastructure is laid out right in front of you, and you can easily filter diagrams based on the task at hand, removing unnecessary details, and even @mentioned specific users to direct them to the specific part of infrastructure that needs action to be taken. 0000066419 00000 n The follow the sun customer support model is designed to address customer needs without regard to geographic location or current time. [7] Monica Yap. December 20, 2021. Several reasons such as misinterpretation of specifications, multiple rework cycles, lack of proper coordination and communication between teams, time zone issues and cultural differences were attributed to the projects failure. ](Ohg2jFy0tz H`?d/r_@IEPCZGr H In addition to verbal communication, teams can also use visual documentation, such as flowcharts, kanban boards, and Gantt charts as part of their daily hand-offs. [6] Carmel, Erran, Yael Dubinsky, and Alberto Espinosa. 0000067875 00000 n Follow-the-Sun (FTS) is a strategy in Global Software Development (GSD) focusing on software development twenty-four hours, seven days per week with physically distributed teams. "Follow the sun" is a service and support model designed to address customer's needs regardless of geographic location or time-zone. Your global customers will appreciate that bugs and other issues can be resolved quickly and that they dont have to wait for a team in a different time zone to fix the problem. Deriving Mutual Benefits from Offshore Outsourcing: The 24-Hour Knowledge Factory Scenario. (2007). Follow-the-sun schedule - The follow-the-sun schedule is used by teams that may work internationally in different time zones, and ensures full 24/7 coverage. Stars, 16 Agency Leaders Explore The SEO Trends Impacting Their Work In 2023, 15 Smart Ways To Address High Employee Turnover, How Vietnam's Entertainment Industry Can Increase Its Global Reach, 6 Best Practices For CEOs And Professional Leaders Using LinkedIn. But these steps will add to the increase in cost due to burnout and fatigue [2]. It is commonly used and regarded as the "gold standard" in the field of presentation applications. Hand-offs are the central idea of the FTS approach. Another group could start at 8:00 a.m. or 9:00 a.m. to support the Mountain and Pacific Time Zones. Some other day to day tasks enabled by software include logging time spent by developers, issue tracking, real time reporting, code reviews, and documentation. PDF How to Provide Global Support Three categories of challenges were found, namely challenges in coordination (e.g. As someone who has been working with the top 100 pharma companies, I know that preparation and planning are key. To do this from a single office theyd have to aggressively staff up. This theme is specifically for location selection and the impact of it. Linear sequential approaches such as the Waterfall model seem to be inefficient for the FTS approach. For example, another Zendesk customer, Prezi, has teams in two locationsone in San Francisco and one in Budapest. Companies large and small are able to provide 24-hour service without putting the burden on one site and requiring employees to work late shifts or overtime. They also need to train employees on how to use the software and then respond to any service tickets upon deployment. [5] Amar Gupta. While you wont all be in the same room for these meetings, video conferences are fairly easy to set up and schedule. Document what has been accomplished so each site can avoid repeating work. The geographically dispersed nature requires the use of software applications which facilitate tele-conferencing, VoIP calling, instant messaging etc. The war in Ukraine also impacted us personally. Are the majority simple, transactional issues like password changes and processing returns, or are they more complex technical issues requiring more resources? To manage the workflow efficiently the principles shown in Fig. Their teams are based in Honduras, Romania and the Philippines. The success cases in the Industry using FTS are rare, in part due to the lack of well-founded knowledge on applying FTS [9]. Please select this checkbox if you do not wish to receive marketing communications from Zendesk. We've got a true, "follow the sun" model, allowing access to support engineers [.] 0000063943 00000 n Additionally, you won't have to hire any customer service reps to work a night shift -- meaning you'll have happier employees who are working reasonable hours. Companies large and small are able to provide 24-hour service without putting the burden on one site and requiring employees to work late shifts or overtime. Slide 1 of 2. Depending on the answer, you might just need a globally-accessible FAQ page or Help Center rather than a team of people always on call. If all the IT teams within your company use a follow the sun model, the project could be completed in days. Working normal daylight hours keeps employees happy, healthy, and motivated to work while your company is still able to offer round-the-clock service. There are claims that FTS is being used at General Motors and at OfficeTiger [4] [5]. If your team is still in the lean, jumping phase, you might not be ready to offer global support. 0000005432 00000 n This can be achieved in a variety of ways. In this post, we'll learn what the follow the sun customer support model is, the benefits, best practices, and how you can decide if it's the right model for your business. hb```b``b`2^21 Pc3HbL=6(TMA`2 DeI&6P)be7fLS;X|Oim5kQT,.Fj=,gwK,7# The first one involved a software development project consisting of teams in the United States and Australia and met with high degree of success. Production sites involved in the software development are many time zones apart. Modes of communication in FTS approach may be asynchronous or synchronous. Christian Doerr, If youre a small company looking to provide global support, consider what steps you can take now to achieve your longer-term support goals. The result was that the project was completed in 5.5 weeks, while it was estimated to be completed in 6 weeks in non-FTS mode, so it reduced time. The major benefit is the development duration or the potential in reducing the time-to-market. We operate a 24/7 global support team - Microsoft Community Forbes Agency Council is an invitation-only community for executives in successful public relations, media strategy, creative and advertising agencies. By following the sun, the issue is worked on until it is resolved. However, one slight difference is that Agile stresses on face to face communication, whereas in FTS inter-site communication between production sites is maintained at the bare minimum by using automated tools. Where are our customers primarily located? CX is a top priority for financial services providers, and for good reason. 0000068561 00000 n Open Scholars support emerging Open Learning alternatives<br />In-Class Support in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania! Lucidscale connects to major cloud sources like Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform (GCP) to pull in data automatically. Learn how to use a follow the sun model for your IT and cloud teams. One way to implement a follow the sun approach is to have customer support owned by one site at a time -- wherever the sun is up. In this section we give a number of research themes within Follow-the-Sun software development research. The term calendar efficiency helps in understanding the analysis further. Well explain how to calculate and reduce turnover in your organization. Do you want to provide complete 24-hour service? Its a great way to optimize your support. I went down the street to the 24-hour grocery store. And when the shifts switch, you'll have each site hand off work to the next shift. 0000068636 00000 n For this model to work, all sites must be using the same tools and development methodologies (planning, bug tracking, version control, reporting, and so on). One shortcoming of this article is that we have only investigated the effect of FTS on speed, not on the product quality because of lack of suitable documented references. [3] Frederick P Brooks Jr. Focus on those regions first. This is a highly collaborative, communicative approach to customer service, and it's a delicate line to balance. This way, the problem remains a priority and is worked on until the customer is satisfied. For example, in the United States, some of your employees could start the day at 6:00 a.m. to support the Eastern and Central Time Zones. Follow-the-sun support with JIRA Service Desk - Valiantys However, FTS is not. Some companies go with the more traditional application of follow the sun: which means providing anytime, anywhere, 24/7/365 support. That means you need global customer service. [8] Christian Doerr. For me, staying connected with clients in every corner of the globe was always important. Agile has several characteristics which support FTS adoption [6]. Any issues can be resolved in near real time since theres always a team member ready to take action.. By its basic definition, "follow-the-sun" means that support literally follows the sunit's a type of global workflow in which issues can be handled by and passed between support locations in different time zones to increase responsiveness and reduce delays. y&[vx_TsrbV_[tQoMPDv2[%Xq?>R ,&$[f5_vv=EW\p6{`A7ejw@aAs]9#~;.#%hw AVC$+p( It's a model that provides support for clients at all times of the day or night, every day. Ultimately, the processes kept running, the staff were not forced to work overtime, and none of the offices were overwhelmed, and that is key when it comes to a successful business model. This workflow model is specifically designed to help address customers' needs without regard to geolocation or time zone. However, the distance between time zones of production can be an issue since the real-time communication between the teams can be very limited. Follow the sun: distributed extreme programming development. Because of its uncommon nature, FTS is also least practiced in the industry and has very few documented examples of success. Background, main ideas and principles behind FTS were discussed followed by a brief review on Agile for FTS, advantages and limitations of FTS. The tools you use should emphasize team collaboration and the automation of reporting, scheduling, planning, and progress tracking. RUC 2003 reducing time to market using follow-the-sun techniques With many sites all working on the same project, the daily handoff can become a bottleneckespecially if the other team doesnt understand the problem or if their work introduces a new problem. Follow the Sun: Introduction (1 of 3) - SlideServe To say that life during the global pandemic has recentred our focus on health is an understatement. Start off by asking key questions. The organization which we are using in our example has offices spread worldwide and the Follow the Sun support model works wonderfully well for it. Follow-the-sun paradigm background reading. A daily dose of irreverent and informative takes on business & tech news, Turn marketing strategies into step-by-step processes designed for success, Spotlighting bold Black women entrepreneurs who have scaled from side hustles to profitable businesses, For B2B reps and sales teams who want to turn complete strangers into paying customers, Get productivity tips and business hacks to design your dream career, Free ebooks, tools, and templates to help you grow, Learn the latest business trends from leading experts with HubSpot Academy, All of HubSpot's marketing, sales CRM, customer service, CMS, and operations software on one platform. In addition, there is research about location selection and the effect of the number of selected locations. The purpose of this article was to present a comprehensive study on the FTS model for software development. And customers in one location do not get preferential or more support than any other location. It was developed so companies can provide round-the-clock customer service, literally following the sun around the globe. A follow the sun model can help your organization provide 24/7/365 support to customers across the globe, regardless of time or location. In fact, a study conducted by the CMO Council found that arranging technical assistance and 24/7 accessibility were the top two ways that companies could improve product experience for users.. Presenting support model PPT slide template. FTS feasibility study: In 2013 there was a feasibility study of FTS in the industry [18]. It can also be achieved in a variety of ways. Businesses can reduce the amount of time it takes to progress from ideation to planning and development when a team is working on the project on a 24-hour schedule. This project involved five global teams distributed across five different countries. They are required to fill in a request form through a portal. The work involved a software project developed by teams in Mexico, India and Australia, which followed Scrum. The follow the sun customer support model means that you have customer service representatives available whenever the sun is up -- so as it becomes daytime for different parts of the world as we orbit around the sun, you'll have various customer service sites beginning their day and handing off their issues to another site. The model you choose, develop, and refine should be the one that works best for you and your customers. With follow the sun model, support timings are always during the day which means all your agents will be able to perform much better without requiring to alternate shifts which can affect their productivity Global visibility: Follow the sun is a great way for your company to sell globally right from the start. Additionally, it will help you determine the processes you currently use and if your customer support is robust enough -- do you offer email, phone, and live chat support? Free and premium plans. Support Model Ppt Slides Download | PPT Images Gallery | PowerPoint 2013. As described by Carmel [1], the agile methodology is best suited for FTS. Agile places a lot of emphasis on continuous integration (using automation) encouraging every team to maintain an updated and testable version of the code which can be used by the next production site. They are summarized in the table below. Customers who aren't in your timezone won't have to wait for you to wake up to receive service. This in turn increases productivity. But other companies may determine Many companies are looking for efficiency in software development in terms of quality and development time. Computer, 42(1):66-73, 2009. This means that efficiency in task hand-off is of paramount importance to the success of the FTS approach. Research in Follow-the-Sun software development has been done since 1990. Its also a great record to have on hand to show various stakeholders just how much your department can accomplish in any given window of time., Visualizing your cloud infrastructure in a centralized location that is accessible to all global team members will create an accurate and consistent picture of your follow the sun model from day one. 2. Response times are increased, delays in problem-solving are reduced, and customers are satisfied. endstream endobj 134 0 obj <>stream The effective utilization of code repositories and version control management systems is crucial to the success of the FTS approach. Consider these basic steps and questions you need to ask before diving into a follow the sun methodology. 0000013868 00000 n 24 hours per day, 7 days per week. Theres no reason to leap forward with global support if most of your customers are in only one or two regions. Keeps Support and the business informed so IC can focus on resolution. This research [15] introduced a routing model, which supports the selection of geographical locations for Follow-the-Sun software development. Organization . I am talking about the follow-the-sun model, or FTS for short. Provide tools: Get your system set up with the right tools so your customer service teams can collaborate and communicate easily. Project collaboration becomes immensely easier when the status of each task (and the progress made on the task) is clearly documented. As support teams brace for an economic downturn, many are leaning on customer service outsourcing to cut costs. But it might not, and thats OK; there are other options that allow you to deliver anytime, anywhere service and get global, fastregardless of the size of your company. 8. This facilitates easy job hand-offs and fits nicely within the FTS model. Teams must be able to define what work has been done and what work is expected next in the process. WDSGlobal case study: In 2004 a study conducted within the company of WDSGlobal reported the following list of what worked in FTS software development (when doing Extreme Programming) [7]: The study reported the following lessons that were learned: The study involved teams from the USA, UK and Singapore. Journal of Management Information Systems, 27(1):17-38, 2010. There are several major differences between traditional globally distributed software development and the FTS approach. No one prepared us for the pandemic, but it changed the world and how we look at work tremendously. The traditional follow the sun model is a type of global workflow in which issues can be handled by and passed between offices in different time zones, increasing responsiveness and reducing delays. Nataliya Andreychuk is the CEO of Viseven. Finally, communication is a key component for successful follow the sun implementation. If a system goes down or a major bug cripples workflows, employee productivity and customer experiences can plummet quickly., More than ever, customers expect instant action and response when they experience a technical problem with a product theyre using. That's why as the assets are transferred to the next team, you need to ensure that detailed workflow documentation and technical tasks do not require further clarification. Follow the Sun: Introduction (1 of 3) The Sun's apparent path across the sky for each day of the calendar year - from sunrise roughly East to maximum altitude (or "culmination") exactly South to sunset roughly West - has been observed and thought about for at least the last 5000 years. [17] Amar Gupta, Rajdeep Bondade, and Nathan Denny. Published: Handing off work from site to site balances the workload and makes it easier for you to offer consistent levels of service at all times. These difficulties prove that a systematic approach is needed in achieving a quick time-to-market strategy, which in turn leads to the Follow the Sun software development scheme. Although there were very less successful cases, some companies still showed positive intent in applying FTS model. Are you using a tool that makes it easy to scale, and to quickly hand off support tickets? FTS is a global software development strategy. User interface data decision support system model with arrows and icons. To visualize, we created the diagram below: Global customer support might not be necessary for every company, but it's important to begin using a global customer service model if you have international customers who are submitting tickets while you're asleep. trailer <]/Prev 478482>> startxref 0 %%EOF 170 0 obj <>stream Your team needs to deploy a brand-new, process-defining software to all the computers and devices on your companys networks. HubSpot uses the information you provide to us to contact you about our relevant content, products, and services. A part of this may be attributed to the availability of efficient tools and enabling technologies for implementing the FTS model. Do we get enough tickets from each timezone to support a customer service agent. If possible, these meetings could be conducted during the hand-off so that the team can better communicate and share knowledge with each other. To make collaboration and handoff even easier, engineers and process owners can @mention each other to focus attention on specific shapes of the diagram. Prashanth G.L, Santosh Malagi, Laurens Van Den Bercken, Ade Setyawan Sajim and Bernd Kreynen are the authors of this blog. Support Model - Slide Team Although these regions share the English language, there were cultural differences, for example, one culture has more emphasis on self-sufficiency; therefore they tend not to ask for help when problems come up. Since there is no overlap during the hand-off and the hand off happens, for example, via e-mail, instead of via the phone or other communication tool. The truth is, follow-the-sun support is simply a method meant to satisfy customersregardless of time or location. Having multiple subteams on deck to keep a project moving along 24 hours a day empowers your entire IT department to set realistic short-term deadlines, avoid working overtime, and complete roadmaps more efficiently., Think about what your IT team is really trying to accomplish on your roadmap for the next year. FTS is a special case of GSD which aims to achieve a 100% workday in software projects. [14] Josiane Kroll, Sajid Ibrahim Hashmi, Ita Richardson, and Jorge LN Audy. A systematic literature review of best practices and challenges in follow-the-sun software development. You most likely wont need to open multiple offices, especially at first, but perhaps a small remote office or a representative located remotely in a key area or time zone may satisfy your customers needs. Open Scholars Know How to License Their Work for Maximum Impact<br /> 29. Follow The Sun Model: 24/7 Customer Support | Gladly Tiered support model with queries and system administrators. [20] ZONE, HOW INFOSYS MANAGES TIME. Agile seems to be the best and most suitable for FTS based approaches because the principles of Agile anf FTS complement each other. And when they are working together within the FTS model, it only doubles the trouble. The "Follow-the-Sun" support model is a structured model that works best for service desks that work around the clock. Advances in Software Engineering, 2009:3, 2009. Organization Support: Role Incident Liaison (IL) Description For severity 1 incidents only. IBM Software Group IBM Software Group Rational software Click to edit Track Number on Title Master Reducing Time to Market Using Follow-the-Sun Techniques Alex Cameron EDS Alex.Cameron@eds.com. In its early days, this customer service approach only seemed feasible for big companies that had the resources to open and staff multiple offices around the world. In reality, setting up a Help Center doesnt have to be a monumental task, and by offering community forums, you can give your customers the chance to help each other. Zuora also employs a daily handoff model, in which open and pending matters are passed along to the next team when one goes off duty. Software developmentusing the 24-hour knowledge factory paradigm. Unpublished EDS working paper, 2004. They meet their global support goals with these two teams working together, giving them 18 hours a day of coverage without having to staff up aggressively. By checking this box, I agree to Zendesk contacting me with marketing-related communications about Zendesk products, services, and events. Global business processes such as call centres or help desks are not counted under the FTS umbrella. Adopting a follow the sun support methodology can help you provide high-quality, on-time service and support when your internal and external customers need you.. Prezi, for example, has teams in two locations: San Francisco and Budapest. 0000001891 00000 n Picture this. 0000013987 00000 n Stand-up meetings: Hold stand-up meetings right when shifts are switching from one site to another, so your employees can give the new reps an overview of what's happened, and any outstanding issues that need to be addressed. In Global Software Engineering (ICGSE), 2010 5th IEEE International Conference on, pages 165174. Determine which services will be provided, when they will be provided, and what skill set will be needed to provide those services. 0000004606 00000 n We have underlined some of the essential concepts of FTS such as use of Agile for FTS, tools required and learnings from past experiences for the efficient implementation of FTS. Software development involving multiple global locations in different time zones is not always FTS if it does not satisfy all the criteria mentioned in the. The follow the sun model is based on the following principles: When a follow the sun method is implemented correctly, it will reap the following advantages for you and your business. These are reactive in nature. With this intuitive, cloud-based solution, everyone can work visually and collaborate in real time while building flowcharts, mockups, UML diagrams, and more.
