SERVQUAL for IT Services

SERVQUAL stands for SERVice QUALity. SERVQUAL is the most effective analysis tool available to service industries for studying the difference between customer expectations from service and perceptions of service quality.

For any service industry, it is essential that customer expectations are properly understood, measured from the customers’ perspective, and any gaps in service quality are identified. SERVQUAL identifies various service quality gaps that may exist in the system of service process. Major attention is paid to gaps associated with external customer services but the model can be extended to other major gaps associated with internal customers

Model of Service Quality Gaps

There are seven gaps identified in the SERVQUAL model.



Gap 1: Customers’ expectations versus management perceptions:

Gap 2: Management perceptions versus service specifications:

Gap 3: Service specifications versus service delivery:

Gap 4: Service delivery versus external communication:

Gap 5: The discrepancy between customer expectations and their perceptions of the service delivered:

Gap 6: The discrepancy between customer expectations and employees’ perceptions:

Gap 7: The discrepancy between employee’s perceptions and management perceptions:

Dimensions of SERVQUAL

The model stated five dimensions or factors:

1. Tangibles: Appearance of Physical facilities, equipment, and personnel
2. Reliability: Ability to perform the promised service dependably and accurately
3. Responsiveness: Willingness to help customers and provide prompt service
4. Assurance: Knowledge and courtesy of employees and their ability to inspire trust and confidence
5. Empathy: Caring and individualized attention that the firm provides to its customers

How It Works

The major concern of SERVQUAL is Gap 5 and before starting measurement of it, nature of service expectation needs to be understood. Customer expectation follows into two levels: Desired Service and Adequate service.

Desired Service Level is the degree of service quality, that customer believes, can or should be delivered. Whereas, Adequate Service Level is the degree of service quality that customer is willing to accept. The difference between these two levels of service quality is called Zone of Tolerance.
Using these two levels of expectations, we have two measures of Gap 5.

Measure of Service Adequacy (MSA) = Perceived Service - Adequate Service

Measure of Service Superiority (MSS) = Perceived Service - Desired Service

Mode of Collecting Data

There can be any mode of marketing research. Following are few methods I know.

• Transactional surveys
• Mystery shopping
• New, declining, and lost-customer surveys
• Focus group interviews
• Customer advisory panels
• Service reviews
• Customer complaint, comment, and inquiry capture
• Total market surveys
• Employee field reporting
• Employee surveys
• Service operating data capture

SERVQUAL For IT SERVICES

SERVQUAL model has been extended for e-Business industries, named as e-SQ (e-Service Quality) Model . The e-SQ can be defined as the extent to which a Website facilitates efficient and effective shopping, purchasing and delivery of products and services.

The e-SQ redefines dimensions for measurement of service quality in context of e-business industry. The e-SQ model states two dimensions: Core Dimensions and Recovery Dimensions.

e-SQ Model : Core Services

1. Efficiency: The ease and speed of accessing and using the site.
2. Fulfillment: The extent to which the site’s promises about order delivery and item availability are fulfilled.
3. System Availability: The correct technical functioning of the site.
4. Privacy: The degree to which the site is safe and protects customer information

e-SQ Model : Recovery Services

1. Responsiveness: Effective handling of problems and returns through the site.
2. Compensation: The degree to which the site compensates customers for problems.
3. Contact: The availability of assistance through telephone and online representatives.

Conclusion

e-Service Quality is more than a state of art website. e-SQ has lot to be evolved and to be explored. We will hope to see more of e-SQ as IT grows exponentially in global market.

References

SERVQUAL and Model of Service Quality Gap
New Way to listen to the library Users - University of Miami

Annexure

Sample SERVQUAL Survey Form

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Software Cost Estimation Part 1

Software cost estimation is the process of predicting the effort required to develop a software system

Accurate software cost estimates are critical to both developers and customers. They can be used for generating request for proposals, contract negotiations, scheduling, monitoring and control.

The importance of accurate cost estimation lies in following functions of management.

1. Budgeting - the primary but not the only important use. Accuracy of the overall estimate is the most desired capability.
2. Trade off & Risk Analysis - an important additional capability is to illuminate the cost and schedule sensitivities of software project decisions (scoping, staffing, tools, reuse, etc.).
3. Project Planning & Control - an important additional capability is to provide cost and schedule breakdowns by component, stage and activity.
4. Investment Analysis for Enhancements - an important additional capability is to estimate the costs as well as the benefits of such strategies as tools, reuse, and process maturity.

Software cost estimation historically has been a major difficulty in software development.
Several reasons for the difficulty have been identified:

1. Uncertainty or frequent changes in customer requirements
2. Rapidly changing technologies and obsolescence of technologies
   
3. Lack of a historical database of cost measurement
4. Many interrelated factors whose relationships are not well w.r.t development efforts and productivity
   
5. Lack of trained estimators with the necessary expertise

The widely practiced cost estimation method is expert judgment. For many years, project managers have relied on experience and the prevailing industry norms as a basis to develop cost estimate. However, basing estimates on expert judgment has following pitfalls.

• This approach is not repeatable
  
• The means of deriving an estimate are not explicit.
• It is difficult to find highly experienced estimators for every new project.
• The relationship between cost and system size is not linear. Cost tends to increase exponentially with size. The expert judgment method is appropriate only when the sizes of the current project and past projects are similar.
• Budget manipulations by management aimed at avoiding overrun make experience and data from previous projects questionable.

So far, many quantitative software cost estimation models have been developed. ranging from empirical models such as Boehm’s COCOMO models to analytical models.

An empirical model uses data from previous projects to evaluate the current project and derives the basic formula from analysis of the particular database available.

An analytical model, on the other hand, uses formula based on global assumptions, such as the rate at which developer solves problems and the number of problems available.

Irrespective of the model chosen, actual cost estimation process involves following seven steps:

1. Establish cost-estimating objectives
2. Generate a project plan for required data and resources
3. Pin down software requirements
4. Work out as much detail about the software system as feasible
5. Use several independent cost estimation techniques to capitalize on their combined strengths
6. Compare different estimates and iterate the estimation process
7. After the project has started, monitor its actual cost and progress, and feedback results to project management

No matter which estimation model is selected, users must pay attention to the following to get best results:

1. coverage of the estimate (some models generate effort for the full life-cycle, while others do not include effort for the requirement stage)
2. calibration and assumptions of the model
3. sensitivity of the estimates to the different model parameters
4. deviation of the estimate with respect to the actual cost

Till now the entire discussion was finding cost and then price. But there exists ways to find the cost in reverse way i.e. find the price first and cost. I know this will make every software professional little surprised but believe me this is true.

Won't keep you in wonder for long and will soon write on it. Till then, you can wonder on what is called Economic Value Estimation (EVE). This is more of a marketing subject and very new to software profession as jargon. But believe me we do this things for long.

References:
Software Cost Estimation
Herding Cats: Software Estimating
Software Development Cost Estimation Approaches

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Commitment in Corporate

We talk about commitment everyday in our corporate life. Especially in employee review meeting, this is the hottest topic ever. We try to define commitment in our terms differing in nature from person to person.

Commitment, as I learned from my professor, can be defined as:

• A strong desire to remain a member of the organization.
• A willingness to exert high level of effort on behalf of the organization.
• A belief in, and acceptance of the values and goals of the organization.

If we observe the tenure of an employee who leaves an organization after a long duration, commitment differs time to time.

Initially on joining, an employee is eager to know about organization, people and processes. If one likes these aspects, he or she creates emotional attachment with the culture of organization. We can define this commitment as Affective Commitment.

But after working for five years, the emotions may vanish due to certain bad experiences or may be by comparing one with some other good organization. In this situation, employee starts performing cost-benefit analysis of leaving the organization. If market is slow or job really pays high, the employee cant leave the organization. This type of commitment is known as Continuance Commitment.

The moment employee resigns, he or she stays in the organization for an obligatory notice period. Here the employee does not want to work with the organization, still he or she has to stay for certain duration and show commitment. This type of commitment is called Normative Commitment.

Now, dont start guessing what type of commitment, you have for your organization ;)

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The Software Team Structure

In India, Software organizations are mushrooming everywhere. With diversity in resources, skill sets and quick obsolescence of technology, structure team has become a crucial issue.

Mantei suggested three generic team structure.

1. Democratic Decentralized (DD)

This team structure is driven by group cohesiveness in making group decisions and solving problems with consensus. There is no group leader as such. A task coordinator is chosen for short duration based on skill or experience level. On completion of task, the coordinator may replaced by other.

2. Controlled Decentralized (CD)

Unlike DD, here team has a specific leader whose primary task is to divide the project into tasks and assign groups to accomplish them. He may choose a task coordinator for each group. The communication in group will be horizontal and between groups, communication will be vertical. Here groups and individuals are involved for decision making and problem solving.

3. Controlled Centralized (CC)

The structure is almost similar to CD, but communication and involvement differs. Communication is always vertical. Decision are made by top level management people. There is very little or no involvement of groups in decision making.


In the image, direction of arrow shows low to high transition. CC encourages less innovation compared to DD. Similarly decision speed is higher in CC compared CD.

Mantei suggested following factors for considerations before structuring a team

• Difficulty of the problem
• Size of the resultant program(s) in lines of code or function points
• Team lifetime
• Degree of Modularization
• Required Quality and System Reliability
• Rigidity of the delivery date
• Degree of communication required for the project

Because a centralized structure completes tasks faster, it is the most adept at handling simple problems.

Decentralized teams generate more and better solutions than individuals. Therefore such teams have a greater probability of success when working on difficult problems.

Since the CD team is centralized for problem solving, either a CD or CC team structure can be successfully applied to simple problems. A DD structure is best for difficult problems.

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Umbrella Activities

The software engineering work can be carried out in three phases.

Definition Phase

It focuses on What. In this phase, key requirements of the system are identified. A software engineer talks about Information to be processed, Constraints, Users, functions, performance etc. Broadly, it involves three activities

• Information Engineering
• Software Project Planning
• Requirement Analysis

Development Phase

It focuses on How. This phase is all about implementation. It involves designing the system, deciding programming languages and architecture, writing code, designing database models etc. Broadly this phase is performed by following three activities.

• System Design
• Coding
• Testing

Support Phase

It focuses on Change. It reapplies preceding phases on existing software. The change can be of following types.

• Corrective Maintenance - changes to resolve defects.
• Adaptive Maintenance - changes to accommodate new external environment.
• Perfective Maintenance - extends the functional requirements
• Preventive Maintenance - changes the software to reduce the deteriorate due to other type of changes

All these phases are complemented by a number activities like reviews, tracking, risk management, document preparation etc. These activities are called Umbrella activities.

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The paradox of Water & Diamonds

Human beings cannot even survive without water, whereas diamonds were mere ornamentation. Yet water had a very low price, and diamonds a very high price.

Adam Smith explained the paradox by arguing that value had two different meanings: One is called 'Value in Use'; and another, 'Value in Exchange'.

The things which have the greatest value in use have frequently little or no value in exchange;

On the contrary, those which have the greatest value in exchange have frequently little or no value in use.

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SOA Through Analogy

To understand SOA, let's take an analogy of a 'Holiday Tour'. Let's assume that your boss is too happy and grant your vacation leaves. Also assume that you leave in Bombay and wish to visit London in this vacation. Now we will see how you accomplish your trip.

You first get a taxi to reach at airport. If you are lucky enough, you will successfully pass the clearances and board in your plane. When you get off, you hire one more taxi. This taxy will drop you at your hotel. You ask service boys to put your luggage in your room. The hotel bus will take you for sight seeing. Thus, you finally enjoy your vacation in London.

At each point of your trip, you were using some services provided by different service providers. Taxi by local transportation, hospitality by hotel, sight seeing by tourism company. All different vendors provide different services to make your trip (task or plan) to accomplished. It may be possible that all of them are predecided. But there are chances of selecting the alternative on the go. E.g. you may also opt a Bombay City Bus service to reach airport, you may use tube instead of hiring one more taxi.

This is what SOA is all about. You use those services that you like to use. In case of a web application or a standalone application, all services are not available in your options. This is because as new services come in, they have to be integrated in your web or standalone application. That means change. But in case of SOA, you just browse through directory and use whatever services you want. So the moment, you hear about a metro train being started in Bombay, you can use it. You are not required to wait for someone to change your application. SOA is too dynamic and services are like plug n play.

Here service means the ability of one entity (or component) to perform a job for another entity. taxi, bus, hotel, they all are services used to fulfil your goal to trip London.

OASIS Reference model for SOA defines SOA as "a paradigm for organizing and utilizing distributed capabilities that may be under the control of different ownership domains".

Many questions why would one service provider use SOA and allow others to offer the services. The simple answer lies in what managerial greeks mean "Competency". They are the best in their work. Every entity involved will focus only on what they do best. Hence it is the cheapest, safest and efficient way of create value for customers.

A lot more to explore in this field but will limit this analogy upto definition only.

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