The high technology industry is very dynamic which puts considerable pressure on companies to manage customers with focus on cost, customer satisfaction and time to resolution. This industry is characterized by the following trends in the Product, Customer and Competition side which has several implications for the Service/Support aspects.

Product side

• Device convergence & divergence: Advances in digital electronics are reducing the differences in technologies required for telecommunications, computing, and consumer electronics equipment. Companies are now diversifying across these related industries, complicating the competitive landscape. This is exemplified by the launch of Apples iPhone in early 2007, with the diversification of Apple into telecommunications equipment, combined with the convergence of digital music player and cell-phone technologies. This requires companies to deliver increasingly complex support services and higher level of service offering across wide geographies, leading to high cost. Also, requires multiple support personnel with different areas of technical expertise to work together to resolve an issue.
• Short product life-cycle: Fast pace of technical advancement and innovation is leading to rapid introduction of new products, short product life-cycle and decreasing margins. This requires companies to support wide range and versions of the old and new product, leading to higher cost of training support personnel.
• Increasing reliance on software driven features: Software industry innovation model spreading to consumer electronics and other categories. Hence, there is increasing reliance on software-driven features. This necessitates companies to provide periodic upgrades and enhancements to “platforms”, sending customer alerts and having monitoring systems in place.

Customer Side:

 The customers in the high-tech industry space are characterized by several distinct qualities:

• Sophisticated customer base: High-technology product users are busy professionals with considerable knowledge and information. They often need quick resolution of issues and demand high quality support. These customers can be given access to tools and knowledge base to solve the issue themselves rather than rely on customer support representatives.
• Ubiquitous presence on the net and on the go: Advances in broadband technology is accelerating internet access especially for high-technology product users. They are connected to the net at office or home and even while on the move. This makes it imperative to provide round the clock support on the internet.
• Continuous change in needs: Customers of high-tech products are quick to adopt products having superior design, ease of use, killer functionality/features, and customization options. This makes it important for companies to collect quick customer feedback and have information on their experiences. Support function is an important way to reach customers, understand their problems and capture their needs.

Competition side

Low product margins, decreasing market share are forcing companies to adopt different mechanisms to woo the customer and have mindshare.

• Differentiate with branding: Massive spending on branding efforts by high-tech companies like Intel, Apple, Microsoft and others are testimony to this trend. High-tech companies are now exclusively using the internet for separate branding strategy which includes being on the top search results, using blogs and other Web 2.0 tools. Analyst reviews and good recommendation on public discussion forums can lead to increased brand loyalty. Support plays an important role to build this brand.
• Segmented customer offerings: Support needs of different customer segments are different. Customers are wary of paying high cost of maintenance and warranty. Hence high-tech companies need to optimize warranty and other support cost structure for different segments of customers based on usage patterns, verify and provide judgmental service offerings rather than a blanket cover.
• Multi-channel capability: Few companies today are providing customer service over multiple channels (such as the Internet, a call center, retail) are providing unified consistent customer experience as he/she moves from channel to channel. It is imperative of high-tech companies to grow and establish multiple channel capability and give a tangible face to unified support offerings as customer’s interaction process move from channel to channel (that is, from Web, to voice response, to IVR, to live agent via phone or chat).

However, one tends to miss out on such relationship building exercises in a virtual context. There are hardly any face-to-face meeting that facilitates personal conversation and discovery of mutual interests.

Another way of building social capital in organisations is through participation in clubs and communities. Infosys has encouraged such communities where people can explore their areas of interest, hobbies or engage in philanthropy. Such communities provide touch-points for employees to connect face-to-face with fellow team-mates or network with people from other units in informal fashion. It gives people strong sense of purpose and fosters cooperation.

Robert Putnam, one of the seminal thinkers of 20th century mentions in his book Bowling Alone, “..Social capital refers to connections among individuals – social networks and the norms of reciprocity and trustworthiness that arise from them.” In this sense, having interaction in community setting helps people commit to each other and create a sense of belonging. Myself having been part of such community called Toastmasters in Infosys have reaped rich benefits. Even today it is so very easy for me to start a conversation with a stranger (also a Toastmaster) and establish a rapport and sense of bonding in a short time.

Hence, we can say that building social capital is equivalent to establishing high level of trust. So, how does trust get established in virtual teams?

On the structural aspect of social dimension, ties are considered important for social capital (Adler and Kwon, 2002). Ties depend on duration, intensity and reciprocity of interactions (Striukova and Rayna, 2008). In a virtual context, greater the repetition of interaction, stronger the ties. When in pre-sales virtual teams, it was easier for me to accomplish the task at hand with people with whom I have had interactions earlier.

Relational social dimension concerns establishing the relationship to get access to resources (Striukova and Rayna, 2008). The authors argue that reputation and credibility built through work performance in virtual teams can help build trust and relationships.

Cognitive dimensions come into play when there is shared vision and common understanding of collective goals.

I have been working in Social Commerce Business Scenarios virtual teams for the last 6 months. Over a period of time, I have established ties (structural) with different people through repeated interaction. I have built trust (relational) by coming up with effective scenarios that addresses customer issues effectively. All this was possible because we have a common understanding of the goals and shared vision for the team (cognitive). Hence, all three dimensions of social capital help each other (Striukova and Rayna, 2008).

Fostering durable virtual networks of interest in any particular domain could be another way of building trust (Prusak & Cohen, 2001). Example, having a virtual community of Java enthusiasts within an organisation who come up with new tools and ideas for solving known issues. Through discussion forums, chat rooms, virtual cafe’s people can get to know one another and accomplish task. Employees enjoy the satisfaction from such group membership and relish following their passions in communities of practice.

Today, at Infosys such virtual communities are yet to be established and need to be supported by social media technology to help developing structural, relational and cognitive social capital among virtual team mates. =============================================================== Strikova, L. and Rayna, T. (2008) ‘The role of social capital in virtual teams and organisations: corporate value creation’ Int. J. Networking and Virtual Organisations, Vol. 5, No. 1, 2008. Prusak, L. and Cohen, D. (2001) ‘How to Invest in Social Capital’ Harvard Business Review

In those early years I would often turn to my offshore colleagues for help, not knowing why I cannot approach my onsite counterpart. The inhibitions were – we have not seen each other, have not met, what will he think about me etc. Over the years, as I got experienced and matured, I overcame such fore-thoughts and became acclimatised to this concept of working in virtual teams. Technology improved, we had chat features, white-board, document sharing technologies and video-conferencing. But as I often found, a virtual glass wall remained. This was hard to break and inspite of all efforts neither of us could hear each other over the wall.

Moving on, after I joined pre-sales, I got introduced to the concept of complete virtual team work. In this context we were required to work with individuals where one had little interaction before, unlikely to know their background and competency level, and yet accomplish the goal of completing the proposal in a very short time frame. There was little scope for establishing a rapport or trust. What tied us together was the belief that the other person was competent, responsible, reliable and can be held accountable. There would be lapses when this heterogeneous team was required to collaborate to come up with an innovative solution for the client. Explicit coordination was required to set a base level of understanding and resolve difference in opinion at the expense of lost productivity and long hours.

It was seen that a single face-to-face interaction at the beginning of the proposal development made a big difference to the productivity and working relationship for the virtual presales team. People who had worked together in earlier proposals could get the work done faster. Also, people who had information about other experts in the organization and get them to provide help could expedite the work.

Herein lies the imporatance of social capital in virtual teams. As defined by Nahapiet and Ghoshal: Social capital is “the sum of the actual and potential resources embedded within, available through, and derived from the network of relationships possessed by an individual or social unit”. There are 3 dimensions to social capital – structural, relational and cognitive.

Structural dimension refers to the ability to make connection. How many of us today would know the different subject matter or technical experts at Infosys? If one has been in the organization for a long time one may know or else one would have to rely on formal heads of unit to identify people who can help.

Second dimension is the relational aspect – turning those connection into relationships of trust and mutual obligation. This is often the big challenge in any virtual team setting. Without any information about the people with whom I am working, not seeing their face, their work history, or knowledge of their expertise, or what other say about him or her – how can one establish trust?

The third cognitive dimension is another step ahead of the relational aspect – to be able to identify common interest and understanding of the issues. Developing a bond that will allow us to fall back upon each other and help identify with is equally important. This helps establish trust and provide reason for information sharing.

Thus, overcoming temporal, spatial, cultural and linguistic differences in virtual teams to accomplish a goal or task is something that the organization and every manager must be cognizant about and take proactive steps to nurture and develop.

Fast forward 2008, when my manager asked me to anchor the re-organized presales unit (from HTDM, ANA & EURP), I was faced with a big task of integrating data, information, knowledge from members from multiple sources. I did not have access to this network of people. We formed a core team of 7 members located in 2 different locations (Bangalore & Chandigarh). We held several brainstorming sessions over phone. The MFG Pre-sales unit was a virtual team located in 4 centers in India – hence it was important to connect with all the members of the group. During the brainstorming process we realized that because of the virtual context we were missing on interaction and learning from fellow team members. We did not know who knows what, whether he/she is available to provide help, how accessible he/she would be to help the team (Cross, Parker, Prusak, Borgatti, 2001) . Hence, we saw the need to use technology where we can discuss our problem, provide ideas and solution, share learning and experiences. This led to the birth of the discussion forum – CAT-a-Lyst. Now, at each step of the process we tried to get involvement from the team (core & bigger team). For example, even the naming CAT-a-Lyst happened through ideation and voting on the discussion forum. It would act as a catalyst to provide best-in-class response and added value to clients!!

My learning from previous leadership engagement taught me the importance of having a shared vision, empowerment and trust. KM was a purely voluntary activity – official duties preceded this – so how to do I ensure people do their little part? How do I ensure commitment and involvement for the core team? We worked together to develop a vision and release the discussion forum for the team. I would set an example by being passionately involved in all activities – ensuring that I do not miss any of the team meetings. As Stepehen Covey has described in the book “The 8th Habit” – the first step was “Modeling” and establishing trust.

While preparing for the inaugural presentation for the big virtual team, I asked each member to contribute their portions and be responsible for presenting it to the audience. I would always seek ideas from the team on what would be the best approach to take for a particular task. We jointly determined the course of action, discussed and debated why we should take this approach versus another. But once decided, got commitment from everyone that they would stick to this stand. As Stephen Covey has described in the book “The 8th Habit” – we were “Pathfinding”.

I tried to involve everyone in the decision making process so that I can gain their commitment. Given any task – would ask people to volunteer who would take complete bottomline and get all necessary help from team-mates including myself to accomplish it. The focus was on the results, tapping into the talent and enthusiasm rather than the method. As Stephen Covey has described in the book “The 8th Habit” – these were attempts at “Empowering”.

One important lesson I learnt about empowerment from a team member. I was finding that scheduling weekly meetings, conducting the meeting, writing the minutes of meeting, following up with people was an overhead for me every week. She suggested if this can be given on a rotation basis to each person in the core team. I saw that it was a perfect way to ensure mutual accountability. I communicated the role to each member, prepared a schedule as to who would take up the Anchor role for the week and published it. We also had back-up options.

However, it was important so that we complete the task at hand inspite of work pressure. Being in a virtual setting, I would not know if there are some professional or personal challenges faced by the team mates. Sometimes, I would get a very enthusiastic response, sometimes I would be the only person speaking. I would motivate the team by telling how each of us should see value in KM by learning new things and sharing it with everyone. Provided role clarity, instituted rewards & recognition. In short ensured we were staying on track, as Stephen Covey has described in the book “The 8th Habit” – we were “Aligning”.

Many of the team-mates (including myself) had not met each other. I saw the need for establishing informal connections with people. Chatted with people on messenger, talked to them alone on phone – shared my feelings, got their personal opinion. I communicated that they were valuable and everyone needed their help to take this forward. During meetings it was perfectly ok to pull each others legs, share a joke and have fun. I wanted to create synergy within the team and ensure people get along well.
Sometimes, I would pull up people who did not say a single word in the meeting to ensure he/she is not ignored.

We received lot of kudos from within and outside the unit on this novel approach to knowledge management. The high point happened when we got nominated as “The Most Spirited Team” by our manager.

However, some of these comments from team mates are the priceless rewards that I got from leading this virtual team across 4 locations:

*Go getter, believes in discussion and view of the team and commitment is very strong, uses communication skills appropriately, knows how to get the work done, perseverance is a strong virtue.
*An effective communicator with exceptional problem solving skills. Exposure in mapping business requirements and designing customized solutions with strong analytical skills.
*Born Leader and know how to deal with people In Nutshell a great manager to work with.
*High degree of enthusiasm and energy, a go getter once he accepts the goal

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Cross, R., Parker, A., Prusak, L., Borgatti, S. ,”Knowing What We Know: Supporting Knowledge Creation and Sharing in Social Networks” (Elsevier Science, 2001)