Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 1997. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 102-112). Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 1997. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 102-112). Also available on the Internet.

M.Com. (Business Management) / It has been evidenced through the strategic management theory and literature perused in this study, that transformation of strategies and plans into actual results could only happen through efficient and effective implementation. Any efforts to translate strategy into action that are not guided by the principles of strategy implementation theory have often proven futile or insufficient, thus failure to achieve strategic objectives became the default result for many organisations. Continuous evaluation of this critical implementation phase of the strategic management process enables identification of challenges that cause inefficiency and ineffectiveness and lays a foundation to resolve and improve these identified hiccups. Because of the ever-changing environments within which organisations operate, new challenges are confronted, hence the need for continuous study to identify these challenges and seek solutions to improve the process of implementation of plans and strategies. This study therefore evaluates the implementation process of the Integrated Development Plan as a strategy towards attainment of goals in a local municipality. Recommendations based on strategy implementation theory and literature, are made to deal with identified challenges.

M.Comm. / The aim of this study was to prove the effectiveness of a Customer Service Index in improving customer service in a financial services environment. For this purpose, the implementation of a CSI in WesBank Corporate Finance was used as a case study. The success of this service strategy was dependent upon constant interaction with the customer in order to identify specific needs, to measure the delivery of these requirements, and to monitor the responses received from the customer base. By making comparisons between the two CSI's used, it was possible to discern a significant improvement in the ratings concerning various aspects of WesBank's service to customers, in addition to an increase in production, profitability and professionalism. The overall success of this measurement strategy was made possible by the total commitment and dedication of the entire staff of the organisation, and is clearly evidenced by the high standard of service quality which was attained, and is being maintained, through the implementation of this monitoring system.

M.Comm. / The global environment is changing drastically and companies need to respond to this change in order to survive. The concept of shared services has seen its boom in the market as one of the measures to adapt to the ever changing global environment. With the strengthening of the global economy, corporations implement shared services to enhance their competitive advantage. Shared services are implemented for various reasons inclusive of quality, cost, time and economies of scale. The result is changes in processes, technology and culture / people. Change is not easy. People resist as it impacts on culture i.e. the way they currently operate. The introduction of shared services is no different. The changes it leads to create a sense of discomfort thereby leading to resistance. It is, thus, of critical importance to manage the transition of people from the current to the future culture. It has been evident that the softer side of change (people) is the most neglected area when managing change. The study focuses on change management to transform people’s attitudes and behaviours from a functional culture to a service oriented culture. The researcher identified this transition as not successful when introducing shared services, and this forms the research problem. The study is qualitative and exploratory in design with the aim of identifying change management tools and techniques in the implementation of shared services. Various tools have been identified with communication being the most critical tool in managing change. The conclusion drawn is that focus should not only be on the technical areas of change, but involve people as well. No change can be successful without the involvement of the people that are expected to implement it, no matter how sophisticated the processes or technology is.

Magister Scientiae - MSc / The aim of this study was to examine the extent to which providers' practices affect the cost of hospital procedures incurred by patients. The spsecific objective was to explore the magnitude of variations and statistically establish the significance of relationships between admission/specialist costs incurred by patients for four major procedures and the hospital group, geographical location, employer group and demmographic realted risk profiles. The study contributes to a better understanding of the way in which managed care companies could channel beneficiaries of medical schemes to efficient providers. / South Africa

Contact centres (CC), are the primary interaction point between a company and its customers and these are rapidly expanding in terms of both workforce and economic scope. An important challenge for today's CC solutions is to increase the speed at which CCAs retrieve information to answer customer queries. CCAs, however, differ in their ability to respond to these queries and do not interact with the computer user interface (UI) in the same way as they each have different capabilities, experience and expertise. Studies have provided empirical support that user performance can be increased when the computer UI characteristics match the user skill level. Adaptive user interfaces (AUIs) are the key to creating personalised systems. Their sole task is to provide an interface most suitable to users' needs whilst facilitating the users' varying skill levels. The aim of this research was to develop an AUI model for CCs to support and improve the expertise level of CCAs. A literature review of CCs, user expertise, AUIs and existing AUI models resulted in the proposal of an AUI model for CCs. The proposed AUI model was described in terms of its architecture, component-level and interface design. An AUI prototype was developed as a proof-of-concept of the proposed AUI model. A literature review on existing AUI evaluation approaches resulted in an evaluation strategy for the proposed AUI model. The AUI prototype was evaluated according to the evaluation strategy that was identified. User testing incorporating eye-tracking and a post-test questionnaire was used to determine the usefulness and usability of the AUI prototype. Significant results were found with regards to user satisfaction ratings, the learnability of the AUI prototype and its effectiveness. This dissertation makes an important contribution in the design of an AUI model that supports and improves the expertise level of CCAs. The model could be used to assist the development of CC applications incorporating AUIs. Future research is however needed to evaluate the effect of the proposed AUI model in a larger CC environment.

Contact centres are the first point of contact between a company and a customer after the purchase of a product or service. These centres make use of contact centre agents to service customer queries. In the past contact centres hired as many agents as they could in order to service customers, which have led to an increase in personnel costs causing contact centres to become costly to run. Automation techniques were introduced to decrease personnel costs and one such technique is the Interactive Voice Response (IVR). The usability of IVR systems is, however, dismal. Customers would rather speak to a contact centre agent than navigate through the menu structure found in these systems. The menu structure has come under scrutiny because it is difficult to use and navigate, is often not aligned to caller usage patterns, and the menu options are long and vague. This research investigated whether a Natural Language Interface (NLI) could alleviate the problems inherent to IVR. NLIs, however, come with their own disadvantages of which the main ones are ambiguity and the loss of context of a conversation. Two prototypes were implemented, one of which resembled an IVR and the other an NLI (using ALICE concepts). An evaluation of two prototypes confirmed the advantages and disadvantages of these concepts in accordance to theory. A Hybrid prototype was proposed with the aid of two models. The model which proposed an NLI using a rule base was chosen for implementation. The Hybrid prototype was then evaluated against the NLI and IVR prototypes to deduce which prototype was the most effective, efficient and satisfying. The evaluation through the aid of descriptive and inferential statistics showed that the Hybrid prototype was the most usable prototype. The evaluation of the Hybrid prototype confirmed that a Hybrid approach could limit the shortcomings of IVR through the elimination of the menu structure found in these systems, thereby allowing users to state their queries in natural language. The incorporated rule base provided the Hybrid system with long term memory, eliminating one of the main disadvantages of NLIs.

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