In addition, there is research about location selection and the effect of the number of selected locations. What Is Follow-the-Sun and Why Should You Care? Modern day software development is spread more and more across national and international boundaries. There are claims that FTS is being used at General Motors and at OfficeTiger [4] [5]. Please reload the page and try again, or you can contact Zendesk for support. The main reasons to use this approach are that you'll have faster problem solving, consistent levels of customer service, reasonable work hours, and you'll be able to branch into new markets. Carmel [6] argues that only the nature of some phases of the development cycle such as testing are well suited for FTS. In any case, one thing is clear: To provide the highest level of customer service, your support team must decide when to be available. Since the teams may have different tasks, it is important to ensure that each team has a common understanding of goals, methods and company policies. 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. [8] Christian Doerr. This schedule is determined by global stock exchange hours. Picture this. Let's review the diagram below. As well, such expansion can always have a positive impact in terms of brand development and brand promotion. However, it may be one of the most potent benefits for your business. How Follow the Sun Model helps you Deliver 24/7 Global Support [11] Siri-on Setamanit, Wayne Wakeland, and David Raffo. Typical challenges such as coordination, communication and culture differences presents a bigger challenge to FTS than GSD, as FTS involves daily hand-offs. 0000007912 00000 n 8. As support teams brace for an economic downturn, many are leaning on customer service outsourcing to cut costs. The handoff process can become the weakest point in your model due to technical, cultural, and communication style differences across each team., This is where Lucid can really help you shine. Open Scholars support emerging Open Learning alternatives<br />In-Class Support in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania! N#"$(591 = |% z#i{vXP!M^\`NVBq However, if you implement a follow the sun customer support model, keep in mind that you'll want to make sure you have the right tools to ensure each site communicates with one another and can take effective notes on cases that need to be handed off. 0000002842 00000 n Bugs and production problems are almost a certainty, this means companies need to organise resources and build capability to . The sun never sets for businesses that rely on remote support, and global support, for customer service. The main criteria to go for FTS is the reduction in the development time or time-to-market. With so many architecture models out there for you to base your system designs on, what makes a follow the sun model stand out? 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. With rising customer expectations around better service in todays macroeconomic environment, its important to lean on customer education programs to boost agent knowledge and productivityand to help your business retain customers. By staggering their support personnel start times across these key time zones, they are able to meet the service level-agreements theyve set for their customers. Do you want to provide complete 24-hour service? A global service model in place to keep every team member connected, consistent and making continual progress on projects, tasks, and bug fixes. 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. If youre a small company looking to provide global support, consider what steps you can take now to achieve your longer-term support goals. Linear sequential approaches such as the Waterfall model seem to be inefficient for the FTS approach. uyLY@= 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. The success cases in the Industry using FTS are rare, in part due to the lack of well-founded knowledge on applying FTS [9]. PowToon is a free . 0000002728 00000 n Follow-the-sun paradigm background reading. 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. The main goal with implementing a follow the sun support model is that people in one location don't receive preferential support. One of the important concepts evolved in the past decade or so is the " Follow the sun " (FTS) software development. The tools you use should emphasize team collaboration and the automation of reporting, scheduling, planning, and progress tracking. This process could take weeks if only one team in one time zone is working on the project. However, FTS is not. The effective utilization of code repositories and version control management systems is crucial to the success of the FTS approach. Journal of Product Innovation Management, 9(1):53-69, 1992. are manually changeable. When you use a follow the sun model, round-the-clock IT support is provided by following the sun from time zone to time zone. 0000066419 00000 n 0000065082 00000 n 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. The "Follow-the-Sun" support model is a structured model that works best for service desks that work around the clock. This Presentation graphic is eloquent and useful for the IT students, IT researchers, and IT specialists from various fields. 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. Follow-the-sun support with JIRA Service Desk - Valiantys Journal of Management Information Systems, 27(1):17-38, 2010. FTS is a global software development strategy. With Lucidscale, you have a single source of truth for every project, feature, and bug being worked on by IT engineers. Organization Support: Role Incident Liaison (IL) Description For severity 1 incidents only. It is commonly used and regarded as the "gold standard" in the field of presentation applications. Support Model - Slide Team Their teams are based in Honduras, Romania and the Philippines. The. 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. 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 Global Software Engineering (ICGSE), 2010 5th IEEE International Conference on, pages 165174. In creating a support structure based on this schedule, they examined the business units they needed to support and each region. Your plan needs to include specific roles, processes, and training necessary to meet customer expectations. Establish goals: Define your goals around your customer's needs in each location you service. There is a common product repository which allows each site to be in sync with their work at the end of each workday. It is used mainly for school presentations and businesses. Agile stresses on the importance of automated testing to reduce time. 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. Oops! This workflow model is specifically designed to help address customers' needs without regard to geolocation or time zone. 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. 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. A clear path will help your troubleshooting teams and engineers coordinate and get to the bottom of the issue faster., Mastering the handoff process (moving project tasks from one team to the next) is probably the hardest, but most crucial, element of successfully implementing a follow the sun model. There is also research that studied the impact of the number of sites on working speed and accuracy in Follow-the-Sun software development [9]. Network Security in Theory and Practice. Follow the Sun (FTS), a sub-field of globally distributed software engineering (GDSE), is a type of global knowledge workflow designed in order to reduce the time to market, in which the knowledge product is owned and advanced by a production site in one time zone and handed off at the end of their work day to the next production site that is These are reactive in nature. But not every industry really requires that. Follow-the-sun support model is a very common paradigm for enterprise support companies wanting to deliver round the clock critical support for business critical applications. Another documented case of FTS application was by Infosys [20] in 2005 where FTS was applied to small subsets of the project cycle. This is very important especially for industries whose products become outdated in a very short time (e.g. IEEE, 2009. "Follow the Sun" Support Model for Business Intelligence Follow the Sun: Introduction (1 of 3) - SlideServe Read world-renowned marketing content to help grow your audience, Read best practices and examples of how to sell smarter, Read expert tips on how to build a customer-first organization, Read tips and tutorials on how to build better websites, Get the latest business and tech news in five minutes or less, Learn everything you need to know about HubSpot and our products, Stay on top of the latest marketing trends and tips, Join us as we brainstorm new business ideas based on current market trends. Technology Tools and Infrastructure to Support FTS. Agile seems to be the best and most suitable for FTS based approaches because the principles of Agile anf FTS complement each other. This means that efficiency in task hand-off is of paramount importance to the success of the FTS approach. From our experience, I would like to point out the major ones: Under no circumstances should the FTS model be reduced to the distant custom support team. To help decide whats best for you, your team, and your customers, ask the following questions: When youre small, youre actively jumping to meet the needs of customers. Most of the current code repositories are cloud based and accessible across geographies. 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. Global software development: never mind the problems are there really any benefits? HICSS09. It may take more time than anticipated to ask questions and receive answers. The FTS approach is based on the principle of handing-off unfinished work to the next location at the end of work day. A feasibility study of follow-the-sun software development for gsd projects. IEEE, 2014. What Is the Follow the Sun Model? | Lucidchart Blog 1 gives the relevant facts regarding various working schemes. It was developed so companies can provide round-the-clock customer service, literally following the sun around the globe. As a result, the benefits of FTS tend to be concentrated around isolated phases rather than having an overall impact on the development cycle. To get a proper picture of the background on FTS, there is a need to understand a development pace and its associated concept of time to market, which are the main drivers of the development of FTS. Determine when your customers need you the most so you can define your goals around their needs. To say that life during the global pandemic has recentred our focus on health is an understatement. This is where FTS potential gains a lot, as is evident in the bottom rows of the table. Regardless of where the bulk of customers are located, if you know that youre receiving a lot of tickets outside of your standard support hours, then its time to start thinking about a rotational support model. Outline your company's customer journey and experience with these 7 free customer journey map templates. 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. Now that youve done all the groundwork of defining workload capability, visualizing infrastructure, and hammering out the handoff process, youre ready to get your new model signed off by stakeholders. This is a BETA experience. The various composition features of this PowerPoint image like the design, color, text, etc. 0000063267 00000 n You can turn light-speed production and service delivery into one of the signature advantages of your brand. This way, the problem remains a priority and is worked on until the customer is satisfied. How do companies similar to your own handle support? Its also important to have daily stand-up meetings. Figure 2: Calendar Efficiency in different Working Modes [1]. Three important companies which documented their experience is summarized below. If the sun is shining over a region, be it San Francisco, Paris, Hong Kong, or Sydney, business is being conducted there. The 24-hour knowledge factory: can it replace the graveyard shift? mobile handsets, firmware, e-commerce systems, and innovative supply chain management). Knowledge transfer and sharing of project critical information with concerned parties is essential for smooth operation of the project. Federal Republic of Germany, 2017. ', Successful businesses satisfy customer needsand for some businesses, especially those that have expanded globally, that means providing superior customer service and support 24 hoursin a row. But other companies may determine that they can meet their global support needs with other tactics. 0000067800 00000 n You may opt-out by. And when the shifts switch, you'll have each site hand off work to the next shift. Initial handoffs mainly consisted of daily work summaries, which were later augmented by knowledge transfer activities. 0000069194 00000 n They also divide their support to cater to two groups of customers: participants (employees at companies) and client administrators (HR teams administering equity and compensation). 0000001156 00000 n Granted, once the pandemic restrictions started to lift, we followed suit with offices. Or, consider the approach at Solium, which provides an equity management platform that performs real-time trades 21 hours per day. Another important benefit of the FTS model is the opportunity to learn more about new markets and lay the foundation for the further development of the definite regional market. Follow the sun software development: New perspectives, conceptual foundation, and exploratory field study. System Sciences, 2009. We have showed earlier that using the concept of calendar efficiency, FTS gives lot of room for decreasing the development time. Documenting how many resources are available every month at the start of a new project will help your team determine accurate timelines and avoid team member burnout.