HP loses huge corporate contracts after support debacle

SOURCES FORMERLY WITHIN HP have told the INQUIRER that its outsourcing plans have cost the company several loyal corporate customers with lost business running into very large figures indeed.

Information provided to the INQUIRER by several hired, fired, re-hired, extended, re-trenched, begged back and eventually fired again sources in HP Australia, claim that the firm's plans to outsource support has cost the firm dear.

And individuals who were afraid for their jobs no longer have them, meaning that they now feel free to flesh out what's happened in Australia.

In late spring, HP Australia decided that that could save a few Australian dollars by replacing the ex-Compaq staff there with outsourced staff based in India, as we reported here. But, our sources claim, customers started to wonder why service was getting bad.

The Compaq - now HP call centres in Australia were, by all accounts, top notch and the reason for the outsourcing was cost and certainly not poor performance, according to documents seen by the INQUIRER. The closure of the HP centres went well, but, our sources claim, the opening of the Indian call centres didn't go so well.

HP, however has publicly denied that there was any problem with the move, and said as much to this Australian publication. It quotes an Australian HP representative as saying the outsourcing of India is "going exactly to plan".

But it seems that HP has thoroughly antagonised its formerly cooperative workforce. As we reported here, HP appeared to have made an example of the owner of a web site who attempted to keep all HP and ex-HP staff in touch with each other by peremptorily marching him out of company buildings.

Things appear to have gone so swimmingly that a number of HP staff were told that they would be brought back for a few weeks, the length of the contract being dependant on the staff and office. Universally, that length was extended, and extended, and extended.

What has happened, despite the well oiled HP plan, is that even with the bleak job situation currently facing Aussie techs, the staff got fed up with being jerked around like puppets. And, we understand, last week the entire Commercial Warranty second level support team, when generously offered another week or two of work, got so fed up that they walked out together. So it seems that there is some teamwork left at HP after all. With the Indian center not working all that well yet, I wonder what will happen when a large customer with a four hour SLA (service level agreement) calls in to get a Proliant fixed? Most CxOs don't like to be told 'live with it, we have problems ourselves', now do they, but where else is HP going to turn, North America? Maybe not.

Customers
How do the HP customers feel about this? While none of them are talking on the record, disgruntled moles from HP Australia tell the INQUIRER they are not happy at all.

One source claimed that Coles Myer, a large Australian retailer, had a very large contract with HP. A loyal Compaq customer for years, we understand, but cannot confirm at press time, that the contract has been canned.

The reason, we understand, is that Coles Myer was unwilling to deal with an overseas help desk. That might be, we think, a bit of an overreaction, but you would think an HP manager would have called an account like that and chatted every once in a while. Will they save the money from a big contract like this by moving the call centres to India? I kind of doubt it.

Coles Myer also had other grievances, but these were far less subjective than the helpdesk issues, and most boil down to service, or lack thereof. Coles had certain SLAs with HP, basically stating that if something went wrong, it would be fixed in a certain time frame, or certain performance targets would be maintained. If these things did not happen, there would be penalties, usually financial ones. We understand that soon after the the retrenchments, the service levels were missed all over the place. Our sources tell us that SLAs are basically warning messages and this compounded a bad situation.

The same sources say that Accenture Australia already had some problems with HP but the call centre "retrenchment" was in the words of one mole, "the straw that broke the kangaroo's back".

If our sources' claims are correct, it appears that few either at HP Australia or the corporate mothership were paying attention to multimillion dollar contracts that were souring.

Call me a penny pincher, but if I had someone with worth megabucks, I'd call them up pretty regularly just to see how things were going. Hell, I would even buy them lunch and get more detailed info as to how my company is serving theirs. If they said something was wrong, or even grumbled a bit I would send a fleet of the best corporate ass kissers in the hemisphere to smooch them into submission.

We understand that other contracts in Australia are also in jeopardy. We'd be happy to give HP the chance to respond to these claims. µ