Analysis and Recommendation for Concol's Customer Service Sourcing Decision

1.Analysis for the Case
Process: Based on your total cost analysis of Figure 1 and the findings from your research on the industry, list and explain your choices for the five performance dimensions or criteria, then utilize a weighted-point evaluation matrix to evaluate the two options. You are to select 4 additional criteria in addition to cost based on your industry research



b) Then list and explain why you selected the four additional criteria that were researched.  Explain why each is important to consider when making this sourcing decision.  Ensure that these dimensions assist in differentiating between the 2 options. Be careful to avoid overlap between them.  Each one should be independent of the others
c) Assign and explain a relative weighting for each of the five criteria. Explain why you chose to weight them like you did?
d) Assign a ranking to each of the two options (insource or outsource) for each of the 5 criteria, explaining the reasoning for each of the rankings from your research.  Then, utilize the weighted matrix model to evaluate the two choices.
2) State your final recommendation

Should Concol continue on as is or outsource its Customer Services?  Be sure to justify your answer based on your numeric and researched findings in 1) above. 
3) Benchmarking the Support Desk
Regardless of the outcome from your analysis, management is looking for ways to benchmark or evaluate their Support Desk.  Your manager wants to know how we are going to specifically measure performance of the online assistance whether we continue to insource or outsource it.
You must provide four specific measurements (preferably quantifiable) for different metrics to measure the performance of your Support Desk.  Your measures must contain reasoning on why these are important, how each measure could be evaluated and how the measurement is to be done.   You can’t manage it if you can’t measure it.
 
Additional Instructions:  First off, you need to understand the industry.  Using Conestoga College LRC databases, research the industry and identify what performance criteria or dimensions, other than costs, Concol should be considering?  Each person in the group must provide at least one different article. Other student papers from any source are not considered articles. We don’t need copies of the articles but ensure they are fully identified on the reference page.
 
**Research Note- Concol Customer Services is NOT a real company, so please do not try to find information on it as it does not exist.
 
Remember to use in-text citations or references to the various articles in the text as it builds credibility.
There are 6 marks for research references and in-text citations. For instance, from the January 2015 edition of the Inbound Logistics Magazine, we found…
 
This case is due at the beginning of the last class, Week # 12.  All late assignments will receive a zero grade.
 
 
Additional Marks for:
 
a) Formatting
Utilize what you’ve learned in Communications and Computer classes to lend a professional appearance to the report. See the Marking Guide for specific requirements.