Otis Elevators

Accelerating Business Transformation with IT

MIS
Case Analysis by Group-6:
Manika Gupta – MBA07027
Kenneth Menezes – MBA07030
Rahul Daswani – MBA07039
Sachin Verma – MBA07045
Shubhangan Das – MBA07051
Krishna Yeldi – MBA07059
 1. Describe the role of OTISLINE and REM in restructuring OTIS prior to
Bousbib’s advent as the leader of OTIS.
Ans.
OTISLINE revolutionized elevator customer service. OTISLINE made the whole elevator
service business more visible to the management team. It was imperative to shape the future
of OTIS as earlier the management team would only get to know the situation on the ground
only the problem is critical. OTISLINE helped them rectify their decisions more often, and
that helped them serve customers better and improve their product technology. OTISLINE
got even senior management involved in problems. It shows the collectiveness of the firm to
serve its customers better. The administration had this one idea to make their services better.
They did not take up any problem as petty enough to be solved by the regional manager; they
repeatedly kept transferring critical issues to upper management and tried to solve them
immediately. OTIS attempted to remove the bureaucracy present at a corporate firm and
made things more transparent between their customers, engineers, and upper management.
Their formula was simple; they provide elevator service; if the customers face issues with
those, they should report back. After registering, the firm would assign engineers and the
whole situation to improve their business process the next time, enhancing their business.
REM on the other hand, was an elevator monitoring technology. It was a revolutionary
technology that helped OTIS sniff out problems even before customers knew about it. This
technology helped OTIS send out engineers even before the elevator ran out of service. It
truly showed the dedication of OTIS towards the service they were providing. The level of
trust they would gain from these customers would be immense. Now REM is technological
advancement and it might fault. So, there was OTISLINE to help out customers with all their
queries. Overall, OTISLINE and REM were two technologies that helped OTIS gain the
market share and the trust from the customers before Bousbib started as a leader.

2. Explain Bousbib’s vision of OTIS in the 21st century.

Ans.
Bousbib’s vision for OTIS was to be the best of the service industry's best. He clearly stated,
let’s just not narrow it down to the elevator industry, and Bousbib wanted to compete with all
the service-providing companies out there. As Bousbib had gone up the ladder at OTIS, he
understood how OTIS works and tries to provide the best for its customers. He had to fortify
this idea and clarify that OTIS is not all about the elevator but the service attached to it
consists of a huge part of what OTIS symbolizes. Bousbib wanted OTIS to be a firm that is
entirely focused on its customers. Every department at OTIS was working towards a better
customer experience at OTIS elevators. All of the changes Bousbib introduced to various
departments were to streamline the company's processes. It used to be a bit disconnected
before Bousbib was a leader. e*Logistics made it seamless through the departments at OTIS.
The sales process and the service requests needed a change, and Bousbib brought it by
introducing e*Logistics. Through the 21st century, OTIS would benefit from this process and
the vision of Bousbib was extraordinary behind the upheaval of OTIS as a complete elevator
firm.
 3. How is e*Logistics different from OTISLINE?
Ans.
e*Logistics was an ERP system that an OTIS-owned India-based software company
developed. In contrast, OTISLINE was a much more sophisticated customer service system
visible to the engineers and upper management of the OTIS. e*Logistics worked almost as a
business intelligence system that had its network spread through the Customer Relationship
Management, Accounting and Finance, and Sales Performance. Even after selling a product
and fitting them, e*Logistics would automate the billing process. OTISLINE was not
working as a network at OTIS. It had a simple task to perform that efficiently worked out the
customer issues and helped OTIS rectify and improve their product line. e*Logistics tried to
connect all the departments and fed information to the departments quite seamlessly. This
enhanced the business process of OTIS and made the whole sales and after-sales process
unified. So, the two served utterly different purposes. e*Logistics would be a much more
robust and widespread version of OTISLINE.

4. How do Contract Logistics Centers play a central role in the transformed OTIS?
Ans.
In this transformation, Contract Logistics Centers were responsible for accepting orders from
sales organization and delivering on-time, complete systems to job sites. CLCs also managed
the supply chain including Otis factories, suppliers, field feedbacks, and product
improvement process. They were also responsible for market analysis, identification of
customer needs, and creating product unit configurations. CLC’s handled all the logistics and
information between subsystem integrators (SSIs) which existed at the time of CLC
establishment. CLCs were built with knowledgeable resources from the manufacturing arm of
the business, often staffed with personnel displaced as manufacturing operations were
restructured. CLCs were the centres of expertise around market and their respective product
models. CLCs placed orders with a single SSI in the beginning, as the supply chain became
more flexible and globally connected with the e*Logistics program, CLCs could eventually
place orders from multiple SSIs wherever they can find the lowest cost, required quality and
delivery time. Also, under the direction of CLCs, SSI shipped their components and modules
to distribution centers (DCs), which were cross-docking locations on the way to job sites.
 5. “With the e*Logistics program, best practice from SIP are baked into the
organization and institutionalized to achieve that continuous transformation."
Explain.
Ans.
Tony Black had initiated an improvement program called the Sales and Installation Process
(SIP). As a part of this improvement program, black’s team gathered best practices from
around Otis related to sales and field operations. These best practices were identited from the
most successful sales offices, and were made standard process across the organization. For
Example, use of prebid checklist was a mandatory task for all the sales order personnel.
These practices proved to be a key success factor in helping the customers define their needs,
and it also helped bring sales and field installation teams together to discuss customer
proposals early in the sales cycle. The e*Logistics program is developed to make sure the
business process changes are continuous and improvement is achieved. Hence, the e*program
undertook these best practices from SIP and standardized them across the organization to
achieve the continuous transformation.