Papers
- Communities in the High Tech Industry [.doc]
- Multi Vendor Support Strategy: Standards for a Virtual Support Community [.exe]
- Multi-Vendor Support Strategy - Executive Overview [.doc]
- Power of The Community
- Membership Brochure VSC Team
- Multi-Vendor Support Opportunity Brief
- Multi-Vendor Support Program Brief [.doc]
- Virtual Support Communities Strategy. [.exe]
- Email us for current password to the "Virtual Support Communities" white paper
The VSC team evolved into the Multi-Vendor Support group and has transitioned to the Support Standards Working Group. VSC team deliverables can be found in Recommended Reading and Meeting Archives.
Downloadable files are in .pdf format unless otherwise specified.
The Model
While the installed base has become highly integrated through open systems and plug-and-play standards, our model for customer support has not.
The model is a standards-based business framework that will enable service organizations to efficiently interact by sharing knowledge and by facilitating analyst-to-analyst communications. The framework creates a managed plug and play capability for service and support that potentially includes all the players.
The Players
The supply chain for support is complex and unorganized. There is no standard format or mechanism to pass information between the players.
The VSC framework defines four relationship models:
Information - Access to support knowledge
Collaboration - Prearranged relationship with known entities
Assistance - Just-in-time outsourcing
Alliance - Strategic partnership, customized
The VSC team has facilitated a number of pilot activities to bring the concepts of the VSC framework to an operational level. For example, the answer exchange pilot provided consumers with web access to information from multiple players through a single user interface and search mechanism.