Maytech Financial (MF), a large accountancy corporation, is looking to assess the operations functions in three of its locations around the world. The MF Malaysia operations are marginally better than the operations of many of its competitors in the region, but still behind the very best players. The function is also viewed positively by other functions in the organisation and their ‘voice is heard’ when it comes to strategy conversations. Arguably, MF Japan operations continue to provide the basis on which MF Japan competes – it recently developed advanced AI software to enable the company to access new larger corporate clients who, in addition to basic accountancy services, value the customer intelligence that working with MF Japan can offer them. MF Hong Kong operations are now clearly better than most of its competitors’ and it has an active voice in the strategic direction of the firm. Recently, the operations team worked closely with marketing to respond to a key client’s request to develop more automated processing of high-volume, low-variety work on their behalf.

The initiative has proved successful, so marketing are becoming increasingly keen to build on this internal

‘win–win’ relationship. Where would you position the three MF operations functions on the Chase and Hayes four-stage model of service operations?