Deriving Value from a Commodity Process: a Case Study of the Strategic Planning and Management of a Call Center

The paper unravels the prevalent paradigm that differentiates between the management of a core competence and commodity processes. A case study is conducted to examine the strategic planning and management of a call center. The aim is to illustrate that a commodity process, such as handling customers’ complaints and enquiries, can be significantly beneficial to the business, if a clear value-creating strategy is articulated and a valuecreating activity system is established. Findings derived from this study suggest that a call center can provide substantial added value to the business and be managed differently through devising an appropriate intellectual capital management approach.