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Tom Topolinski

FORMER COLUMNIST: Tom Topolinski, who tragically passed away unexpectedly on July 3, 2011, developed a strong blend of technology and executive business management skills during his 37 years in business. His primary focus was on customer relationship management (CRM), help desk services, technology support, enterprise resource planning (ERP), supply chain management (SCM), software development, global outsourcing and consulting. He was highly skilled at global business architecture, executive leadership and successfully built and managed large service organisations, working extensively in outsourcing, prime and sub-contracting environments.

Tom consulted with major companies and investment firms on CRM, enterprise-wide software, organic growth and acquisitions. He worked for major outsourcing companies such as Sutherland Global Services, Sitel and Digital Equipment Corporation and was a lead CRM analyst for Gartner for five years. He consulted with many organisations such as Dartmouth College, Kodak, Microsoft, McAfee, Symantec, Dell, Lenovo, Xerox and others. He published many articles and is quoted in hundreds of industry journals, including Time and Business Week. (Also quoted in hard cover book, Heads Up, Harvard Business School Press, © 2004. )

Tom Topolinski won The Outsourcing Institute's Best Outsourcing Thought Leadership in IT award in 2008, with his article 'The Inconvenient Truth About Caring for Customers', where this award was covered in the news by Forbes, Reuters and many others. He was a Senior Advisor for The Outsourcing Institute and a consultant to both outsourcers and end users of contact/call centre companies. Towards the end of his life he gained significant experience involved working with and researching artificial intelligent software focused on Virtual Assistants, Web Avatars, Smartphone Avatars and multi-lingual chat servers.

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