This organisation is the global frontrunner in the design of solutions for mobile telecommunications networks. Its subsidiary, a company of over 1,100 employees worldwide, develops and supports hardware and software solutions to capture, compress and deliver ultra HD, real-time video to global broadcasters such as Sky and NBC, telecommunications and cable companies. Management of digital broadcast equipment is done through a licensing model.
Main challenges
Delivering the right level of service
To serve its large customer base our client had to maintain a record of the equipment customers had bought and their entitlement to technical support. The existing customer service solution, built on the BMC Remedy ITSM platform, provided a facility for customers to report faults.
While the organisation embraced a professional ITIL culture, a number of its processes were deemed rigid to the point of hindering its operation. It became apparent that those governing the service would benefit from automation.
The client offers a range of support service options to its customers. But the complicated array of support arrangements for the company’s proprietary broadcast equipment made it difficult to track customers’ issues properly. Further, the current system did not show the level of support customers were entitled to with the result that the whole system was open to misuse. For example, a customer could arrange the return of equipment even though it was not faulty. In all, the system had not been designed properly to cope with the complicated service requirements that customers generated.
The legacy service management solution could not handle the new business services the client wanted to offer its customers, including 24/7 support and limited STD swap-outs over a defined period.
The Head of Service Management, said: “Customer Service also had to compile reports manually of its operation. This caused delays which compounded the poor visibility of service and was leading to the failure of SLAs, with financial penalties. The upshot was that we were losing money by giving away support.”
The upshot was that we were losing money by giving away support.
Striving for continuous service improvement, the client recognised that the current ITSM solution did not meet the business’s requirements. Leveraging its long-standing partnership with our client, Devoteam was chosen for its depth of knowledge of the incumbent BMC solution as well as the proposed ServiceNow solution, along with its international presence of 700+ ITSM consultants operating in 20 countries, and its experience in aligning IT with business needs using proven methods.
What did we solve?
Improved speed, redundancy and high availability
Using its market expertise to complete a total cost of ownership study, Devoteam confirmed ServiceNow as the right solution to meet the organisation’s project objectives. It offers the scalability, redundancy, efficiency, security and cost-effectiveness needed to exploit the overhauled customer support operation.
Devoteam conducted a series of workshops to analyse the processes used and made a series of recommendations. We overhauled the three primary areas of incident, problem and change management. Although the CMDB for each customer was populated with information on the client’s own proprietary equipment, there was little detail of the standard IT hardware and software assets deployed across the customers’ business. Devoteam enhanced the CMDB to show all related client assets.
Devoteam led the project with great efficiency and initiative along the way.
The Head of Service Management added: “Devoteam led the project with great efficiency and initiative along the way. Their staff displayed all the expertise and professionalism we expect from a long-established consultancy at the forefront of IT, from our initial meetings, through creation of the roadmap and implementation of the solution to the training of our staff. They have inspired us to consider confidently the wider application of ServiceNow, including a new ESS portal, where it is well placed to serve.”
Main benefits
Service transformation
The client’s new enterprise service management solution has produced a number of benefits:
- The company has gained full control over its broadcasting tracking system support with service queries resolved well within the SLA timeframes, enhancing the position of Customer Services within the business Loss of revenue from the technical support service programme has been eliminated
- New opportunities to sell a broader range of services to the end customer
- Better measurement of staff productivity allows business expansion
- Superior service levels have enhanced the end customers’ experience of the company.
The breadth of Devoteam’s skills – spanning consulting, analysis, solution design and implementation within and beyond ITSM and across multiple platforms – brings significant business advantages to clients in their quest for IT transformation.