The challenge
The solution previously used was not sufficient in performance, usability and administration to be able to efficiently serve the growing number of customers and their individual requirements with central portfolio management. In the selection of the new ESM platform, the centralization, flexibility and performance of the service shops played a decisive role. In addition, other successive ITSM processes can then be mapped in order to completely replace the previous CA Service Desk tool.
Solution
The USU partner, Gentlemen Group, developed the technical concept together with GISA and provided the successful expertise and knowledge transfer associated with agile implementation in the area of customizing and workflow management. With intensive training in the departments, maintenance and administration can be done entirely from catalog management, relieving sustainably the strain on IT. The new Service Shop went live successfully after twelve months. In the further course of the project, Service Request Fulfillment, a Service Management Cockpit, and processes for IT asset/configuration and change management will be implemented. Additional ITIL disciplines will follow and have already been reviewed.
Result
With the standardization of the Service Shop, GISA has created the basis for growth and scalability. The new Service Shop immediately achieved high customer satisfaction with transparent service processes, significantly increased shop performance, the fulfillment of customer-specific requests, and a user-friendly interface. Internally, the new solution had a high level of acceptance because it offers IT and the technical team great flexibility in implementing customer-specific requirements and approval processes quickly and independently.
At a glance
The Organization
GISA GmbH
Industry
IT services
Key figures
- approx. 4,200 active shop users
- 800 customer-specific products
- 4,500 service orders per month
USU Solution
USU Partner
Gentlemen Group GmbH
Website
www.gisa.de
The resonance from our customers to the new Service Shop based on USU Service Management is entirely positive, and their satisfaction is significantly higher than before. Our employees in the department are likewise delighted because they can now implement the customer requirements independently and with greater flexibility.
Tom Halang, Head of Process IT/IT Service & Quality Management, GISA GmbH
The Service Portal as critical success factor
GISA GmbH, with headquarters in Halle/Saale, is an IT consulting firm and IT service provider with 840 employees serving 300 customers throughout Germany, primarily from energy management, the public sector, and industry. As a central starting point for service customers and their users, the Service Portal plays a decisive role in making the services available.
There are more than 800 products available in the shop for each customer, and each month a new customer is activated in the Service Portal. The products offered in the shop and the fulfillment process differs by customer. The Service Shop previously used, which was integrated into the CA Service Desk, had not met customer expectations with regard to user-friendliness and performance for some time.
In addition, the shop content could only be updated by IT but not by the technical departments. This also created internal dissatisfaction and slowed further growth which requires swift onboarding of new customers and fast implementation of customer-specific requirements. There were high expectations associated with the introduction of the new Service Shop.
Independence of the department teams from IT
At GISA, there is a specific technical team that only takes care of order management and updating the Service Shop. IT is not involved in anything that has to do with customizing. For this reason, approx. 10 employees from IT and the department were involved from the onset in the concept phase of the project, and familiarized with the USU shop solution.
Afterward, the Order Management Team received intensive training and coaching so they could independently implement the Service Shop product and act as Catalog Manager of the new platform. The ongoing maintenance of the shop content is very detailed because of the quantity structure, and requires a great deal of flexibility from the department.
With the USU Service Management, the department team members can independently set up the approval process and levels, and model it with graphic support.
Future-oriented solution for IT
GISA customers have in part their own domain name in the Service Portal. Users who log into the customer portal are managed by a central identity provider via Keycloak. USU Service Management docks onto this central customer management and grants the respective user automatic access to the Service Shop. GISA was already using its own workflow engine called INUBIT throughout the company. The USU solution was connected via a generic interface and it receives from it among other things the information about approvers and on approval steps. Likewise, the CA Service Desk was connected through a generic interface because the fulfillment process was temporarily still part of CA Service Desk.
One of the premises for customizing was and is to get the ability to release and upgrade. In addition, the effects of the quantity structure and customizing on performance played a central role since this created a high psychological pressure. 15 project days were invested in performance measurements and optimizations. In a penetration test before going live, 600 users were simulated accessing the shop products or forms simultaneously.
USU Service Management passed the test with flying colors. In the further course of the project, additional processes in USU Service Management will be implemented - largely parallel and likewise using agile project management. These include among other things the removal of CA in the Service Request Fulfillment and Asset Management, the introduction of change management and the provision of a Service Management Cockpit for transparency for all important information about services from various source systems.
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