In a previous article, Introduction to ITSM, we highlighted a focus of IT Service Management (ITSM) that is overlooked often, optimisation and efficiency. These incremental time and cost saving wins across your business add up to create larger and more substantial solutions, unlocking options or focusing strategy on previously unavailable ways.  

Inefficient and costly ways of working are prevalent in most organisations, where individuals are focused on business as usual, and time taken to review processes and structures affect deadlines, and a hunt might not prove fruitful.  

One such organisation approached us, where leadership had a clear picture that the business could be operating in a much more efficient way, but did not have the time, skills or expertise to identify how. The client engaged Lean Tree to conduct a wide-reaching IT Service Management assessment, to identify these inefficiencies and propose solutions. 

Unearthing The Root Cause 

Following a deep analysis of tickets logged over several months it became clear that there was an overwhelming majority related to one workflow. This workflow was connected to the way that employee accounts for orders were managed, with self-service disabled to prevent fraudulent activity. However, this meant that the Level 1 support team were using a significant number of hours each month manually actioning the changes on behalf of another team who did not have the ability to access the legacy tooling.  

Our team investigated the root cause and found that with a small development effort of roughly two weeks, we would be able to prevent tickets being passed through multiple teams, allowing the work to be completed by the next team upstream. This small inefficiency formed part of the bigger picture of the ITSM at the organisation but was just one of the small ways that we assisted them in streamlining overall.  

The Lean Tree team made a business case focused on the time and money that would be saved by the development of a user interface, and once approved an internal development team with knowledge in the specific system was assigned to complete the task.  

As a result of the development, inbound ticket volumes reduced by almost half, allowing the Level 1 Support Team to focus their efforts on value adding activities instead of repetitive service requests. 

Going Beyond, Additional Value 

To further improve ticket handling for the client, we also worked with multiple stakeholder groups to identify the remaining common ticket request types and migrated them to a ‘self-service’ portal. This further reduced the amount of time that the team had to focus on simple and respective tasks, allowing them to focus on finding solutions for business-critical tickets with speed.  

Previously, all tickets were sent in via email and transcribed to a Jira ticket, which was inefficient, increasing the time before action was taken, and most incurred aback-and-forth discussions to gather diagnostic data. In the improved solution, important items became mandatory fields which again reduced the time taken between submission and solution. 

Given the forward visibility of these changes, Lean Tree ran a Request for Proposal (RFP) process for the client’s Level 1 and Level 2 Managed Service Provider (MSP) support. We were able to identify a better provider for this solution and save a significant cost, due to the new volume of tickets. 

Senior Management feedback from the client was extremely positive both regarding the cost savings, but also the service improvements made because of these efficiencies. 

Step One of ITSM 

While efficiencies and optimisation can seem small in the grand scheme of things, incremental gains can tip the scales in your favour. This was just one seemingly small aspect of an assessment, that unlocked a significant saving of time and money for a client. Ultimately, the teams weren’t doing anything wrong, simply the process was not providing them with the optimum solution.  

Understanding where you need to start with an ITSM assessment can uncover the quick wins, longer projects and non-negotiables for your specific business. Our experts are readily available to assess your systems, to book in your FREE 1-hour no-obligation call with our ISTM experts, click here.