Serviceplan Group

“The trust, service domain and tenancy concept of Xurrent makes it super easy to include suppliers and service providers in your service delivery.”

Manuel Miseré, Head of IT (Client Services & ITSM) at Serviceplan Group

Xurrent’s intuitive and service-oriented platform makes an enormous difference to all users

Serviceplan Group is the largest independent and partner-managed agency in Europe. The group is represented in 34 countries worldwide with 23 agency locations plus additional local partnerships.  

The Serviceplan Group is dedicated to the entrepreneurial success of its clients and is a market leader in the development and realization of integrated communication concepts. With its ‘Houses of Communication’ in every important economic region around the world, it is the only independent agency group to provide all communication services from a single source to create truly integrated concepts.

In need of a solution to help achieve the grand vision of one service platform for all

Manuel Miseré is the Head of IT (Client Services & ITSM) at the Serviceplan Group. As a team, Group IT is responsible for all group employees worldwide.  

When Manuel joined the Serviceplan Group, IT chose to work with a service management solution that was very intuitive and looked great. It was easy to use and had quite smart integrations and connectors.

They worked with this solution for many years, but when the help desk and asset management solutions were bought by different parties, things changed, and development stopped. It was time to move on.  

Manuel: “We wanted more things to be automated properly and give everyone in the group an easy-to-use and attractive platform, also other departments like facilities, business development, etc.”

As the group kept growing, the team had to look for a solution that would make it easier to manage everything coming their way, now and in the future. The group has a complex company structure with over 4,500 users in 23 locations and regularly acquires new companies that need to be integrated. The new service management solution would have to remove the complexity and increase productivity with efficiently automated cross-enterprise workflows and easy integrations.  

Manuel: “As we are not overstaffed, we always have to take care that we use tools that help us be as efficient as possible.” In previous jobs, working with other less user-friendly systems, Manuel learned that one should never forget the people factor.

Manuel: “Why should IT guys have to work in ugly systems that are not user-friendly to provide the best service? Our philosophy is: Use tools and systems to make your life easier.”

At first, the team opted for a well-known powerful service management solution, but unfortunately, this turned out to be an expensive choice that didn’t make their life easier and left the team feeling far from agile. Soon after implementing the solution, they discovered they couldn’t do anything without an external partner, making them totally dependent. There was nothing they could do themselves. In addition, all the promised features, like translation, were extra, not part of the original contract. This meant lots of extra effort, extra costs, and less flexibility. Group IT decided not to extend the contract.

Together with München-based IT Solutioneers blu Systems, they decided to look for a replacement. Manuel: “A big lesson learned from before was that this shouldn’t just be a management decision but to let our colleagues decide.

They have to work with it; it is their tool.” They established a task force for which each team or department provided one stakeholder. They defined their service needs and catalog and called a tender. An essential requirement was a local language supplier or partner.

In the end, there were three vendors left, one of them Xurrent. Manuel: “After seeing the product demos and getting to know the solutions in more detail, everyone in the task force agreed it should be Xurrent. It was a crystal-clear decision that Xurrent was the winner. Even the more critical people were very happy with it.”

“What is funny is that the team didn’t decide on the most expensive solution, which happens quite often. They chose what they preferred, and it happened to be the most cost-effective solution.”

“Everyone was attracted by Xurrent’s ease of use, service-centricity, easy implementation and integrations, and the out-of-the-box system, with many great features included as standard.”

Manuel explains: “English as standard language, for example, was an issue for us. You can’t expect everyone to describe their complex IT issue in English. We want to offer everyone the opportunity to communicate in their own language, making communication as easy as possible. With Xurrent, this feature is standard.”

“Also, Xurrent’s focus on service was a real differentiator and matches our service philosophy perfectly: just give it to us, and we take care of it. Xurrent and the local partner checked all our boxes, including the necessary ISO certifications.”

Manuel: “I like that with Xurrent, we have a very powerful platform, but we can easily administer things ourselves, making us less dependent on external support and suppliers. Not everything has to be done by a vendor and coded and programmed; we can do most things ourselves, making us more agile and efficient.”

Implementation

In collaboration with local Xurrent partner blu Systems, Service-Centric Xurrent Perfectly Matches Serviceplan’s Service Philosophy was implemented much faster than expected, in record time, from start to finish (from signing the contract until going live), in three months. And it was a go-live with a good production/working environment right from the start.

Training

blu Systems did the initial training; after that, the training could be done internally. Even colleagues in other locations can be trained by central IT in München; no need to involve blu Systems or Xurrent. Manuel: “It’s that easy and exactly what we wanted, moving away from dependencies —being able to do it yourself.” IT uses the knowledge of blu Systems as a partner to work on new ideas and initiatives. And if they come up with a great solution within the parameters of Xurrent, blu and Service-Centric Xurrent Perfectly Matches Serviceplan’s Service Philosophy can also use it for other customers. And vice versa.

Manuel: “That is another great thing within the Xurrent community: sharing knowledge. I attended the yearly Xurrent Connect event, and I found the knowledge-sharing spirit of customers great. Everybody benefits in the end.”

Integrations

SSO, Azure AD, automatic billing runs, and asset management (JAMF & InTune) are already taken care of, and a lot more is in the process of being integrated.

Scope

• Self Service
• (Native) Mobile App
• Incident Management
• Request Fulfillment
• Configuration Management
• Asset Management
• Service Level Management
• Change Management
• Agile Boards
• Knowledge Management
• Quality Management
• Time Tracking & Billing
• Purchasing (Webshop to come)

Results

Internal feedback and the thumbs up show that Xurrent is much appreciated by employees and IT specialists. Manuel: “As our previous solution didn’t have the thumbs up or down feature, we can’t compare numbers, but a user satisfaction in Xurrent of over 90% is unusual for an internal IT department, certainly given that we are not overstaffed. Direct feedback is a nice and straightforward way to give feedback and is easy to measure.” “We also have an internal survey for IT employees. With our previous solution, our colleagues were always complaining; with Xurrent, this is no longer the case. They really like working with it.”

“What I like about Xurrent is what I call the smartphone app factor, the consumerization of IT. Times change, and people are used to consuming services easily. They don’t want to be confronted with horribly complex solutions. To me, Xurrent is the smartphone app experience of service management platforms. The user interface of Service-Centric Xurrent Perfectly Matches Serviceplan’s Service Philosophy is great, and it is very intuitive to use.”

The new service management solution has 4,500 users in 23 locations and loads of guest accounts. Group IT receives around 200 requests per day from all over the world, from easy to very, very complex.

Manuel: “We want to provide everyone with the best possible service. Wherever they are on the planet, people just need to raise a ticket in Xurrent. I always say, ‘Whatever issue or request you have, we take care that it ends up with the right people in the right team.”

“For a multinational like us, the out-of-the-box language feature is a giant benefit; with auto-translation, everyone can send their tickets in their own language.”

“We also promoted the Xurrent App, which is much appreciated by the users as it follows the same logic and ease of use as the rest of Xurrent. There was nothing we had to develop ourselves. It is great that we have a native app straight from the manufacturer without any extra cost.”

The team also likes to use the broadcast feature in Xurrent, which they can use location-based when the requirements per location vary. German holidays, for example, tend to vary per region, and when central IT in Bavaria has a holiday, colleagues in Hamburg may be working, in which case the broadcast is used to inform people so that those who are working can help where needed.

“Other features we like are the service hierarchy browser which opens automatically when a new request is opened, and the real-time dashboards and reports to help keep your KPIs in easy view, not only for yourself and your manager but also for colleagues who have to handle the request.”  

With Xurrent in place, it has become much easier to convince other departments to join the platform. Xurrent has clearly proven its value for IT, and the team is now looking at adding other management services to Xurrent.

“For a multinational like us, the out-of-the-box language feature is a giant benefit; with auto-translation, everyone can send their tickets in their own language.”

Manuel: “The trust, service domain and tenancy concept of Xurrent also makes it super easy to include suppliers and service providers in your service delivery.”

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