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Your Homes Newcastle to reduce helpdesk calls by a third with support from a&o

Rapid rollout of SaaS ITSM tool creates dramatic business process efficiencies

9th July 2008: Your Homes Newcastle will reduce incoming helpdesk calls by a third, by introducing ITIL based work processes. It will achieve this by support and consultancy from a&o systems + services UK Ltd.

Your Homes Newcastle (YHN) is an Arms Length Management Organisation, set up in 2004 with responsibility for the management of 31,000 council homes in Newcastle. In aiming to be the best housing provider in the North East, YHN recognised the need to upgrade not only its IT services but also business processes and working practices throughout the organisation.

Geof Ellingham, Chief Information Officer at YHN, explains: “When I joined YHN in August 2007 I recognised straight away we needed to implement ITIL. The IT department was receiving incoming calls from employees to resolve small errors, often hundreds a week, without any trends being identified or progress being made – it was being used as a helpdesk rather than a service desk. We are supporting over 850 employees, so wanted to move from being reactive to proactive.”

YHN engaged a&o to provide consultancy on how best to improve these working practices, aiming to launch a new service desk facility in July 2008. Within three months, YHN was working with a&o which provided expert recommendations, including the implementation of Service-now.com, a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) application designed to simplify the ITIL implementation process. a&o also introduced five OGC assessments which would enable YHN to demonstrate improvements to business processes.

Geof Ellingham continues: “a&o’s consultancy throughout the process has been essential, there is no way we could have got to this point without their support. The set-up of Service-now.com has been really efficient, and within three months we will have already achieved OGC level 2.5 which far exceeds our expectations. The benefits of improving our working practices through OGC accreditation have already been felt throughout the organisation, as so many processes are now automated and simplified.”

a&o recently announced a new joint offering with Service-now.com, combining its expert consultancy and local IT support with the SaaS enterprise ITSM tool. a&o’s unique reseller agreement means a minimum number of users is not required at any one organisation, enabling customers to add to the solution as their needs grow. a&o’s customers, including YHN can therefore work with a unique and flexible solution that suits their individual needs.

Adrian Cooper, Business Development Director at a&o, comments: “The ITIL guidelines are an effective way for organisations, such as YHN, to reduce the amount of time spent on IT Support. However, IT service management tools are traditionally expensive and time consuming to implement. Using a web-based tool such as Service-now.com means benefits can be quickly achieved, as YHN clearly demonstrates. We are delighted they have achieved benefits in such a short space of time, and look forward to driving those further.”

For more information, contact press@aogroup.co.uk