Lincolnshire Co-op, an independent consumer co‑operative has deployed Ivanti Neurons for ITSM across the enterprise with the help of CTMS Service Management.
It has improved multiple business processes and enhanced the customer experience. Lincolnshire Co-op saved £150,000 by reducing overnight food wastage with better management of equipment breakdown alerts.
Deploying a best-in-class enterprise service management system
Alan Bullman, IT support manager at Lincolnshire Co-op has responsibility for a Central Services team of 30 people. This is Alan’s journey with CTMS and Ivanti Neurons for ITSM:
“We needed a robust ITSM system that could support IT and non-IT business processes. With the help of CTMS, we implemented the Ivanti platform for core ITSM functions including Service Desk, Incident, Service Request, Change Management, Knowledge and Self Service.
Working alongside CTMS, we have grown from using the platform for IT support and fleet management to include property maintenance, pensions, customer queries, health and safety, and more. The goal was to have our services managed and supported in a single platform that can deliver world-class service management outcomes not just for IT but across the enterprise.
Each time we roll out Ivanti Neurons for ITSM to a new business function we gain advocates who champion the business value it has driven. We have developed the platform widely across the business but we rarely want something out of the box. The ability to customise the platform to create a solution that solves our specific business and operational challenges is invaluable.
Ivanti Neurons for ITSM is a true enterprise service management system that is driving greater efficiencies across more processes that underpin our business. CTMS has been instrumental in implementing the breadth of services the platform now supports.
CTMS: A flexible transformation partner
We see CTMS as a true transformation partner. We have a close working relationship where we understand each other’s skills, goals and objectives. We don’t always agree! But they’ll recommend an alternative tool or approach if CTMS believes it will deliver a better outcome. That’s why I trust them.
Additionally, CTMS has worked hard on ensuring knowledge transfer to my team so that we can be more self-sufficient on the platform. Without this, we wouldn’t have been able to achieve the breadth of outcomes with Ivanti Neurons for ITSM both in terms of cost and delivery timescales. We have the choice of whether:
· We take on the development work in-house with the support of CTMS
· We do all of the development in-house
· We outsource everything to CTMS
Fully outsourcing is particularly useful when the requirements are more complex or we have a challenging deadline. This flexibility means I can make optimum use of our IT budget whilst calling upon CTMS’s Ivanti platform expertise wherever it adds value.
Taking best practice service management into the wider business
We worked closely with CTMS on the design and development of a self-service portal for IT. It has proved to be so successful with users, that our other part of the business wanted something similar. CTMS trained my team on the self-service technology and we can keep the portal up to date with any changes. We also directly developed a self-service portal that was customised for Health and Safety.
Customer Queries that were previously managed on an Access database are now supported in Ivanti. We have customised Ivanti Neurons for ITSM to use as a CRM system, pushing the boundaries of what the platform is capable of.
All of the experts in the business can update cases and contact a customer. We track queries and Ivanti for ITSM gives us accountability and a full audit trail. We introduced SLAs and the platform automatically alerts us if a case exceeds a set time limit – we never had this visibility before.
We have taken best practices from the ITSM world and improved processes in other parts of our business, eliminating single points of human failure and point solutions.
Accelerated deployment equals faster realisation of benefits
The service that we get from CTMS is first class; They are always available for a discussion and willing to help. It feels like we get a premium service even though we are not their biggest customer. Together, we have been able to go further and faster in our deployment of Ivanti across the business.
Bringing pensions call logging onto Ivanti Neurons for ITSM is a good example where we ran the project in-house, but we wouldn’t have been able to achieve this without the knowledge transfer from CTMS.
In contrast for our self-service portal project, I asked CTMS to do the majority of the development work as the requirements were more complex.
Custom insights empower smart decision-making
We use Ivanti dashboards extensively as it gives each part of our business, live reporting on critical insights that matter to them. We can monitor the health of IT and the business according to various criteria.
From an IT perspective do I have any P1 incidents that I need to deal with, how many cases have been resolved, etc? Each of the business areas that use Ivanti, have its own specific custom dashboards enabling Lincolnshire Co-op to cut through the mass of data and make smarter decisions.
Saving £150,000 pr year on food waste
The Service Desk operates 24x7x365. Around 1,000 cases per week are logged by email, Microsoft Teams, self-service, and phone. Lincolnshire Co-op also has overnight processes such as fridge monitoring. Ivanti automatically processes any alerts generated by the notification system.
If an issue persists for more than an hour, a case is created for the Service Desk. It helps us stay on top of the notifications that the alerting system generates. We have eliminated around £150,000 per year of food wastage resulting from overnight fridge or freezer failures.
A reliable, flexible platform
I’ve only seen the Ivanti platform go down once, it is an incredibly reliable. In the P1 incident, CTMS’s response was incredibly professional and timely. We are also looking into Ivanti Neurons for ITSM cloud version this year which offers further resilience and reduced reliance on our infrastructure.
We allow selected 3rd party contractors, to access Ivanti so they can actively manage and update their cases, which is particularly important in property management. Our customers have access to the most up-to-date information which means a better user experience and faster resolution times.
Leverage investment in Ivanti for better outcomes
The drive for continual service improvement means we are always looking to how and where we can leverage our investment in Ivanti. A guiding principle is how can we improve the customer journey by automating key processes to drive deliver efficiencies and better service.
We are working on deploying the Ivanti platform to support Security across the business, such as fuel theft reports and requests for CCTV. We are creating a centralised offenders register which will eliminate information stored in several hundred forms.
Our roadmap includes using Ivanti Neurons for ITSM to support our out-of-hours pharmacy, service inventory and stock management. I’m always interested in understanding the art of the possible, and we will be taking a close look at how the Ivanti platform could help to deliver further beneficial outcomes.
Aligned to Lincolnshire Co-op’s purpose
Our relationship with CTMS epitomises Lincolnshire Co-op’s purpose which is ‘to bring together ideas, energy and resources to make life better in our communities’. I value their honesty and transparency and would recommend CTMS to any company looking to deploy or expand the footprint of Ivanti Neurons for ITSM.
The collaboration has seen us make huge progress in unlocking the power and potential of Ivanti Neurons for ITSM for true enterprise service management. We have moved away from siloed and unstructured information into the world of modern service management, gaining greater visibility and control over our business.
I look forward to continuing our relationship with CTMS as we innovate and bring other business functions onto the platform.”
