Case Study:
Invensys

Invensys is a global technology group supplying solutions, software, services and equipment to monitor, control and automate processes in a wide range of environments and across almost every sector.

Invensys develops and applies advanced technologies that enable the world’s manufacturing and energy-generating facilities, mainline and mass transit rail networks, and appliances to operate safely and in an energy-efficient manner.

6 months on from our initial engagement with Engage ESM we have added significant value to our ServiceNow system. Through enabling our internal customers to request services online and then streamlining the backend processes we have been able to release valuable skilled resources to focus more appropriate projects and enable us to be more responsive. From a business perspective it has significantly enhanced our ability to deliver services more efficiently, demonstrate more value to the business and raise our profile.

Richard Strange, Invensys

What was needed

The Global Infrastructure Services Group within Invensys provides core services to the group of companies covering 4 main divisions, 250 offices globally and 20,000 employees.

In order to reduce costs and improve overall efficiency the global infrastructure organisation has undertaken a significant programme of global consolidation, cost reduction and change. To support this programme and provide a more consistent approach to the delivery of IT services Invensys invested in a new service management platform based on ServiceNow.

Having successfully implemented the core service desk functionality, Invensys wanted to generate more value from their ServiceNow implementation to further reduce costs and improve service levels to the business.

The first identified project was to provide a self-service capability that would enable internal customers to order specific IT services online. This would then be used to drive a semi-automated fulfilment process.

Initially there were 6 core services that were most frequently requested and whose fulfilment could be streamlined all the way to provisioning. E.g. the provisioning for a new starter.

The challenge was to streamline these 6 key services through building, testing and deploying a new service in three weeks.

Selecting a partner

ServiceNow provided Invensys with a list of possible service providers and Engage ESM were selected.

Richard Strange commented “All three potential partners appeared to have the skills, however the Engage ESM team demonstrated an ability to quickly assimilate our requirements and respond. For example, within days of first meeting, and without being prompted, Engage ESM had produced a prototype online catalogue that helped us understand and visualise how it would work.”

A key requirement, in addition to timescale, was to design the system with the flexibility to accommodate a varied range of potential processes and catalogue items in the future. In addition Invensys wanted to be self-sufficient in the update for these new items, so that they didn’t need to rely on external support.

20 days after the initial pilot visual, the Engage ESM experts had consulted, designed, built, tested and deployed a working system that met the requirements as well as supporting a streamline workflow process.

The initial 6 self-service offerings were quickly extended to 15 and Invensys are now planning to increase this number to 30 to include employee management and desktop services.

How we tackled it

Following the successful implementation of the self-service catalogue attention was moved to the requirements in Asset Management.

Despite several attempts to do this, Invensys had no central library of installed asset information with each region recording asset details differently. As a consequence the business was exposed to risk in a number of areas. First they didn’t know accurately how compliant they were with regard to software licences or version levels. Secondly they were unsure of the implications and interdependencies when undertaking any change or provisioning programme. Without having a central system the IT organisation had to undertake a very costly and time consuming manual audit every 6 months.

Again Invensys looked to see if the ServiceNow system could provide the means of both discovering what assets were in use and then recording new assets as part of an on-going process.

Engage ESM kicked off the process with a number of workshops to review the how far the out of the box functionality within ServiceNow met the requirement. Then following on from this a development roadmap and scope of work for phase one was created and agreed.

Business outcomes

Using the ServiceNow discovery application Invensys located recorded details of all the installed assets across 9 data centres.

Engage ESM then worked with the team to develop an asset management process to manage the information the discovery tool provided. Through using ServiceNow all the data could be managed in one place in a consistent format from procurement through to retirement. As a result integration costs have been significantly reduced.

Get in touch

To learn more just drop us a line or call us on 0800 783 3040.