An open mind to ServiceNow brings telecommunications provider a new perspective to process innovation

Customer Overview:

Openmind Networks are a telecommunications software service provider based in Dublin, Ireland and with offices in the USA, Netherlands, Czech Republic and Malaysia. They provide mobile operators, wholesale operators and aggregators with the best products and services on the market, enabling them to create new revenue streams and protect their subscribers from fraud. They power over one billion transactions every day, with communication sites deployed in Europe, the Middle East, Asia and North America.

The Challenge:

Openmind were dealing with several internal challenges prior to working with Unifii. They were working with multiple  systems (a combination of in-house built and purchased systems) in order to manage different areas of their work which led to a variety of reporting systems and no single source of truth. This resulted in a siloed service delivery across their teams and stilted flow for the customers’ journey.

The business was struggling with these disparate internal systems and relying on multiple manual reports to track their data and business performance. Their system for Project Delivery wasn’t delivering the level of control and oversight they needed, meaning that a precise, granular view of necessary information wasn’t possible. While the business’s internal communications managed well during the pandemic and remote working, there were certain aspects that required extra support as everyone adapted to the new landscape. Ultimately, the customer urgently needed a solution that would allow them to standardise and grow their business to meet ambitious targets.

The Solution:

Openmind engaged Unifii to carry out two implementations for them: IT Business Management (ITBM) came first, followed by IT Service Management (ITSM) and Customer Service Management (CSM), which were combined.

The ITBM suite was deployed to better manage resources and budget items across Openmind’s internal and customer facing projects. ITBM was integrated into the sales lifecycle backed up with timely information on resource capacity, as well as other in-flight projects and programs for the same customer. The additional control around projects and programs has enabled the leadership team to have a single view across the entire project portfolio, including tracking of resource time sheeting and enriched financial management. Project reporting is greatly improved by becoming automated, thanks to the real time data replacing many of the old manual reports.

Unifii’s ITSM and CSM implementation replaced a Freshdesk implementation. Unifii delivered out of the box incident, problem and change, a customer portal rebranded for Openmind and a new service catalogue for customers. Openmind have seen an increase in customer interaction through the portal as opposed to email since the launch, which they hope to eliminate in the near future as a means of customer communication for issue resolution.

The Benefits:

Since working with ServiceNow, Openmind have noted several improvements as outlined below:

• They can now easily see the financial performance of their current portfolio; their project revenue and profit margin are their two biggest KPIs, and now they can measure these with far greater accuracy

• Revenue calculations are now tailored to the team’s needs and manual calculations have been removed

• A big focus for Openmind was to become more customer centric; to this end, Unifii implemented a customer portal including push notifications and a knowledge base. The impact can be seen in smoother working relationships with customers, and a significant reduction in time spent solving customer queries

• They rely less on Excel reports and are getting real-time reporting from the platform for project revenue

• ServiceNow has also allowed them to build a dashboard which allows them to share past revenues and invoicing status – forecasted revenues for upcoming projects are in the pipeline

• They have new control of data and awareness of performance is a huge step for Openmind, as they are working with increased control and structure over this side of the business. On top of this, analysts' time spent preparing the weekly Portfolio Review report has decreased from around 6 hours to 1 hour due to the automated system driving it. A specific dashboard has replaced the PowerPoint slide deck that was used prior to ServiceNow

• The demand management module is operating a bid review process, which Openmind are using to manage the flow of their opportunities pipeline. The module has allowed them to have better governance of their pre-sales cycle, and a clearer insight into their customer opportunities before closing a deal; the process from sales to project is streamlined, once an opportunity has been won

Future Plans

Openmind have identified other uses within the business for ServiceNow, even just with their current modules. The above implementations were primarily installed to focus on customer interaction rather than managing internal IT functions, but the latter is something that they want to focus on as they become more familiar with the platform. Key areas for improvement that currently stand out include employee requests, such as annual leave requests and signing up to their health insurance scheme.

For more information and a free consultation on how Unifii can assist your business, please contact one of the team here.