"Everything we touch has a
direct impact on the brand.” So says John Felton, Director of Service
Integration at Sprint. And with the
company operating in a highly competitive market, where customer experience is
critical to success, it recently moved to run its IT operations like a
business.
This is a common objective
for many HP customers driving for reduced maintenance costs, increased
availability and performance, and faster time to market. But for Sprint the
project was particularly challenging. After a period of merger and acquisition it
was running an extensive and fragmented IT environment (e.g. 1,300
applications, 64,000 desktops and eight data centers). So how did Sprint
achieve its vision to transform operations with integrated service management,
improved systems for agents and a single Web interface to access information
anywhere on any device? And how did it do it in just nine months? John Felton
explains how in his own words in this fascinating webinar – replay –highlights of which are summarized below.
Highlights
Integration
is key
The project saw the
deployment of a range of integrated HP software including Service Manager,
Asset Manager and Business Service Management. To deliver the project John
Felton heavily relied on HP’s Premier Support team. His key perspectives on
lessons learned and how to make the most of Premier Support include:
- Stay
focused – believing that in a large organisation the
longer time is taken to implement, the more changes people suggest that
interrupt the flow, John Felton’s team set an aggressive schedule.
- Get
the buy-in early –secure buy-in from the
business early and ensure goals are clearly explained. Three checkpoints were
constantly referenced by John Felton’s team: is the brand being supported, will
the bottom line be improved and will customer service agents have everything
they need?
- Understand
the costs – by working with HP’s Premier Support
team Sprint accelerated to the point where 35 applications could be removed to secure
cost savings faster than anticipated. While using external support has an
associated cost, John Felton believes that for Sprint , where an outage can
have a huge impact on the business, involving subject matter experts is vital.
He says: ‘If you need to get done things that are important to you do
everything you can to convince your executive team that this is something that
needs to be done.’
- Call
on expertise and meet regularly – Sprint partnered with
HP Premier’s Support team to provide a tailored package of assistance and
ensured that a harmonised team was created. John Felton says: ‘It was not a
case of Sprint Nextel working with HP and HP working with
Sprint, it was a collaborative effort.’ The team met twice a week to review
progress, objectives and hurdles. He also added: ‘My anxiety went down a lot as
I had a direct line to someone who knew Service Manager and our environment if
I had a problem.’
- Request
changes if needed – HP’s Premier Support team
has frequent contact with HP’s R&D team. Sprint used this feedback loop to
request changes that says John Felton "changed the way they may have seen the
tool working so that it fitted into our organisation.”
Results
highlights
- Time
to market: The project was completed four months ahead
of schedule
- Increased
efficiency: Incidents are down by 33 per cent per
month, traffic throughput and processing ability are up by 95 per cent and
downtime has fallen by 67 percent
>> Download more information about HP Premier Support
