Discover how Transgrid’s transformation radically changed how they use technology, people and processes to deliver business outcomes.
The Challenge
There were four key challenges all with the demands of driving cost down whilst creating an increase in value, for the overall IT Operations Group:
- Service desk and end-user compute costs were being pushed unsustainably higher under the legacy agreement
- COVID increased the number of devices required by staff as well as the requisite infrastructure necessary to support remote working. COVID flareups made the current way of working the norm for the medium term.
- More devices and users pushed up servicing and licensing costs. It was estimated that the IT service would experience 15% year on year growth.
- The current service agreement was too complex and difficult to manage, and the contract service descriptions were device centric, and too detailed. The agreement also created a disincentive to exploring ways to innovate the service delivery.
- Anticipate future growth
- Transgrid desired to grow the contestable part of the business significantly, diversifying the business and driving new revenue and growing EBIT in line with Board targets. A plan was initiated to deliver 60% of new transmission assets in the following five years.
- This large infrastructure project pipeline already increased the number of external FTE using the IT network for transmission asset delivery projects and Transgrid will require a service provider who not only perform well at the current activity levels, and are able to grow at scale to meet future needs.
- Innovate internal customer IT service delivery and user experience
- Bring experience & expertise with the latest tools & architecture to standardise, rationalise, modernise, automate, and innovate the user experience (UX) and deliver a user-centric, contemporary IT service.
- Evolve Transgrid’s Service Integration and Management (SIAM) environment in delivering the services.
- No extra budget to address the challenges or improve the service
- The automation of service delivery was viewed as the means to offset the rising costs of IT service delivery.
The ‘do nothing’ response to these challenges was not an option.
Providing the current services at the current run cost to a larger fleet of devices and an increased IT user population (with more complex demands) it was determined, would lead to service degradation and long-term service failure.
The Goal
The goal was for CDRU to work with Transgrid to deliver a transformative change process that positioned Transgrid’s users (staff and contractors) at the heart of the IT service in terms of useability, user experience and efficiency of service.
This would require a new agreement and behaviours that would focus on:
- driving an innovative and user experience (UX) centric outcome.
- aligning with the technology objectives and end-to-end strategic business outcomes.
- increase the capabilities in design, build and govern.
This transformation must also be flexible and able to respond to changes in end-user computing requirements (such as COVID and future growth) and critically, must be delivered at cost neutral basis, including transition costs.
The Implementation
‘Offshoring’ part, or all the services, was viewed as an obvious path to increase service level provision while maintaining service delivery costs. However, this was not an option Transgrid wished to pursue, at the time of the engagement.
The expiry of the term of the agreement for the current service provider provided CDRU the opportunity to source a service provider to:
- support Transgrid’s growth,
- redesign the service to provide a better user experience and
- drive down the cost-to-serve and meet OPEX budgetary constraints by using the latest industry practices and tools.
It also provided the opportunity for CDRU to source and recommend a service provider with capacity, capability and flexibility to meet Transgrid’s strategic objective to grow, converge and leverage IT and OT service delivery as required.
CDRU worked with Transgrid to agree the optimal change to an outsourced service delivery model that would best match Transgrid’s operational and cultural environment. It also listened carefully to the CIO’s expectation for an improved user experience, CDRU was initially perceived at senior levels to increase the cost of delivered services rather than maintain or reduce those costs.
CDRU’s strategic sourcing model combined with pre-tender workshops and post-tender reviews along with a pre-agreement of terms with service providers, enabled CDRU to deliver an outstanding outcome for Transgrid, in a short timeframe.
The Benefits
CDRU’s role in the sourcing and implementation enabled a collaborative approach with service providers that a traditional sourcing activity could not deliver – simplifying vendor management and aligning the outcomes required.
By moving obligations, and delivery objectives from a pure service focus to a service and experience focus, coupled with a flexible approach to identifying the tools needed to deliver the improvement in user experience, the service provider owned the outcome and invested in the best solutions to enable users to do their best work.
Capability uplift
The service provider was held accountable to deliver a jointly agreed innovative product and service roadmap that included:
Self Service
Self service capabilities such as:
- Password reset facility
- Service catalogue requests
- Incident and request-status detail
- Software downloads
- Peer support forums
- Chatbots
Automation
Automation that gives employees a place to ask questions and get answers without interrupting help desk teams.
Use of artificial intelligence to build and manage knowledge, providing answers and solving problems for company employees over chat, email and SMS without involving the service desk.
Behavioural Science Data
Use of behavioural science data to provide real-time advice and guidance to support employees while they’re taking calls.
It lets support team members know when they’re speaking too quickly or not listening enough, and it even alerts supervisors of calls that are going very poorly so they can intervene.
Automated Processes
Creation of service catalogues that users interact with in the same way they would an ecommerce site.
On the frontend, users request things like software, devices, and access.
These requests interact with backend workflows that secure permissions and initiate automated processes.
The design of the service offering, and service elements are set to decrease the volume of trouble tickets by up to 20% and annual pricing for the services will remain constant even due to future growth if the volume of trouble tickets increase by 10%.
Productivity benefit
The transformation will be a radical change to how Transgrid uses technology, people and processes to deliver business outcomes and will be an opportunity for employees to upgrade their expertise and focus on higher value activities.
The Results
CDRU “exceeded TransGrid’s expectations” with outcomes that:
- met the objectives for scalable, reliable, flexible and cost-effective customer and business technology services.
- modernised Service Delivery outcomes and measures success on user experience.
- reduced the cost per ticket with a reduction on total current service cost.
CDRU delivered a less complex, flexible commercial model for supply of Service Desk, Desktop Services, Voice, Infrastructure and Security support of managed IT services that now:
- has a catalogue of prices for different services allows Transgrid complete flexibility to implement changes to its timetable and needs.
- drives service provider integration with Transgrid’s IT ecosystem.
- contains a simplified set of KPI’s that directly measures, and rewards improved end user experiences.
- includes a payment scheme that rewards innovation.
Combined with a transformative uplift in capability that focuses on the end user experience, this use of tightly integrated and complementary tools now provides:
- 24 x 7 delivery of services beyond a traditional call centre, specifically:
- e-Store to order hardware & software anytime, anywhere.
- Chatbots. Mobile ServiceNow app.
- Vending machines in selected locations to provide anytime access to spares and peripherals.
- persona-based call routing to the agent best placed to assist for better awareness and faster response and closeout of issues.
- an IT Service Desk Operations Command Centre that yields faster resolution of tickets (auto-triaging, auto-execution of workflow and scripts).
- predictive maintenance tools for self-healing remote devices to find and fix problems before they occur.
- continuous improvement of services with Analytics tools that suggest service improvements based on user trends.
- Walk-in-Centre (when Covid effects subside) for ease of access to support services through direct walk-ins when user requires support reducing downtime.
As Transgrid:
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- transitions from the previous service provider to the new service provider occurs at no extra cost.
- saves 15% of run costs compared to current budget over a four-year term.
- allows for offshoring at Transgrid’s discretion to deliver further quantified savings.
- is positioned for anticipated growth with a 30% productivity increase by deflecting users to lower cost to serve channels while improving the user experience.