1. CUSTOMER SUCCESS STORY
Yakult Europe B.V.
» Service desk in the cloud allows fast, economical implementation
of robust service management functionality
BEFORE AFTER
» High acquisition and maintenance costs » BMC Remedyforce will reduce costs by
made it impractical to upgrade or replace approximately 25% the first year, and cut
the on-premise solution them nearly in half in years 2 and 3
» Complicated user interface of previous » Help desk calls have dropped by a third
help desk tool resulted in low adoption and email by half because users can now
rate, increasing burden on help desk easily submit their own tickets
» Ticket ownership was not clear-cut, » No ambiguity with respect to who owns
resulting in confusion that delayed an issue; task feature lets owners assign
resolution; sometimes issues fell tasks while maintaining ticket ownership
through the cracks » Central place for capturing detailed
» Limited ability to capture and share descriptions, discussions, examples, and
knowledge about an issue other information related to each ticket
In companies of all sizes, reducing IT incidents, solving problems swi ly, and respond-
ing to user requests promptly is a business imperative. Implementing and maintaining
an IT service management solution, however, has o en been a lengthy and expensive
GEOGRAPHY undertaking. The cost and effort involved prevents many enterprises — particularly
Europe midsized ones — from moving ahead with a robust service management strategy.
INDUSTRY Fortunately, cloud technologies are enabling IT organizations to quickly deploy best-
Food & Beverage Manufacturing
in-class service management functionality across the enterprise without the capital
SOLUTIONS expenditures and ongoing costs of an on-premise solution. Companies like Yakult
BMC Remedyforce Service Desk Europe are exploiting cloud computing to improve service and support to their users
while controlling IT costs.
“Cloud technologies have now reached a maturity level that allows us to offload any IT
elements that put us in a defensive situation,” said Can Ersoz, manager of information
systems at Yakult. “By moving functions like service management to the cloud, we can
stop focusing on technology and direct our attention to supporting the marketing and
sales activities of our business.”
Yakult recently decided to tap the power of cloud computing to replace its outdated
help desk system, Altiris. Employees had not fully embraced the previous system
because it was difficult to use. Moreover, the solution lacked functionality that the IT
staff needed to be effective in handling issues and requests.
2. Resources and budget limitations made it impracti-
cal to implement a new on-premise solution, so
the staff began searching for a cloud, or So ware
as a Service (SaaS), solution. BMC So ware, with
its BMC Remedyforce Service Desk, quickly
emerged as a top contender. BMC Remedyforce
“Since weof phone calls to theRemedyforce, the
number
implemented BMC
help desk has
delivers access to market-leading BMC service
management capabilities through the highly
dropped by about one third, and the number of regarded Salesforce.com cloud platform.
e-mail messages has dropped in half. In time, we
expect the number of user-submitted issues and The staff contacted BMC to learn more about BMC
Remedyforce, and was impressed with what they
requests to increase, which will free up the help
saw. BMC quickly brought InfraVision into the
desk to work on more complex issues.” relationship. InfraVision is one of BMC’s top partners
CAN ERSOZ in the Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA).
MANAGER OF INFORMATION SYSTEMS
Based in the Netherlands with offices also in the
United Kingdom, Belgium and Germany, the com-
pany provided consulting services and support to
assist Yakult in its decision-making process as well
as with the planning and implementation of cloud-
based service management processes and so ware.
A SOLID BUSINESS CASE
“We chose BMC Remedyforce for a variety of reasons,” recalled help desk analyst Arnold Soedamah. “It is
a true SaaS solution, whereas TOPdesk, the other solution we considered, is a managed service offering.
The BMC pricing was more favorable, it offered more functionality, and we could deploy it faster. We also
felt very comfortable with the two companies behind BMC Remedyforce. We have a lot of confidence in
both BMC So ware and Salesforce.com.”
Staff members compared the monthly per-user pricing for BMC Remedyforce with the cost of upgrading
the current on-premise solution and with the monthly TOPdesk pricing. They were surprised at just how
much they would be able to save with the BMC solution.
“Compared to the cost of upgrading our old system, BMC Remedyforce will save us approximately 25
percent the first year, and will cut our costs nearly in half in years two and three,” Ersoz said. “And we
estimate that BMC Remedyforce will cost only about half as much TOPdesk would cost over three years.”
Another important factor in the decision was the responsiveness of both InfraVision and BMC. “Every
time we had a question, the people from InfraVision and BMC got back to us right away,” Ersoz said.
“They continue to be very proactive in answering our questions and addressing our concerns.”
RAPID RESULTS
Because the previous ticketing system was difficult to use, people typically submitted incidents and
requests by telephone or email. Assigning tickets to owners was cumbersome, as was managing tickets
through to resolution.
Users are adopting BMC Remedyforce much more quickly than the previous system, submitting many
issues and requests through the online portal instead of calling or sending messages. They can also
check the status of their incidents and requests, which further reduces the burden on the help desk.
3. “Since we implemented BMC Remedyforce, the number of phone calls to the help desk has dropped by
about one third, and the number of email messages has dropped in half,” Ersoz said. “In time, we expect
the number of user-submitted issues and requests to increase, which will make the entry and assign-
ment of tickets even more efficient.”
“Handling a phone call to the help desk takes about 10 minutes,” Soedamah added. “Saving that time is
very beneficial. But what is also important is that there are fewer interruptions, so we can plan our time
and use it more effectively.”
With the previous system, ticket ownership was o en unclear. With BMC Remedyforce, the help desk can
more easily assign tickets to a server or network specialist, an application owner, or a functional manager.
Complex issues o en require the efforts of multiple people. The BMC Remedyforce task feature allows the
ticket owner to assign tasks to the appropriate people while maintaining responsibility for the issue or request.
This has made ownership more clear-cut and, as a result, incident management is now more efficient.
KNOWLEDGE AND INSIGHT
In the past, one of the biggest obstacles to resolving
issues was the inability to capture and share infor-
mation. The Yakult staff o en wasted time searching
through email chains to find details and discussions
about a particular issue. With BMC Remedyforce, all
details, discussions, documents, examples, and other
related information is captured and kept with the
“[BMC Remedyforce]solutiontrue considered is a
whereas the other
… is a
we
SaaS solution,
ticket. Consequently, everyone involved can see the managed service offering. The BMC pricing was
progress and status of an issue. more favorable, it offered much more functional-
“The search functionality is also very good, so we can
ity, and we could deploy it faster. We also felt very
find similar issues from the past to help in resolving comfortable with the two companies behind BMC
current issues,” Ersoz said. “We can determine if the Remedyforce. We have a lot of confidence in both
same problem occurred before or if we’re having mul- BMC So ware and Salesforce.com.”
tiple problems with a particular asset or asset type.”
ARNOLD SOEDAMAH
The staff is just beginning to use Salesforce.com HELP DESK ANALYST
Chatter to collaborate on tickets. Chatter enables
people to follow the resolution process in real-time
through Chatter feeds. In the future, exchanges of infor-
mation through Chatter will also help in building the
company’s knowledge base of issues and problems.
NEXT STEPS
Yakult is taking a phased approach to implementing BMC Remedyforce. The incident management com-
ponent is flexible enough to handle a variety of ticket types, including issues, change requests, and other
service requests, so Yakult has chosen to start with that component. The company can then add more
formal change and problem management processes when it is ready for them.
Currently, the IT staff is in the initial phase of implementing the underlying configuration management
database (CMDB), which will help them capture and maintain information on IT assets and their interrela-
tionships. According to Ersoz, the CMDB will help improve asset management. “The visual features of the
CMDB are amazing,” he said. Soedamah added that the Explorer view shows all the relationships among
the different systems, which helps speed troubleshooting and resolution.
