A Solution Living Up to Its Promises
september 22, 2011
POB Satisfies DZ PRIVATBANK with Flexibility and a Clear Reporting of Business Critical Operating Figures
Quick and easy technical customization, a solid and reliable project cost estimate and the necessary flexibility with the implementation – actually pretty simple requirements that go without saying for Wendia as a supplier of the service management solution POB – Point of Business. However, there are actually many solutions and projects falling short of these presumably moderate requests. In our interview Daniel Lehmann, service manager and project leader for DZ PRIVATBANK in Zürich, talks about the advantages of a solution living up to its promises: no matter whether it’s about flexibility, professional management of the IT or efficient quality management.
Wendia: You and your team, you have been using POB for quite some time now. What has changed in your organization?
Daniel Lehmann: (smiling) Our end users are generating an incredible amount of tickets. The reason is POB’s web end user Interface - Our users are very excited about it and therefore use it intensively. But anyway, the high number of registered cases is actually the result of a higher level of transparency. Our team doesn’t work with cases on call anymore. Instead they are registered and solved following a strict process.
Wendia: Surely that leads to a very positive development of customer satisfaction. How about service quality and solution times?
Daniel Lehmann: It is hard to make a clear statement on solution times. We were not able to measure or analyze operating figures regarding our performance before we started using POB. Quality management in the area of service management has changed a lot since we went into production. We simply did not have a management portal providing an overview over all business critical key performance indicators before we purchased the POB Dashboard.
Professional IT Management with POB Dashboard:
KPI’s for sustainable Quality and Performance Management
Wendia: Where do you see the advantages of an ITSM integrated Dashboard like the POB Dashboard?
Daniel Lehmann: Actually our dashboard is an excellent tool that provides us with the right arguments for all necessary activities or investments in front of our top management. With POB Dashboard we realized a high level of transparency – especially in front of our executive board. For the first time our actual workload is clearly documented. Our management can always follow up on what is happening. It can realize trends, take proactive actions and decide on the basis of solid facts.
Wendia: What POB modules are you using? And which processes are supported by POB?
Daniel Lehmann: We were starting with incident and problem management supported by the Service Desk Management module, service requests and the POB Dashboard. And we are now starting to work with change management and the POB Project & Change Management module. Until today all our change management workflows are still paper based – but this will change soon.
“Above all a tool has to be flexible today. It must offer you the possibility to analyze key operating figures in a reasonable and strategically valuable way. “
Wendia: Is there any functionality or anything else that a solution must deliver?
Daniel Lehmann: For us it is very important that our solution provides enough flexibility to make the necessary customizations in a quick and easy way. For very often we have to realize individual requirements within a certain timeframe. Moreover, the analysis of data with basic functionality in the system or with the help of a dashboard is getting more and more important as well.
Wendia: Can you give us a brief description of the situation you were in before you started your POB project? What made you and your team evaluate a new solution?
Parameterization instead of Programming:
POB scores with easy customization
Daniel Lehmann: Actually, the answer to this question is very simple: We were extremely unhappy with our system and were taken in by a lot of empty promises. Our previous supplier promised to deliver a flexible and user-friendly system. What we got was inflexible software that could only be customized with the necessary programming skills and support from the supplier. Whenever we need to customize POB, we do it ourselves – by simple parameterization.
Another thing is reporting: Our reporting is now working on an almost fully automatic basis. The information that is important for us is displayed in an understandable and clearly arranged way. Back when we had our old system I had to do all the reporting myself – above all I had to do it manually, which took a lot of my time. And even then the results were not satisfying because a lot of data simply was not available.
A Real Differentiator: Flexibility on a Product and Project Level
Wendia: What was it about POB that convinced you in the first place?
Daniel Lehmann: From the beginning I was impressed by the solution’s flexibility. At the very first meeting we had, the Wendia team was able to do adjustments quickly and on call by simple parameterization of the system. That is how we saw that easy customization was not an empty promise this time.
Wendia: Besides flexibility, what were the decisive factors for your purchase decision?
Daniel Lehmann: I found it extremely positive that flexibility is not only holding for the product. Instead, Wendia as the supplier and Wendia’s implementation partner showed the same kind of flexibility when it came to our requirements towards the projects.