Situation
Our client, a national air navigation provider is responsible for the safe and efficient movement of more than 150 million passengers annually. In their drive to enhance service delivery and build the world’s most advanced air traffic control system capability, they sought Business Aspect’s assistance to conduct an IT Service Management assessment using ITIL global best practice and provide recommendations for improving operational effectiveness and responsiveness.
Operating in a highly regulated industry the client’s ICT group functioned as two separate entities with varying capabilities and service levels. The engagement and value of IT services across the organisation was believed to be low and they needed to ascertain how they compared with similar organisations around the world and address any issues identified.
To achieve their goals, they also acknowledged they needed to become leaner and more efficient, as well as more responsive to customer needs. They recognised their chances of success would significantly increase if they were able to drive decision-making and realise new services in line with leading practices.
The client engaged Business Aspect’s accredited and experienced ITIL consultants to review and assess their IT service management. Using ITIL, developed by AXELOS, the world’s most widely accepted approach to IT service management. It uses a cohesive set of best practices to align IT services with the needs of the business. Adopting this trusted and independent framework enabled the client to achieve their objectives including:
- Understanding their current ITIL maturity against a global industry benchmark
- Improving IT service management across both IT entities
- Ensuring the operational effectiveness of IT as a whole is in line with their strategic direction.
What We Achieved
Business Aspect interviewed process owners and senior users to establish and benchmark service levels across five areas: Service Strategy, Service Design, Service Transition, Service Operations and Continual Service Improvement. They adopted a three phased approach:
Phase 1 – Process Assessment Review
Current state assessment of 25 ITIL processes for both of the client’s IT environments.
Phase 2 – Develop Benchmark Plan
Review industry benchmarks and provide a direct comparison to the assessed current state.
Phase 3 – Gap Analysis
Map existing processes to ITIL to identify and analyse gaps against the findings, and document an Improvement Action Plan in the form of a roadmap.
From an ITIL maturity perspective, one of the IT groups scored much higher than the other. This is mainly due to its heavy reliance on process compliance and auditability. The need for defined process and compliance is less for the second IT entity and their lower score reflected this. Both IT groups were found to require improvements in Service Strategy and Design to meet the benchmarks, and improvements in Service Transition and Operations to reach target maturity.
Business Aspect presented the findings to the client’s leadership team and produced a report detailing the assessment, how the results compared against other organisations and recommendations for improvement.
Business Outcome
Business Aspect defined a roadmap based on practical steps to deliver a service-focused ICT strategy. These initiatives included:
- Establishing an executive led governance framework with shared accountability
- Restructuring ICT provision to ensure clear responsibility for service delivery
- Prioritising ICT investments based on their business value potential
- Identifying a new service toolset with focus on improved self-service and workflow management
- Implementing the new toolset based on the ITIL framework and proper ITSM including a detailed service catalogue for both providers
- Motivating staff to be service focused rather than process and technology driven.
With a clear action plan in place, the organisation can make rapid strides to realise its vision of delivering the capability to provide the most advanced air traffic control system in the world by 2021.