Many companies in industries across the economic spectrum are discovering what AgriBank recently learned; multiple departments within an organization can benefit from best-in-class service management processes and tools.

AgriBank, a wholesale bank that provides farm credit services in 15 states, was being held back by its legacy help desk ticketing system. Limitations included:

• lack of flexibility
• no self-service capability
• limited visibility and reporting

Furthermore, most of the communications regarding IT issues were conducted by email, outside the ticketing system, so important information was not being captured in a central, accessible manner.

The Goal: Service Management Transformation

AgriBank’s leadership was aware that service management is not just for IT. Many of their departments, including human resources, facilities management, and risk management, deal with issues and requests just as IT does, and all can benefit from a solid, flexible solution, the benefits of which include:

• visibility and reporting of ticket status along with performance metrics
• asset tracking and life cycle management
• knowledge management, including document authoring
• customer self-service

Before searching for a solution, AgriBank solicited requirements from multiple service-oriented departments. By leveraging IT service management (ITSM) best practices and adapting them for each department’s needs, AgriBank was able to define a long-term vision for enterprise service management (ESM). During this process, management asked themselves some key questions:

• Are our service delivery processes well defined, consistent, and repeatable?
• Are there common processes that can be served by a single platform that supports them all?
• What are the key performance metrics that will help drive continuous improvement?

The Solution: Cherwell ESM

After evaluating several competing tools, AgriBank settled on Cherwell ESM software. To AgriBank, Cherwell offered the best of both worlds: not only strong support for ITSM best practices but the flexibility to support service delivery teams other than IT.

Now, AgriBank’s Cherwell implementation supports over 30 different departments. Adding a new department to the mix is easy in Cherwell’s flexible architecture. AgriBank’s leadership now enjoys these benefits:

• resource tracking to justify each department’s staffing increases
• access to real-time performance metrics
• centralized project management tools to drive consistency
• a self-service portal that decreases the burden on service-delivery resources

At T4S Partners, we understand that service management isn’t just for IT. As a certified Cherwell Partner, we have both Cherwell expertise and experience with clients in many different industries.

We can help you realize your service management aspirations as well. Contact us today to learn how we can help drive a service management program across your enterprise.