CJC Ltd Background CJC Ltd provides a range of managed services to the international f inancial services market. With off ices in London, New York, Hong Kong, and Singapore, CJC provide a 24/7/365 ?follow the sun? service, which includes seamless handover between regions. After incorporating in 1999, CJC partnered w ith a global market data leader in 2007, and has almost quadrupled in size over the past four years.

Contractual Commitments and Business GrowthSince 2007, when their partnership was f inalised, CJC Ltd have provided a comprehensive range of managed services to their single largest client, a global leader in market data. Up until recently CJC have made use of various toolsets provided by their clients to deliver IT service management functions, but follow ing a renegotiation of the contract w ith their largest client a change was needed.

?A number of new KPIs were agreed, and they?re more extensive than what had been in place previously,? said Paul Tomblin, Technology Director at CJC. ?We have an obligation to report on these new KPIs, and w ith the existing toolset we just didn?t have the level of visibility we needed to do that.?

According to Tomblin, who was a founding member of the company, this wasn?t the only motive for change. CJC has grown at an incredible rate since 1999, and there was a feeling w ithin the organisation that it was t ime to take the next big step forward.

?The tool was identif ied to help us fulf il our contractual commitments, certainly,? Tomblin explained. ?But we also wanted to improve our ability to provide managed services outside our largest contract.?

?The obvious next step was to have our own ITSM tool.?

"...All roads Led Back to CIHS."Along w ith the desire for their own ITSM tool came the realisation that professional help would be necessary. According to Tomblin, their choice of consultancy partner was never in doubt.

?We knew Chris [Hodder] well, and we knew that he knew our business well,? he stated. ?It was just the obvious choice for us. He had also worked w ith the client in question, so he knew our situation from both sides of the fence. We could have looked elsewhere, but to be honest I think all roads would have led back to CIHS.?

After realising that the various free ITSM tools on the market would not be a good match for their needs, CJC took CIHS? advice and conducted a feasibility study on the Market Leaders. ?Cherwell t icked the boxes.? Concluded Tomblin.

But purchasing the product was just the start. Once procurement had been finalised, the real work of configuration, UAT, training, and implementation began.

?It was the f irst t ime we?d been through a project of this scale internally, and we needed a lot of help,? explained Tomblin. ?And because we?d never had our own ITSM tool before, we didn?t know what we didn?t know.?

After a series of init ial scoping workshops, conducted by CIHS, it was t ime for the solution to be configured and implemented. ?We did have challenges,? revealed Tomblin. ?Particularly in federating the ITSM solution w ith our client?s existing tools.?

"Based on the feedback from our team about CIHS, I'd say it went very well."

Paul Tomblin, Director

CIHS Consultants Help CJC LtdSelect, Configure & Implement ITSM Solution

CIHS Consultants Help CJC Ltd

Select, Configure & Implement ITSM

?It was mainly due to the limitations of our client?s toolset. When the solution was implemented init ially there were gaps compared to what we had hoped for, but in retrospect it wasn?t surprising. Our client?s toolset was very limited, and that made the federation process more diff icult.?

Once the system was in place, CIHS ran user acceptance testing (UAT) workshops in Asia, North America, and the UK. And while the primary consultant was there in person, the CIHS team worked around the clock to support the workshops remotely from the UK.

?We had our f irst UAT workshops in Asia, because we felt they were best suited to unpick the new system,? explained Tomblin. ?The workshops doubled as training sessions, as the staff weren?t at all used to the new system yet. Based on the feedback from our team about CIHS, I?d say it went very well.?

Clearly there would be more work to do before the new system was fully embedded in CJC culture, but Tomblin was pleased w ith the way things were progressing.

?Undoubtedly we wouldn?t be on the right path w ithout CIHS? involvement.? He asserted.

Services Provided More (and Better Quality) Data Fast-forward a few months, and the ITSM system is becoming an essential part of CJC?s service management offering. Now that federation between systems has been achieved, and priority features rolled out, addit ional phases of the implementation project have been slated for the upcoming months. And already, CJC are start ing to reap the benefits.

Increased Maturity

Perhaps the most signif icant change for CJC comes in terms of their maturity as a managed service provider. Having grown so quickly since 2007, CJC were keen to implement their own ITSM tool as a way of enhancing their offering to the market.

?The work we?ve done to implement the ITSM tool has made us far more capable of bringing a managed service offering to the marketplace,? stated Tomblin. ?By the t ime we?re done we?ll have a set of tools that are integrated together to provide an optimal managed service. It makes our managed service offering much more compelling.?

Enhanced Reporting

One of CJC?s biggest w ins from the new system has come in the form of enhanced reporting capabilit ies. Where previously they were logging around 100 calls per month, they?re now able to log every call, which has led to much more reliable workload statist ics.

"I was very impressed w ith the

diligence of the staff involved w ith

the workshops."

ITSM Vendor Selection

Strategic Process Consultancy

Toolset Implementation& Configuration

Toolset Integration

User Acceptance Testing & Workshops

Go Live Support

Post Go Live ManagedService

Enhanced maturity of MSP offering

Able to fulf ill new ly agreed KPIs

Dramatically improved data quality

Greater asset & resource visibility

Results for CJC

"Undoubtedly we

wouldn't be on the

right path without

CIHS' involvement."

Paul Tomblin, Director

?One of the things we were really keen to achieve w ith this project was improved documentation of our workload,? explained Tomblin. ?We?re now recording 600-800 calls per month, which is a lot more than we had previously because we?re more empowered to be able to log them.?

Improved reporting was a major driver for the project, and CJC are already beginning to fulf il their new KPIs.

Better Visibility

One element that was previously missing from CJC?s managed service was the ability to identify KPI compliance and make resourcing decisions in real t ime. As a result of the improved reporting functionality provided by the new tool, however, CJC are start ing to see some real benefits in this area.

?We?ve got more visibility, more data to report on, and better quality data than we had previously,? said Tomblin. ?To be honest, I think better quality data is the most important thing. We just didn?t have good data quality w ith the previous tool, and it made management decision making much harder.?

?In particular, when we?re working w ith contractors we have much greater visibility. Working out where t ickets have gone and who they?re w ith is now much simpler."

Process Automation

And it doesn?t end there. In the next project phase, CJC and CIHS w ill be developing a solution to integrate our monitoring and alert ing platforms w ith Cherwell as the lynchpin. Many elements of CJC?s managed service can be improved or made more eff icient through automation, and Tomblin expects to see this happen in the coming months.

"We?re looking to integrate the systems at the API level, which w ill enable us to automate a lot of t icket creation and related tasks,? he explained. ?We?re working w ith CIHS to achieve that to enhance our managed service offering. We do a lot of proactive f ixes on issues that are reported, and once we have API level integration we?ll have automatic t icket creation for those jobs.?

Next Steps And, of course, CIHS w ill continue to be involved w ith the rollout at CJC. As things stand, CIHS are providing a managed service of their own to facilitate the continued rollout, and Tomblin is expecting great things.

?We?re having weekly steering group meetings w ith CIHS to agree priorit ies and move the project forward,? he explained. ?Federating an ITSM toolset w ith existing systems is a complex operation. Despite that, we?ve been able to overcome any hurdles w ith help from CIHS, and we?re very optimistic about the benefits we?ll continue to see from the new solution.?

?In terms of reducing the administrative burden on our operations teams, we?re anticipating an eff iciency gain of around 25% ,? he continued. ?We?ll also start to see quantif iable improvements to the handover process between our different geographical locations.?

And when asked whether, in retrospect, he thought it would have been realist ic to undertake this implementation project w ithout CIHS? help, Tomblin?s response was convincingly f inal: ?No. Definitely not.?

Contact CIH Solutions LtdTo learn more about how CIHS can help you with your ITSM needs, visit www.itsmconsultancy.co.uk or call 0203 130 0296.

CIHS Consultants Help CJC Ltd

Select, Configure & Implement ITSM