CASE STUDY
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CASE STUDY
Introduction
The ITIL is widely considered as the best practice of improving an organizational assets and services. However, it offers a more theoretical approach on the issue rather than a practical approach to the readers. As much as it is the best practice, many are unaware of the implementation of these practices. This is the reason why companies should consider hiring a third-party company such as PinkElephant to conduct an assessment on its activities. Zurich did this and now it is scaling above its competitors.
Companies offering IT related services are expected to offer high quality, and professional services to its clients and subsidiaries due to competition and also so as to build a good reputation. Therefore, there is need to standardize and conduct frequent checks on its services to ensure they are without flaws. There a re special companies designed for this purpose. They conduct a research on the company’s operations and services offered then highlights the. The case study is about a company, Zurich, an insurance company that offers its services to various parts of the world. It has 60,000 employees in its branches globally and its services are also much appreciated in European countries such as Portugal, Russia, Turkey and Austria. To keep this business at peak, Zurich needs to put a lot of emphasis in improving quality of service offered and offering new solutions to customers.
The case study is about a company, Zurich, an insurance company that offers its services to various parts of the world. It has 60,000 employees in its branches globally and its services are also much appreciated in European countries such as Portugal, Russia, Turkey and Austria. To keep this business at peak, Zurich needs to put a lot of emphasis in improving quality of service offered and offering new solutions to customers.
Zurich, being a leading IT service provider, needs to work towards improving its infrastructure. Due to this, it decided to move into a new Center of Excellence. Being such a big company with such bulk on its employees, a sophisticated software is deployed to take care of the organizations activities. This software was to improve Zurich’s activities and systematically improve sales and number of customers.
Despite the efforts laid by Zurich, the results obtained from these improvements was not very appealing. There was need to find a better solution that would raise its ranks above its competitors, increase the number of clients and offer incredible ITIL services to its clients. For this reason, there was need to involve a reputable ITIL specialist company to aid in detecting the flaws within the organization and to recommend on the steps that should be taken to improve ITIL services.
ITIL Processes and Key Performance Indicators
After Zurich request for Pink Elephants services, there was a great improvement in the services offered. There are several identifiable processes where improvements could be verified. They include Transition planning and support, change management, release and deployment management and service validation CITATION Sha l 1033 (Sharifi, et al., n.d.).
Release and deployment entails the release of a new feature, service or software by an organization to either increase the number of sales or to improve customer service. Release and deployment is linked to other processes such as Change Management. Zurich is a leading insurance company that offers its services to customers globally. PinkSCAN assessment was conducted to identify flaws and recommend appropriate changes to the offered services. After a period of 18 months, a subsequent PinkSCAN can was conducted on the premises of their Center of Excellence and it revealed that the organization had realized a dramatic improvement in the IT services they offered. This is the process maturity assessment CITATION Sha l 1033 (Sharifi, et al., n.d.).
Key indicators are tools that are used to measure the performance of an organization in relation to the set objectives. Release and deployment key indicators include percentage of release success rate, percentage of release defect rate, number of known release errors, percentage of approved releases that do not result in an incident, percentage of releases implemented in the approved release implementation window. All these indicators highlight the progress of the newly released service or software. In this case it is the new software deployed by Zurich to manage its activities CITATION Sha l 1033 (Sharifi, et al., n.d.).
The percentage of release success rate is an indicator of the total releases that have been successfully deployed and accepted as standard. The case study clearly indicates that the subsequent PinkSCAN revealed that availability of services had greatly improved. High availability of services attracts potential clients and helps in maintaining previous ones. After the initial PinkSCAN assessment, the management team decided to set new and tough objectives that would assist in meeting the recommendations of Elephant Pink. By following the objectives to the letter, they got an overall positive feedback from their clients CITATION Sha l 1033 (Sharifi, et al., n.d.).
The percentage of release defect rate indicator is a measure of the number of releases services that have received a negative feedback from the clients due to the failure of the process. A successful implementation of this process would help improve the fragmented service delivery of Zurich CITATION Sha l 1033 (Sharifi, et al., n.d.).
The number of known release errors is a measure of the known errors that have been identified after a successful deployment of the software. The Innovative Online Zurich HelpPoint Customer Guidance was deployed to increase the interactions between clients and the company to improve on the quality of services offered. From the case study we can draw conclusions that the number of known release errors was a major contributor in increasing incident management. Incidences can now be detected early and appropriate measures employed to deter its implications CITATION Sha l 1033 (Sharifi, et al., n.d.).
The percentage of approved releases that do not result in an incident is a process that seeks to detect the releases that have not raised an issue since its deployment. To be able to achieve this, customer feedbacks are critically assessed to determine the specific services that satisfy the customers the most. A proper implementation of the process will aid the organization in spotting the best selling and the most satisfactory services that clients prefer. The ITIL services will then be further improved to attract more clients CITATION Sha l 1033 (Sharifi, et al., n.d.).
The percentage of releases implemented in the approved release implementation window is a process that aids in identifying the releases that were approved within the implementation window.
ITIL Service Lifecycle
Monitoring an organizations services on the client’s perspective is paramount. The organization gets to know the steps to take to improve the quality of services and the IT infrastructure to impress the clients. Zurich needed to do this, but they wanted an external organization that is an expert in conducting ITIL review of other companies. This outside viewpoint would help Zurich plan alterations and improvements. PinkElephant conducted the assessment and with the help of the ITIL life cycle, they were able to identify flaws within the organizations offering of services and the existing IT infrastructure.
The ITIL service life cycle is a series of steps that can be implemented to ensure a business offers unique and high-quality services compared to its competitors. It has five phases. Service strategy, service design, service transition, service operation and continual service improvement. Each phase in the lifecycle is dependent on the inputs and customer feedback. As stated by the Head of Service Management at the European Center of Excellence that the first step in their improvement journey was to understand where they stood then, appreciating one’s starting point is a key factor to driving you to success. Zurich implemented the ITIL lifecycle and it had tremendous effects in transformation and change.
For an organization to implement ITIL processes to benchmark its services, it ought to conduct a background check on its operations to determine where the company currently stands. This process is essential to any businesses offering IT-related services that wants improvements in its operations. Service strategy focuses on the needs of the clients and the services offered to cater for clients needs. The service strategy also conducts research on the existing IT infrastructure of the organization required to offer the listed services to its clients. In addition, the cost that the organization incurs to deliver the services to its clients should be investigated. These processes aid in realizing the current position where the company stands so that benchmarking of the ITIL services may proceed.
The second phase of the ITIL service life cycle is service design, a critical phase of the process which focuses on the newly formed and the ones that have been modified to meet the client requirements. In addition, this phase focuses on the IT infrastructure the company has to meet the needs of the clients. Methodologies for measuring service level and technology are set in place in this phase to monitor the progress. This phase was very effective in the case of Zurich when they initially implemented the PinkSCAN ITIL assessment of its services.
The service transition phase focuses on management of the implemented changes in both services and infrastructure. Here, the service is developed, tested and released. The changes made to the system could have negative implications on the organization if not handled properly. Zurich experienced a number of changes after the PinkSCAN and the Head of Service Management set up new and strict objectives to achieve their goal.
After moving into new technology and service, normal business operations proceed as usual. Zurich continued offering its insurance services to its clients hoping that the new changes will have a positive impact. After a period of 18 months, they requested PinkElephant to conduct a subsequent PinkSCAN to determine the changes that had been realized. The second PinkSCAN indicated that Zurich had improved at a very high rate since the backlogs were significantly reduced and incident rate had also reduced.
The initial Pink Elephant’s scan was to help Zurich realize where it stood and to show if it followed ITIL best practices. In addition, it was purposed to indicate Zurich’s process maturity and performance. The ITIL service life cycle is an integrated system where all modules are interconnected, and to ensure profitability, it is essential to have mechanisms to collect feedback from both clients and employees and analyze it to aid in improvement CITATION Orr16 l 1033 (Orr, et al., 2016).
Section 3: The case study argues that: “process improvement = service improvement”. A strong evidence is provided for this position based on PinkElephant’s consulting journey with Zurich. Identify one reference (case study, academic article, or industry report) that challenges this position, and
present at least two key arguments to suggest that “process improvement ? service improvement”, i.e. service improvement is more than just process improvement. (25 marks)
The case study argues that process improvement is equivalent to service improvement and strong evidence is provided for this position based on PinkElephant’s consulting journey with Zurich. However, this may not always be the case. Process improvement is merely a phase in the maturing stage and it does not fully guarantee service improvement. Poor management of the improved processes will lead to poor services which in turn have a negative impact on the organization. Instead of increasing the number of sales and customers, there will be less number of sales and fewer clients. Several studies have been conducted to disapprove this point and they have gathered large quantities of evidence against it.
Continual service improvement is a phase where the improvement processes are executed one after another over a period of time
Conclusion
Implementing ITIL best practices has proven to have great impact on the business operations and improving its services. Information Technology Infrastructure Library is the most widely used Information Technology Service Management and the most effective in improving businesses activities. The case study clearly shows the steps that Zurich, an insurance company, took to improve its operations so as to outdo its competitors by implementing Pink Elephant’s assessment to determine its maturity rate.
The Pink assessment on Zurich’s Center of Excellence made Zurich realize their current state and also know the limitations they had in terms of IT infrastructure. Zurich had made a significant step in deploying its software platform, online Zurich Connect direct sales to manage Zurich’s activities and the innovative online Zurich HelpPoint customer guidance to receive and analyze customer feedbacks. The release of the new software platform did not prove effective in improving any aspect of the organization since it still offered its services in bits and the planned changes had not been implemented. This is where they sought the assistance of PinkElephant, experts in assessing ITIL condition of an organization and giving recommendations on what should be done to improve the quality of service offered.
An organization that offers IT services to its clients should conduct an ITIL assessment periodically to ensure that it is implementing ITIL best practices. This will help it improve its services leading to a high maturity rate. Zurich realized great changes after implementing Pink Elephant’s recommendations which include reduction in incident rates and customer satisfaction. There was a great improvement in the key performance indicators (KPI) and now that the Center of Excellence of Zurich is working on the recommendations from the second assessment.
The ITIL is widely considered as the best practice of improving an organizational assets and services. However, it offers a more theoretical approach on the issue rather than a practical approach to the readers. As much as it is the best practice, many are unaware of the implementation of these practices. This is the reason why companies should consider hiring a third-party company such as PinkElephant to conduct an assessment on its activities. Zurich did this and now it is scaling above its competitors.
As much as Zurich conducted the first and the second PinkSCAN, periodic scans should be conducted on the premises of CoE in the future to make more changes and future plans. Zurich should also involve other similar organizations as PinkElephant and compare the outcomes. This will enable them make better decisions based on the findings of both companies.
References
BIBLIOGRAPHY Anon., n.d. ITIL Service Improvement Case Study. Online Available at: https://pinkelephant.co.uk/about/case-studies/service-improvement-zurich/
Orr, A., Blokkum, D., Turbitt, K. & Prins, F. W., 2016. Best Practice Insights Focus On: ITIL® Service Design For ITIL. s.l.:s.n.
Sharifi, M., Ayat, M., Ibrahim, S. & Sahibuddin, S., n.d. The most applicable KPIs of Problem Management Process in Organizations, s.l.: s.n.
