Utilita supports 600% business growth with Sunrise Software

Utility company switches to ITIL principles with self-service to embed best practice service management across organisation.

Friday, 27th July 2018 Posted 6 years ago in by Phil Alsop

Energy provider Utilita has implemented Sunrise ITSM SaaS. The adoption of ITIL best practice and launch of self-service IT support were key assets in the fast-track ITSM shake-up required to support Utilita’s rapid business expansion. In 2015 Utilita set a target to grow by 600%, and it now serves over 600,000 domestic customers, adding 100,000 in the last nine months of 2017 alone. 60% of incoming IT service requests from employees are now received through its new self-service portal, while performance is tracked against over 30 business critical Service Level Agreements (SLAs).

Utilita’s service desk supports 1,500 staff, ranging from those in central and regional offices to engineers working in the field. While its previous service desk ticketing tool was able to handle the 36,000 annual calls that the team received, an independent assessment found that it lacked the ability to track trends, analyse activities or support the continual improvement and ITIL methodology that the growing business required.

After defining its key criteria, Utilita researched the market, selecting Sunrise ITSM due to its ease of use, and its ability to improve service quality, demonstrate value and support service management best practice. Following a rapid implementation process facilitated in just 3 months from initial engagement by Sunrise’s Professional Services team, Utilita went live with Sunrise ITSM SaaS in March 2018.

“At Utilita we have ambitious goals and it is therefore critical that IT and the service desk are effectively supporting the business,” said Dave Woods, IT Support Manager, Utilita. “The key to our success has been knowing what we wanted to achieve – and Sunrise has responded to our needs admirably, providing us with a practical and adaptable SaaS based platform to deliver on our plans, fast, now and in the future.”

By using Sunrise ITSM SaaS, Utilita is able to ensure that business SLAs are clearly defined, with the Sunrise SDI certified reporting suite used to extract and track the most meaningful metrics. A new Self-Service Portal makes it easy for users to log requests, including automated approvals and notifications and enabling the new starter process to be fully co-ordinated – vital given Utilita’s rapid growth. Over 60% of requests are now through self-service rather than the phone or email – testament to the background work undertaken in understanding users’ needs in developing the intuitive yet thorough self-service portal.

A key reason for the project’s success has been building strong engagement between IT and the wider business, with a major emphasis on communication and marketing. This has included workshops, open meetings and roadshows as well as publicising the service desk’s achievements through Twitter, the company magazine and at the 2018 SDI conference.

Geoff Rees, Director of Business Services and Sales at Sunrise Software, comments: “In today’s digital world, IT support is at the heart of business growth. Utilita is a textbook example of how adopting best practice, good plans and close engagement with the business drives real results and underpins major company growth.”

Continuous improvement is at the heart of the project, and the IT team now plans to incorporate a knowledge base into the customer portal to help self-fixing of issues. It is also aiming for SDI certification to deliver further endorsement and independent recognition of its success.