IT Outsource Team Improves Operational Readiness at a Major International Bank
Enhanced accuracy of asset information raises the bar on operational readiness

Customer description
The customer is a global financial services company providing banking, investments, life insurance, and retirement services. The company serves more than 75 million customers in Europe, the United States, Canada, Latin America, Asia, and Australia. They draw on its experience and expertise, commitment to excellent service and global scale to meet the needs of a broad customer base, comprising individuals, families, small businesses, large corporations, institutions and governments. This is one of the 20 largest financial institutions worldwide.

Contract Background
In December 2003 the US-based financial services division of the customer concluded a 7-year, $600 million agreement with the IT Outsourcer to deliver information technology infrastructure support and services. The customer saw the agreement as a way to enable more focus and attention on customer facing activities, while reducing its IT costs. The IT Outsourcer was contracted to deliver on-demand IT infrastructure services including data center services, network and voice services, and infrastructure help desk and desk side support. The agreement covers IT infrastructure services delivery across the U.S. with approximately 12,000 desktops and 2,800 servers.

Challenge
The 12,000 desktop machines and 2,800 servers at the customer were evolving and growing rapidly, and as such, posed challenges for the IT Outsource team. The changes in the account had made it almost impossible to obtain a clear picture of billing and inventory. The root of the issue stemmed from the challenge of trying to get an accurate view of the assets under management from the multiple and often conflicting, asset data sources that collected data on the customer’s IT infrastructure. Without such an accurate view, the IT Outsource team was having difficulty driving the account and making good management decisions.

Despite the huge amount of effort the IT Outsourcer was putting into building and maintaining accurate inventory and billing reports, the client was losing confidence in the data IBM was providing. The customer went through all of the asset and billing reports with a fine-toothed comb. Any issue or discrepancy found in the data put everything into question often forcing the IT Outsourcer to go back to the beginning of the contract to deliver the relevant research and reports. Costs were rising and the customer was losing confidence.

Solution
The IT Outsource team knew that the first thing they needed was a single, consolidated, and most of all, accurate view of the IT assets they were under contract to manage. Second, to help meet the customer’s reporting and query requirements, the team needed analytics that leveraged that information. That would give them and their customer the visibility into their assets they so desperately needed. Finally, the IT Outsource team needed to reduce costs.

After an extensive evaluation of the offerings on the market and after considering the costs associated with building a solution in-house, the team turned to Blazent’s IT intelligence solution.

Results
As Blazent was being implemented, the team brought the customer in to demonstrate how the new system would improve data accuracy and integrity. Despite the fact they would not be direct users of Blazent’s solution, the customer was excited by the potential. As the implementation went into production, the customer’s early hopes were more than realized.

• Data accuracy: For the first time ever, the customer has an accurate inventory of all of the assets on his network. In the past, they had gained visibility through manual efforts. Now, with the automation provided by Blazent, the IT Outsourcer is providing the customer with better data and fewer errors than it has ever had.
• Revenue enhancement: Focusing first on high value servers, the IT Outsource team quickly found 52 servers that were being maintained but not billed. This alone offers a potential increase in revenue by more than $33,000 per month.
• Credibility and trust: With Blazent’s technology, the customer came to the conclusion that the time spentchecking the data could be more productively spent on value-add activities, creating a solid win for both.

The partnership between the IT Outsourcer and the customer has begun to flourish again. Armed with the accurate asset intelligence information that Blazent delivers, the IT Outsourcer is better able to focus on building value with the customer rather than expending effort on audits while increasing revenues and reducing costs.