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POPX modernises operations through advanced Service Management 

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POPX helps Focus Group achieve objectives

Focus Group, established in 2003 and with over 25,000 customers, is one of the UK’s leading providers of essential business technology.

With many acquisitions to integrate, Focus Group sought a Service Management platform that could scale with its growth. It needed to harmonise processes across all acquisitions, reduce costs through automated workflows, eradicate manual tasks, avoid unnecessary duplication and cut administration effort. 

Project goals

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Agility to scale at speed 

Ensure business can keep up with the pace of change.

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Harmonise operations

Effectively unify newly acquired companies and product categories.

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Create seamless backbone

Remove unnecessary or duplicate tasks across the entire business.

About Focus Group

Having increased its headcount significantly by acquiring several new businesses over a short period of time, Focus Group recognised the existing systems and tooling required a common platform and standardised ways of working that could be rolled out across the business.

 

After reviewing several solutions, it was decided that ServiceNow would be the right strategic fit that could quickly onboard newly acquired assets and integrate the other internal, cloud and third-party systems. The power of ServiceNow, combined with its flexibility, functionality and scalability made it an ideal match to effectively serve the needs of the business and offer new potential and capability for the future.

Challenges

Chris Wild, Group Operations Director said: “My experience of implementing large and complex technology solutions, made me very cautious of using professional services to onboard Focus Group onto ServiceNow. I knew such an approach would require significant effort from a design and business requirements perspective and that it could significantly elongate the process, while taking precious bandwidth away from my team that we didn’t have to spare."

"What I felt was needed was a partnership model that would come with recommendations and guidance, not just during the planning and onboarding phase but throughout the ownership and running of the platform. I knew such an approach would save us time, effort and money. What I was looking for was an authentic managed service, where the partner would build and run the solution for us. This means they have real skin in the game because they are responsible for making sure everything is running as it should. It also takes pressure away from our people, who can focus on running and growing the business.”

"Very quickly, after speaking with POPX, I knew their managed service was precisely what I had been looking for, and that they represented the ideological and practical fit that would serve us far beyond the initial go live."

Chris Wild circle Chris Wild - Group Operations Director - Focus Group

POPX Solution

Order Management has transformed old ways of working with speed, accuracy, transparency and improved customer satisfaction.

Focus Group was looking at several operational enhancements that were brand new to the company and would need to be mapped out from scratch. To do this satisfactorily, they would benefit by working with a partner that could bring recommendations to the table. One example of this was a new Order Management system, which was configured and brought online after the first go-live phase, showing how new enhancements are continually developed and launched onto the platform.

The system helps Focus Group keep track of all orders in one place, making it easier to manage and monitor the status of each one.

Focus Group embraced the adoption of ServiceNow and worked hard to ensure high levels of employee communication and engagement as well as change management.

Close partnership with POPX allowed for the company to re-architect the processes and procedures that define the operating model and adopt best practice ITIL principles wherever possible.

This included identifying new roles and responsibilities and workflow design for all the different service lines, ranging from a simple book-to-bill process for a single product, right through to a complex UK wide integrated voice and data solution.

Products Deployed

  • POPX MSP Platform
  • Customer Service Management
  • CMDB
  • IT Service Management
  • Event Management
  • Order Management
  • Customer Portal
  • Service Catalogue
Service Provider

Innovative services

Focus Group is now able to expand and accelerate the adoption and rollout of new innovative services in an agile way that helps the business respond quickly to market changes.

Increased productivity

The combined improvements applied during the transformation process have resulted in an increase in the average case output of agents in the support team.

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Outcomes

Focus Group embraced the adoption of ServiceNow and worked hard to ensure high levels of employee communication and engagement as well as change management.

Close partnership with POPX allowed for the company to re-architect the processes and procedures that define the operating model and adopt best practice ITIL principles wherever possible.

This included identifying new roles and responsibilities and workflow design for all the different service lines, ranging from a simple book-to-bill process for a single product, right through to a complex UK wide integrated voice and data solution.

The POPX MSP Platform has given agents a more positive outlook on delivering value-added services to customers.

Wild explains: “Having visibility of how we perform with live data provides a rich layer of detail where we can hold ourselves accountable against our desired outcomes. Better visibility helps measure operational costs and allows us to apply resources in a more meaningful way. Knowing how much time our agents spend on calls or processing emails, when they could communicate via chat or allow customers to self-serve on a portal helps us identify more effective ways of working. This means we can continually streamline our processes and optimise resources by allocating them to higher value activities.”

Central dashboard

With one integrated Service Management platform that simplifies the operating model, the company has more capability and can take advantage of a wider range of opportunities available to it. Agent Workspace is used by the team to access one central dashboard, whether they are working remotely or from the office. The combined efforts of streamlined processes, service automation, customer portal, training and improved staff motivation have all helped to increase the average case output of the support team.

Focus Group has created a philosophy and applied it to form a templated and repeatable approach to the way they integrate and harmonise acquisitions. This can now be applied to  future acquisitions, making it possible to onboard them quickly onto the MSP Platform so they too can operate in accordance with the company’s standards and procedures while controlling costs and improving overall profitability.

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