Tag: ITSM

University of Memphis Brings Support and Service To Campus with Enterprise Service Management Technology

By Ruben J. Franzen, president, TOPdesk US.

With only 115 people working as part of the central IT and technology support teams, the University of Memphis requires careful management to provide the highest level of support to its substantial customer base.

Sue Hull-Toye leads the public-facing operations of the division. Until recently, her teams relied upon several disconnected systems to perform ticket tracking, case review, user support, and data collection.  The result was a clunky process that provided little benefit to students or employees.

The situation required change.

Taking on the multitude of disparate technologies

Before changing solutions, the university employed multiple disparate, and somewhat ineffective, technologies cobbled together to power the service desk.

By attempting to integrate multiple, unrelated tools, IT actually outsmarted itself and created barriers of complexity. “We invested heavily in technology and further modified what we had,” says Hull-Toye. “We built a Swiss watch when a sundial would have been adequate,” said Robert Johnson, associate CIO, “and doing so created as much of an internal burden as it was supposed to solve.”

Moreover, the university’s service desk team worked much harder than necessary, especially on tasks that should have been simple – all because of the solutions employed to manage them. “We spent too much money and time ‘solving’ some problems while inadvertently creating more problems than we solved,” explains Hull-Toye.

Johnson said that the most demanding challenges received the least attention because of the work required to manage these tasks, tickets, and assets across multiple systems.

Data reporting suffered tremendously.

When the university’s CIO asked IT directors to review current information about ticket management, service requests, and response rates, they discovered correlated, traceable data was hard to come by.

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TOPdesk Partners with Nearly One Quarter of All Universities in the UK

TOPdesk, a leading provider of enterprise IT service management solution, announces that, because of its committment to serving schools, colleges and universities, it has secure partnerships with more than 23% of all universities in the U.K. In 2019, TOPdesk UK added nine new university clients.

Institutions such as Heriot-Watt University, the University of Central Lancashire, and the University of Kent signed with the vendor in 2019 to automate service and support, and enhance their service offerings to internal staff and students.

With the additional university clients added last year, a total of 37 universities in the UK now trust TOPdesk with their enterprise service management needs to; utilise the usage of the self-service portal, implement quick links and standard solutions, and visibility for cross-departmental working.

In light of this success in the sector, TOPdesk UK has formed an internal business unit to focus exclusively on serving the needs of its higher education customers.

Will Sibley, TOPdesk UK’s head of education sales, said: “I am always pleased to welcome universities to the TOPdesk family, and last year it’s was great to have welcomed so many excellent institutions of higher education.

“In 2020, we will continue our growth in this sector, while also focussing on strengthening our current partnerships with these educational entities to provide them with as much value as possible.”

About TOPdesk

TOPdesk develops, implements, and supports an enterprise service management (ESM) solution that helps universities and organisations efficiently manage the services they provide. Departments such as IT, HR, facilities, and library, and student services, can perform their work both collaboratively and separately with a single tool. TOPdesk is available as a local installation or Software-as-a-Service, and the solution can be tailored to meet every organisation’s needs.

TOPdesk has 15 branches worldwide: in UK, USA, Canada, Brazil, the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Hungary, Denmark, Norway, and Australia. Visit www.topdesk.co.uk for more information.