Magna increases efficiency and productivity with Service Catalog
At the beginning of the cooperation with Matrix42, Magna lacked a structured, common service catalog. In addition, the existing processes, which were based on an old database, made it very time-consuming, or sometimes even impossible, to track consumption and create activity allocations for the respective departments. The company lacked visibility and control over the software installed in the company. As a result, penalties had to be paid several times to software vendors for tools that were installed locally but not properly licensed. Software vendor audits were also very time-consuming and expensive. In addition, the maintenance for the old service desk tool, which the company had used for the classic ITIL processes such as Incident, Problem and Change Management, expired.
From 5 to 700 standardized services in the Service Catalog
The company had to look for a replacement and chose Matrix42. "Matrix42 was convincing because it was already enough and easily customizable with its former platform flexibel," explains Klaus Ziegerhofer, Senior Analyst in IT Service Management at Magna IT Austria. From the very beginning, the Service Catalog and Software Asset Management were introduced globally throughout the company. Initially, the Service Catalog comprised five services, but today it has grown to around 700, and users can now order software with fully automated implementation via the self-service portal. This enables full flexibility and drastically reduces manual interaction.
In the so-called Divisional Service Desk, the individual companies (divisions) of the group can map their own processes and offer services in addition to the classic ITIL Service Desk. Not only IT services are offered, but also services specific to the individual departments, such as ordering business cards, key card access or even a new employee workstation including fully automated provision of all systems. Andrew Trent, Senior Manager IT Service Management at Magna, says: "Based on our history, Magna's overriding principle is 'Think global, act local'. Together with Matrix42, we were able to align our IT operations according to this principle. Together with Matrix42, we mastered this challenge and achieved a total return on investment (ROI) within the first 17 months".
Automated personnel management with the Service Catalog
The central hub for automated personnel management is the Service Catalog. The entire employee life cycle - from joining the company, name changes or changes in job title, to transfer to another division or leaving the company - is covered. An audit and certification of the solution by Magna's Internal Audit department is currently being implemented. "This internal certification is very important to us. It shows our internal customers the quality of the solution," says Ziegerhofer. "The team that deals with Matrix42 internally now consists of eight professionals, four in Europe and four in North America. Despite this minimal staffing schaffen, the efficiency and intuitiveness of the solutions has enabled us to develop internally from technology consultants to process consultants for our departments. That's why we have grown with Matrix42 to become a true in-house service provider".
The Magna team is continuously working on increasing the maturity level of the solution. For example, in the development of the Service Catalogue towards Service Portfolio Management or in the optimization of the internal cost allocation. Magna uses various billing systems in Europe, Asia and the USA. With Matrix42, data is collected, accumulated and made available for all these systems. This enables automatic billing of services without manual intervention.
New User Interface in the Service Catalog
The experts at Magna work closely with Matrix42 product development. This is also the case with the new Benutzeroberfläche called Unified User Experience (UUX). The UUX combines all Matrix42 products under one drag-and-drop customizable User Interface (UI). As a result, the new Oberfläche went live at Magna at the end of 2017. Magna now installs the latest releases every two months. Magna passes on feedback from the field directly to the Product Management at Matrix42.