Tiera Service Management is implemented on the Matrix42 platform.
Länsirannikon koulutus Oy WinNova, which provides secondary vocational education, implemented Tiera Service Management, bringing clarity and efficiency to the handling of IT service requests. Clarity was indeed needed, as the company employs about 600 people with a diverse range of job descriptions and support needs.
"Tiera Service Management is implemented on Matrix42, which effectively meets the development needs of municipal service management. 'In collaboration with Tiera, we have been involved in implementing several service management deployments in public organizations and educational consortia over the past few years,' says Juhana Orrela, Sales Manager responsible for Tiera collaboration at Matrix42."
At Winnova, the service process was aimed to be clearer and more unified
Tiera Service Management is a pre-tendered service designed to meet the needs of municipalities, welfare regions, and municipal operators. It enables the management, tracking, and reporting of service processes. The platform provides a centralized channel for submitting service requests, streamlining and enhancing organizational services.
At Winnova, the starting point was a situation where there was no ticketing system in place. Instead, contacts were made via email, direct calls to support, or by stopping IT staff in the hallway or during lunch breaks. The goal was to develop a clearer and more unified service process and to strategically centralize service management in one place," explains Taina Kivioja, Director of Shared Services at Winnova.
“We aimed for transparency and the ability to track the number of service requests. The goal is to build an integration with the core financial and HR system so that their operations and any potential disruptions can also be monitored from the same system.”
Katja Leppänen, Tietohallintopäällikkö
The project grew into a major reform
Service management was developed at Winnova because there was no ticketing system in place. Support requests were previously made via email, direct calls, or informal interactions. In addition to IT service requests, the same model was desired for financial services, HR services, and student administration. Initially, five separate contact forms were planned, but as the implementation project progressed, the number grew to 80.
– "We wanted to improve service levels and the customer experience—how requests are resolved and customer needs are met. That’s why we wanted to develop tools and adopt better ones," explains Taina Kivioja, Director of Shared Services at Winnova.
The future goal is to map system integrations into service management, enabling better detection and understanding of disruptions. Change management can also be improved by creating clearer roadmaps and managing projects more effectively.
Katja Leppänen, Winnova’s IT Manager, describes the implementation project as a process of identifying how to organize operations within the organization and learning to use service management more effectively. Interaction within the organization has also increased.
During the project, it became clear that there was significant confusion about who was responsible for which support requests, leading to requests being passed back and forth via email. The project clarified with support teams where different types of requests should be directed, ensuring they now reach the correct destination.
– "This has been a massive cultural shift for us," Kivioja laughs.
– "Previously, we would call a colleague or stop IT staff in the hallway when we had a need. That kind of system is hard to manage and not very efficient. We’ve had to teach the entire organization to operate in a new way. Support team experts are no longer interrupted by informal contact methods; instead, requests must be submitted through the system," Kivioja continues.
A clear system reduces unnecessary support requests and makes them easier to resolve. The forms include additional information to help users ensure they’ve taken all necessary steps before submitting a request. This allows users to resolve some issues themselves before creating a support ticket.
When a support request cannot be resolved by the user, clear data fields and structured forms help shape the request to include all essential information for resolution. The better the information provided, the easier it is for IT or support to resolve the issue.
Winnova does not yet have precise figures on how much time has been saved or how much better support requests are being resolved, but both interviewees believe that Tiera Service Management has improved the efficiency of handling support requests and made their management easier. Currently, it appears that the number of support calls has significantly decreased, and informal "under-the-table" support requests have also reduced.
Staff Welcomed the New System
Winnova’s staff quickly adapted to submitting support requests in the new way and using the service portal. Other support units, such as communications and reception services, have also shown interest in adopting Tiera Service Management.
Winnova is a workplace where people often have long careers. Over decades, they’ve learned to operate in a certain way and help colleagues when they call. In the change process, it’s important to allow time and space for the transition and clearly demonstrate how operations will improve as a result. Taina Kivioja emphasizes that the project must firmly ensure that practices change, provide clear instructions for new methods, and give people time to learn the new model.
In the future, the service and its use will be further developed at Winnova to streamline operations and onboard new teams. The goal is to integrate other core functions, such as payroll and HR systems, into service management.
– "This is a broader initiative where nothing should be rushed," Leppänen stresses.
According to Leppänen, one of the key factors for a successful implementation project is engaging staff in the process. It’s also essential to define shared goals so that the system and its use are designed to support these objectives. For example, the goals of management and support teams may need to be aligned. Both should understand the benefits of the reform from each other’s perspectives. At Winnova, engagement was easy because the staff had already recognized the need for change.
– "When we started moving this forward early last year, Tiera quickly took the lead and helped us. It was easy to advance this with Tiera," Leppänen concludes.
