Parmalat, South Africa`s second largest dairy company, has installed Ixchange`s HEAT helpdesk software to streamline its internal IT performance by reducing the time spent on support calls.
Headquartered in Stellenbosch, Parmalat has regional offices and satellite branches in all major centres, with its 55-server Novell network farm linked by a frame relay WAN. Its four-man helpdesk currently supports 850 PC users and system developers.
National support manager Grant Insley says the first step to making IT more efficient is identifying problem areas for improvement.
"The helpdesk log determines call frequency, call repetition and time spent on resolving repetitive calls," says Insley. "Since IT support isn`t Parmalat`s core focus, these statistics ensure we use our resources economically so the company gets more value for its money."
Parmalat logs between 70 and 100 support calls a day, including technical, development and systems calls. Of these, 70 percent are solved within a few hours. The remainder are made up of development calls and the like, which naturally take a bit longer to follow through.
"Roughly 70 percent of support calls can be solved by the user," he adds. "By filtering simple calls and posting solutions on our intranet, we free up users to carry on with their work and use the time saved to focus on the 30 percent of calls that need expert assistance."
Insley says HEAT replaced Parmalat`s existing helpdesk application when the company shifted its development priorities.
"We took the decision to concentrate our IT development efforts on systems that directly affected the business," he says. "By now helpdesk software had progressed to such an extent that we decided to look outside the company for a suitable replacement."
HEAT was installed in September last year after minor customisations were made to its input screens.
"It gave us the depth in features we were lacking in our previous system, especially for reporting on call statistics and extending escalation options," says Insley. "It`s running on an NT server with Microsoft Access, but we plan to move it to a Novell box with Oracle.
"The response times of the software will be considerably speeded up with Oracle, which in turn will give us room to further extend its functionality."
If successful, Insley says HEAT will be used as a platform to integrate the helpdesk with the different business areas of the company. "Enterprise-wide integration will take time, especially since it means a change in the mindset of users calling a central helpdesk rather than regional support managers as is presently the case," he says.
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