Johannesburg, 01 Sep 2021
Industry – IT
Location – The Netherlands
Solution – SIAM
Challenges – The implementation of 4me was more than just installing a tool. It meant redefining the processes between myBrand and their customers, a project that had already been on the agenda for some time. Even within the different myBrand locations, there were differences in processes. With the implementation of 4me, these processes are now all standardised.
Standard monthly service level reports save myBrand time with each of their 100 customers.
myBrand is a SAP service provider operating from three different locations in The Netherlands. The company was created in 2004, and in less than two decades, myBrand has grown into a successful and respected SAP service provider with over 100 employees. Their organisational culture and business model stem from the dream of creating a professional SAP services organisation where they would like to be customers. myBrand’s mission is to be the customers’ most valued service provider. Three pillars were created to support the mission: Long-term relationships with customers and staff, an excellent price-quality ratio and integrated SAP services offering, combined with competence in low-code solutions.
Digital transformation into an intelligent enterprise
Their customers’ needs brought about myBrand’s service management overhaul project for better information and an internal need to revise their processes, standardise their workflows and ease administrative work. The current system – an in-house solution called Prisma – was outdated, lacked modern functionalities and was not suitable for future needs.
For myBrand, a new solution also needed to include better standard reports and automation possibilities and – more importantly – be a SaaS solution with excellent support.
After redefining existing processes, myBrand proceeded to a supplier selection, including 4me and other service management tool vendors. According to Lotte Bronswijk-Egbertzen, team leader and customer coordinator at myBrand: “myBrand chose 4me because it is best suited to our specific needs. For us, the total cost of ownership, its prescriptive nature defined by standards and best practices, and services-oriented design made 4me stand out above the other candidates.”
“How do I transform my organisation into an intelligent enterprise?” myBrand asks on its website. By implementing 4me, the company demonstrates its commitment to digital transformation. Being a managed service provider (MSP), the company’s technological infrastructure can be a driver for change. 4me is a strategic collaborative tool that supports the service integration and management (SIAM) approach. It allows an organisation’s internal and external service providers to collaborate seamlessly while providing real-time insight into the delivery level.
“I am a big fan of the dashboards; the reporting options are tremendous. I can now offer a lot more insight to the customers. Where it previously took me several hours to create a service-level report, it now only takes just a few mouse clicks. That has resulted in a change of perspective, from discussing past performance data to reviewing future opportunities and the customer’s roadmap,” says Lotte Bronswijk-Egbertzen, Team leader and customer coordinator, myBrand
Implementation
4me business partner Joost-IT carried out the implementation. The project duration from the first signature to go-live was about seven months, a relatively short time for a project of this complexity with many integrations, such as Single Sign-On, Active Directory and over 100 external customers. Some customers connect through e-mail integrations, but most use the 4me Self Service portal or an interface. The customers who use 4me were the easiest to connect: All Joost-IT had to do was set up a 4me account trust that was established in a matter of minutes.
Bronswijk-Egbertzen about the collaboration with Joost-IT and 4me: “The partnership with Joost-IT is ongoing and keeps getting better. They are truly involved in helping us optimise our services, applying their knowledge and aiming for customer delight. Our experience with 4me is excellent, too. We take part in the yearly Customer Advisory Board (CAB), and it is fantastic to see how our needs, and those of our customers, are being addressed in new releases. 4me even organised a yearly CAB based on our feedback and our desire to pay more attention to the specific wishes of managed service providers. It proved to be the right choice.”
Training
After the first group of users did the standard 4me training, myBrand, in collaboration with Joost-IT, created screencasts to train the bulk of the consultants. These screencasts now function as a reference and are also used for our external customers and suppliers. myBrand created a special web page explaining what 4me can do for them, what has changed and how to use the self-service portal.
Scope
- Self-service
- Request fulfilment
- Incident management
- Problem management
- Configuration and asset management
- Change management
- Service level management
Knowledge management and project management are already on the agenda.
Go live
myBrand went live with 4me at the end of 2019. In their first full year of working with the system, their consultants and customers registered more than 33 000 tickets. myBrand’s customers are enthusiastic about how easy the system is to use. “Our customers can see exactly where their requests are, whether they are being worked on and what the priority is. Soon we will go one step further by making reports available from the self-service portal,” said the customer coordinator. Reporting options in the self-service portal is one of the prioritised outcomes of the CAB, requested by myBrand. It goes to show that 4me takes co-creation with its customers very seriously.
Results
The biggest advantage of 4me for myBrand is that everyone now works according to the same process enforced by the system. That makes work faster and easier, both for our employees and for current customers.
Says Bronswijk-Egbertzen: “I can recommend 4me to any service provider, especially with regard to the standardisation of processes and how easy it is to set up a trust with customers and suppliers. I am a true 4me ambassador: I tell every new customer about our experience with 4me and how easy it is to work with customers who also work with 4me. We always hope that like us, they also choose 4me."
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