The Royal British Legion Selects Epicor ITSM
The Royal British Legion (RBL) is the UK’s leading charity providing financial, social and emotional support to millions who have served and are currently serving in the Armed Forces, and their dependants.
Currently, nearly 13 million people are eligible for support and they receive around 300,000 calls for help every year.
The RBL was founded in 1921 as a voice for the ex-Service community and our 380,000 members continue to ensure that this voice does not go unheard. Although the needs of ex-Service people have changed over the years, we are still there to safeguard their welfare, interests and memory. British service people are in action around the world every day of the year. They know that if they need our support – now or in the future – the Legion is always on active duty for them.
The RBL has an extensive centralised IT Infrastructure and function which deals with over 900 users spread out over 50 sites; the IT Helpdesk takes between 10-20,000 calls per year (helpdesk incidents, service requests, and request for advice). The existing helpdesk software was unsuitable for its role and the RBL were keen to move towards industry best practice.
The RBL had a number of key business objectives and specific requirements when selecting a new system. Key to that list of requirements was ease of use, the RBL wanted a solution which would be easy to use and intuitive as possible for all users.
It was also important to the RBL that any new solution would be based on ITIL best practice – especially concerning Incident and Problem Management and ideally Change and Release Management. Drawing on previous experience the RBL were also keen that the new solution offered a high degree of flexibility with the ability to customised screen design, data and workflow to cope with the RBL’s needs now and in the foreseeable future concerning IT Helpdesk activities.
As a registered charity the RBL also had exacting requirements that any new solution should be cost effective and fit in with their existing IT skills, this meant having the ability to use MS SQL Server as the database and be a browser based application. This combination also provided the RBL with a cost effective solution and easy roll out to users.
Key to the decision was the ability for the RBL to be able to adapt the system to meet changing business requirements without the need for expensive IT consultancy from the supplier. Epicor ITSM provides this to the RBL with customizable screens, configurable workflow to drive the key processes and a comprehensive user configurable reporting module.
The RBL now has an ITSM solution that provides an accurate and complete view of all information with the ability to create, trace summarise and close incidents, problems and change requests. The powerful service orientated architecture delivered via the ‘smart client’ supports the deployment of Epicor ITSM to users via a rich and familiar user interface which is easy to learn and use.
The fully customisable Epicor ITSM solution was configured to work the way the RBL works, the flexible configuration options were used to quickly adapt the system to meet users needs and configure the ITIL based processes to reflect the RBL’s requirements.
The RBL were keen to implement a new IT service desk solution which would provide a framework to enable them to follow ITIL best practice without the expense of full ITIL certification. Epicor ITSM has key processes ITIL version 2 and version 3 certified by Pink Elephant which has enabled the RBL to align their operation to a recognised benchmark.
In selecting Epaccsys to implement the Epicor ITSM solution the RBL were keen to draw on the experience and knowledge shown by the Epaccsys consultants in the pre sales meetings. Their experience brought from previous projects and many years in the industry helped deliver the project on time and within the tight budget.
Implementing Epicor ITSM provided the RBL not only a system that supports best practices of ITIL but it provided the IT department with the ability to learn from the knowledge and experience of people who have faced similar challenges.
“After evaluating X systems the team came to the unanimous decision that the combination of Epaccsys Ltd and Epicor ITSM would provide us with the best solution in terms of price, functionality and flexibility. Additionally we would achieve our aim of following ITIL best practice for our support provision”
Fred Kavoussian, IT Manager The Royal British Legion
