When CIOs look at their 5-year tech plans, they are often challenged to migrate spending away from basic ‘keep the lights on’ investments toward more strategic and transformative endeavors. When looking at the IT budget, it is important to look at the actual tech costs as well as the administrative costs associated with supporting the tech – especially when there are other things to consider, like the changing economic environment – that could impact future budgets and resources.
Why CIOs are Interested in Codeless ITSM Platforms
IT Service Management (ITSM) is an absolute requirement for any IT team. The platform is used to service end-users, manage change across an organization, organize assets and store critical knowledge. However, the platform itself should not drain IT resources when it comes to the daily care and administration of the solution – this is the single biggest reason CIOs are looking for codeless ITSM solutions for their business.
But a lower total cost of ownership (TCO) isn’t the only factor that plays into the attractiveness of codeless ITSM tools, there are other key benefits too.
Reduce Administrative Resources with Codeless ITSM
Many times, organizations will take on an ITSM tool that’s too large and too complex for their organization’s needs. They are sold on a brand name and features and functionalities that, in fact, they don’t necessarily need or will practically use once the ITSM tool is in place. This often results in them paying for licensing fees or modules they don’t need. In fact, sometimes organizations will report they have as many as 8 dedicated resources administering their ITSM tool; often consuming technical experts to create forms, workflows, integrations and scripts.
But codeless ITSM systems allow organizations to manage the platform with less than a full FTE; this could be to create configurations, to create new workflows, to set up an automation or even to create a new form.
A lower TCO and less administrative burden were the reasons the University of Michigan switched to TeamDynamix. In their case study, they highlighted how the enterprise site licensing model for TeamDynamix allows the university to have more people resolving service tickets, resulting in improved problem resolution and an improved experience for students, faculty, and staff.
It was a similar story for Self-Regional Healthcare, they switched to TeamDynamix to ITSM, Enterprise Service Management (ESM) and Project Portfolio Management (PPM).
“We were managing projects across various systems before,” Nikole Cabral, an IT analyst and project manager, said. As a result, leaders didn’t have full visibility into the scope of work that each team member was involved in. “We have over 70 projects we’re tracking in TeamDynamix right now and almost every single analyst has a hand in those projects.”
She explained: “Before, there was no way for us to see how much time and effort was being put into projects by IT staff. Now, Operations recognizes how big of a role IT plays in every single project. If we’re onboarding a location, that involves significant IT work. Even if it’s something minor, like a department moving locations, that can also mean updating network IP addresses. There might be small things we can change pretty quickly, but we had no way of quantifying that work before.”
Prior to TeamDynamix Self Regional was using a different ITSM tool that had been bought out by another ITSM company, “We were going to have to either reimplement what we had, or migrate to the company’s other system,” Cabral said. “We decided to look at other alternatives. Comparatively, TeamDynamix was very similar to what we were using and codeless with the functionality we would need as far as supporting our needs, but also had all these extra features like project management and integration and automation.”
According to Cabral, it’s easier for IT staff to keep track of their tickets in TeamDynamix.
By switching to TeamDynamix for its IT service and project management, Self Regional Healthcare has been able to serve end-users more effectively, leading to a better overall user experience. This, in turn, will continue to fuel growth for the organization. “TeamDynamix has definitely met all of our expectations for what we needed,” Cabral concludes.
Codeless Service Management Means Faster Expansion for Enterprise Service Management (ESM)
When you consider the evolution of ITSM platforms, one key development has been the expansion to Enterprise Service Management. The concepts and structure that worked so well for IT, are now working for other teams such as HR, marketing and facilities. However, to really make this work, the platform needs to be truly codeless. This allows for the quick and easy spin-up of new applications for various groups and then with segregated admin, each group can easily manage its own application.
Casino Arizona and Talking Stick Resort, has been using ESM for years and just recently switched to TeamDynamix ESM after outgrowing their previous ESM solution.
Independently owned and operated by the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community in Scottsdale, Arizona, these casino and resort properties employ about 3,500 people altogether. For more than a decade, they’ve benefited from having a “one-stop” service portal that employees could use to request everything from housekeeping services to clean a room before a special event, to the purchase and provisioning of new technology or a security badge for a visiting vendor.
However, the legacy ESM solution these properties were using had serious limitations. For instance, there wasn’t a way for employees to log into the system remotely from a smartphone or other mobile device to track or make service requests on the go. What’s more, making changes to the system’s configuration involved expensive updates to the software’s code.
“Our legacy platform didn’t have the flexibility to grow along with us as our needs evolved,” Program Manager, Adam Dunn, said.
In looking for a new ESM platform, Casino Arizona and Talking Stick Resort wanted the ability to configure the system easily and make changes flexibly and dynamically. “We looked at a number of systems,” Dunn said. “In TeamDynamix, we found the one that was most user-friendly.”
With its “low-code, no-code” design, TeamDynamix is highly configurable, allowing organizations to create personalized service categories (both simple and complex) and build customized workflows for managing multistep processes.
In addition, the platform’s enterprise Integration and automation capabilities allow IT staff to create customized integrations between TeamDynamix and other software programs using a simple, drag-and-drop flow builder. And because TeamDynamix is easy to use and configure, it lends itself nicely to ESM and can be easily adopted by departments outside of IT.
Phase one of the properties’ implementation of TeamDynamix has involved the IT and AV departments. Phase two includes housekeeping and security.
In housekeeping, for example, one of the areas the tool will be used to help with is resource capacity planning around events.
“We have an event space where we host a variety of different things,” Dunn said. “We’ll be using the tool to get out in front of these and schedule housekeeping for room cleanings before and after these events. All of these housekeeping requests can be scheduled and managed through a ticket. This allows our housekeeping department to see what events are upcoming that they need to plan for and staff appropriately. And if we have a performer coming into our nightclubs, a lot of times housekeeping is tasked with clearing space, so they can see when those requests come in and make sure the right resources are available.”
Codeless ITSM Makes Enterprise Integration Easy
When systems run in code-heavy environments, it makes integration harder. This is another reason why CIOs are seeking codeless platforms that can be more easily integrated. ITSM platforms, like TeamDynamix, are now also using codeless iPaaS to facilitate enterprise integration and workflow.
Low-code/no-code automation tools like iPaaS are a great way to automate and integrate systems across an organization and reduce the toil, allowing your organization to be more competitive and nimbler with less friction and a better end-user experience.
iPaaS centralizes all integrations into one hub with a library of connectors to common systems such as Workday, Oracle, your ITSM platform, Salesforce, the Active Directory, Azure, and hundreds more, as well as any APIs. With all systems connected and data points now secured in one spot, end-users can leverage the platform to move data, transform data, and build out automation and workflows using a visual flow builder that can be triggered from a field change, form fill or any number of actions.
By combining ITSM/ESM, PPM and iPaaS on a single platform you can automate tasks, both simple and complex, as well as connect disparate systems throughout your organization – all through a codeless platform, meaning anyone can use it. You no longer need to be bogged down by repetitive or mundane service requests.
For CIOs looking to relieve budgets and reduce the drain on resources, codeless platforms are a great solution.
Want to read more about why others are making the switch to TeamDynamix? Read our latest eBook: Automate IT – A Playbook for Supercharged ITSM.