Case Study:

Single Point of Truth (SPOT)

Unreliable data causing instability and frustrating efforts to plan change.

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Highlights

1200
Apps to Manage
Process
& Tools
>30
Data Sources

"

"Many thanks for all the efforts from CSX, a great set of outcomes achieved. I look forward to continuing to work with you in the future!"

"

Head of Group IT Service Management

Unreliable data causing instability and frustrating efforts to plan change.

CSX were approached to help with a large cloud migration programme.  However the lack of a reliable data to underpin analysis was flagged as a major impediment to planning.  When we looked for good data, we found more:

·      Frequent outages due to inability to accurately monitor/manage/change services

·      Multiple overlapping tools being used by different teams to provide data and reports

·      A lack of consistent baseline across the estate

·      People pulling data from different repositories and editing / enriching it for their own purpose.

A Single Point of Truth.

CSX recommended a factory approach to provide a reliable and trusted Single Point of Truth (SPOT) for service data and to coordinate efforts for improving configuration management and the CMDB.

CSX incubated the SPOT capability and kick started the drive for better data.

CSX delivered a proof of concept (“POC”) for SPOT data to cover a set of critical business applications with effective service-to-app-to-infrastructure mapping.

  • Process integration control points across the ITSM and software development life cycle – including a review of the configuration management process and roadmap
  • Associated reporting capabilities, BI dashboards, service maps and health dashboards
  • Communications and awareness training for the agreed SPOT Principles and for relevant aspects of the configuration management process
  • A single tooling framework for generating, maintaining and presenting SPOT data
  • Agreement to adopt the ServiceNow Customer Services Data Model (CSDM) and integration with local enterprise architecture tools
  • Integration with monitoring and alerting capabilities for technology elements that make up the top applications
  • Governance model for process and tool management
  • Gamification concept to drive end user behaviours in data updates

Foundational change in data management and automation.

  • Project outcomes achieved:
  • Single source of truth for business apps established with controls in place
  • Data completeness and accuracy improved by owners agreed
  • No more unmatchable spreadsheets
  • End to end visibility of data in ServiceNow
  • Bi-directional integrations managing data flow
  • Credible data and reporting enabled
  • Common Service Data Model (CSDM) adopted
  • Integrated audit capability
  • Future roadmap defined and agreed.

750 of 750 targeted apps completed.

Remaining 550 handed over to BaU.

Key Client Information:

Major Global Insurance Provider - Multi-billion turnover - Tightly Regulated - 54 managed locations

Staff Size:

14,000 users

Location:

25 countries

Snapshot Of Problem:

No single point of truth for IT configuration data - Non-standard ways of working - Data spread across three ticketing systems and a variety of non-standard sources - Fragmented ownership of applications and infrastructure

Snapshot Of Solution:

- Workshops - Service Mapping - Enrich the Data - Codify the Rules - Populate the CMDB - Verify & Iterate Outputs: - SPOT Principles (e.g. “Automate discovery & verification where possible”) - Mapping of critical business applications - Impact Assessment - Process flow - BI / Reporting capabilities - Audit procedures - Health Dashboards / KPIs - Single tooling framework - Monitoring and alerting integration - Governance model - Gamified Certification - Automated interfaces - Data usage guides - Data modelling

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