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Centric Group Creates a Custom Data Tracking and Mining System with the Help of Cireson
Technology Category
- Analytics & Modeling - Data Mining
- Application Infrastructure & Middleware - Data Exchange & Integration
- Functional Applications - Enterprise Resource Planning Systems (ERP)
Applicable Industries
- Finance & Insurance
Applicable Functions
- Business Operation
- Quality Assurance
Use Cases
- Predictive Maintenance
- Remote Asset Management
- Track & Trace of Assets
Services
- Software Design & Engineering Services
- System Integration
The Challenge
With close to 1,700 users in about 10 locations, Centric Group has always had a need for a flexible help desk solution with a solid tracking system of user requests and incidents. For a number of years Centric Group used Track-It! software from BMC. While offering basic help desk functions, for Centric Group, the solution was lacking in two important areas: it didn’t offer a way to create a comprehensive historical record of customer requests. Without the feature, the IT department couldn’t properly assess present work of its employees, figure out on-going trends and patterns, as well as establish standards and benchmarks to evaluate future performance of its workers; and the licensing fees were too high. When the time came to look at other solutions, the IT department chose System Center Service Manager from Microsoft. As a bundled solution, Service Manager didn’t not require any additional licensing fees from Centric Group. It also offered a wealth of other features, including a way to preserve, and later mine customer and end user data. After about 9 months after deploying Service Manager, Centric Group’s IT department decided to try an add-on solution to increase efficiency. They chose Cireson due to the extensive portfolio of products offered, as well as many extra tools they could try and use at no charge.
About The Customer
Headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri, Centric Group is a holding company that owns and manages two businesses – Keefe Group (a supplier of goods to the correctional market), and Courtesy Products (a distributor of hotel guest room coffee and operating supplies). Centric Group has about 10 offices and warehouses located throughout the country. With close to 1,700 users in about 10 locations, Centric Group has always had a need for a flexible help desk solution with a solid tracking system of user requests and incidents. The company had been using Track-It! software from BMC for a number of years, but it lacked the ability to create a comprehensive historical record of customer requests and had high licensing fees. This led them to explore other solutions, eventually choosing System Center Service Manager from Microsoft and later integrating Cireson's Business Management Solution to enhance efficiency.
The Solution
Centric Group chose to deploy Cireson’s Business Management Solution. For Centric Group, one of the problems with the earlier help desk solution was its inability to properly track user data. The apps from Cireson allow them to track, record, and search through current and past user requests. In addition, the solution offers many other benefits – by streamlining the analysts’ dashboards, they enable the workers to resolve incidents faster than before, resulting in more productive employees and the overall IT department. According to Ron Blake, “Cireson allowed us to create a great tracking system for our users. We can track anything from service requests to ticket items, as well as the amount of time we spend on resolving incidents. The system allows us to easily manage service requests, as well as save them for later for data mining purposes.” For example, the Outlook Console provides an easy and convenient access to all user requests and incidents for each analyst right from their Outlook interface. The analysts can search through, rank, and resolve all ticket items and user requests assigned to them without leaving Outlook. Group Assign is another time-saving app used extensively by Centric Group. Many of Centric Group’s IT workers belong to several teams, based on each worker’s expertise and experience. Without knowing the groups each analyst belongs to, the process of assigning and re-assigning incidents and requests can be long and tedious. With the help of the app, which automatically pulls the necessary data from Active Directory, it takes mere seconds to find the right person for each assignment.
Operational Impact
Quantitative Benefit
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