Transcript
of IT, about AI, automation, all the incredible innovations that are on the horizon. But, you know, before we can fully embrace those things, those futuristic things, it's really crucial that we have the right foundations in place. Those things are built upon the right foundations. So, that's why in this session, we're going to talk about some small shifts that organizations, that teams can make towards centralization and standardization that can make sure, really help make sure you have a strong foundation to build AI and your future capabilities on. So, it's the perfect theme for our session, which is titled Shift Happens, How to Make Your ITSM Incidentally Awesome. And I'm really thrilled to be joined by Jeremy Mayfield. He's one of our THWACK MVPs, one of our standout guys. And he's also the Director of IT at National Sugar Marketing. He's going to walk us through, you know, his real world approaches to those strong foundations of standardizing and centralizing. So, to start, Jeremy, can you tell us about your ITSM environment and why these two pillars, centralization and standardization, are really critical to your IT team's success? Absolutely, sure. We are sitting in a unique spot in our business where our, our infrastructure is primarily SaaS-based. I always say 100% SaaS, but to be truly SaaS, you'd have to be fully remote. We do have an office, we have warehouses and offices where, you know, there are firewalls, there are other devices, but there's no server or actual hardware infrastructure of that type. So, we, we run completely serverless. We run 100% of our productivity in, you know, the, the SaaS space, software as a service. And we did this, we started, we made this commitment in 2023, and went fully live September of 23, and have been successfully managing this environment. However, without certain standardization, it makes it impossible to get there. And so, when we think about how we want to, you know, focus the service management and, and how we take that approach, you have to be standardized, and you have to, and you have to have a centralized approach for most everything. And without it, things start to fall apart. What would you say, you know, the, the output of that standardization and centralization is for your organization? Like, we often hear, you know, comfort, trust, what are, what are some things that you feel are the result of having a well standardized, well centralized setup like you have? Yeah, I think that you kind of hit the nail on the head there a little bit. With, with related terms, right? You think about comfort level, okay? When you think about the transition, and IT is always, always a change organization, right? We're right there with human resources, probably with, like a little bit more than HR, but probably go through more change than HR does. But we tend to be the, the change elements to the end user, right? So we're pushing new software, we're pushing patches, we're pushing lifecycling hardware, new password, you know, constantly something is in, is in change. So having the comfort to know for the end user, keeping their, keeping their daily routine standardized, where they know if they have a problem, how do they reach someone in IT? How are they going to reach someone on my team? And we make it very simple for them, right? We make it, we have the system set up so that they know it's never going to change, no matter what we're doing, unless there's a major shift on the solar wind side, right? There's not going to be a massive change to the end user and what they're trying to do. So, you know, for me, it has, you know, you have that comfort level, you have that, that kind of that standardization, again, where we, the end user knows exactly what they need to do, how they need to do it, and what the results going to be. And so for them, in an ever-changing climate, it provides a level of stability. And, you know, when you're talking about all the changes organizations can go through, whether that's a, an ERP implementation, whether that's a type of company merger, whether that's a type of, you know, any of the things that could go on in, you know, in the shifts and climates, you know, AI being a big one, obviously, you know, you having that stability in, in your IT service, where they know how to get ahold of someone when they need it, what the output's going to be, what the result of that's going to be, whether if they're submitting an email, that they're going to get an email back, if they're using a portal, that where they can go to look at this information in the portal. So it's very important that you have a consistent, stable environment for the end user. 100% agree. And, you know, just going back to what we talked about in the intro, this stability, this standardization is really where you can start to build automations on top of. Once you know that people are comfortable using the processes, comfortable in their day-to-day interaction with IT, that's when you can start to see the benefits of automating things and moving things through. So I completely agree. And I hear you. Let's talk about the first pillar, which is centralization. So, you know, we've, we've talked in our previous conversations that you really feel service desk is the, is the focal point of your day. That's, that's in essence centralization. So can you share an example of how you've centralized either a process or some of your processes that might be beneficial to, you know, those, those listening today, or maybe something that they don't expect about creating that focal point of your day with centralization? Absolutely. So some of the things that we do is, or one of the key things we do is we leverage the service desk to be kind of like our go-to location when we're looking for things like vendor bills, for example. What we don't just use it for support items. What we've done is we've taken the service desk and we've said, look, we've got this great platform, but we get, we're a little, again, smaller company, you know, and we're working on improving some of our processes in other areas, again, that constant change. But in today's environment, a lot of the vendor bills, you know, we're talking your, your ISP bills and your, and your telecom expenses and your, you know, your, maybe your, some of your licensing expenses and things like that, that you might pay about month by month or an annual basis, you know, those kinds of things. You, we tend to centralize those into the service desk because what it does is one, it opens a ticket, we're notified, Oh, look, Comcast has a new bill. Great. So now it's time to code it and get it sent to accounts payable. So we leverage that to be kind of our repository, but even more so it helps us stay on top of, you know, the billing cycles. Also, it, it allows us to have that tracking. If there's ever a case where if there's ever a case where we question whether something was paid, we always know, okay, here was a date the ticket was opened. Here was when we, we noted that we sent it to accounts payable and we haven't seen anything from accounts payable. So now we know exactly what point in the chain things broke down. Another, another way we utilize it is with the Dameware Remote Everywhere, right? So Dameware Remote Everywhere, every time a connection is made, it sends a ticket to the service platform. Now we don't sit there and automatically close all the tickets. What I did is I set up an automation to where auto closes those tickets. So it's open and then auto closed. Now you might say, why is that important? Well, it's important to me to be able to track that because we look for also unexplained activity, right? So think of it as part of the data loss prevention practice, right? We, what we like to do is we want to know every time something is logged, because it's very important to our end users, especially with some of the scams that are out there today, leveraging Microsoft Teams and other things to try to get users to allow remote access. What we have done is we've said, look, I want to know who's using Dameware Remote Everywhere should be only a couple people. And when that happens, I want it logged, right? I don't necessarily want to see that have to manage the tickets, I just want to see an email that says, hey, someone, you know, popped in, and they're using Dameware. And I'm saying, okay, is it one of is it one of our users, it's the right user. And then I look at the case scenario. And I can look at other things to kind of tell me that these things are happening, right? So now I have some traceability and extra protection on the security side as well. And it's all funneled through the service desk, right? Now the service desk is the center for all of this information, my billing information, my remote support information, not just users requesting support, but every time you're leveraging remote everywhere, it's sending a ticket in. Some people, again, they might, they might do things a little differently in their departments. This is how we've done it being a very small department in a small organization. Yeah, it makes sense. I can, I can see how that extra layer of visibility makes for, you know, a tighter security setup. You have, you have more visibility over who's doing what and, you know, is it what we expect and being a smaller organization, you know, that oversight is what you need to really understand what's happening in the business. So like what I'm hearing is that it's not just your system of engagement with, you know, those submitting tickets, but it's also your system of record that you can go back and you can check and make sure that things are being paid, things are working on time. You've really created that, as we said, that focal point of your day. And we have reporting, right? So you can run reports against certain things, right? And you can see the, all of the benefits of these, of these, the centralization, you get, get that on a report and actually drive KPIs, right? So if you're saying, Hey, you know, if your monthly bills were all paid on time, you know, through accounts payable, but some were late, why was the Verizon bill late? And it's like, well, it looks like, you know, the person responsible didn't go get the bill. Unfortunately, Verizon is one of those oddities. You have to go download. You don't get to, they, again, small businesses, probably different than enterprise. But in our case, we do all electronic billing, but Verizon's case, they want you to actually download the bill. They tell you that it's ready. And then you have to go download it. Somebody doesn't download it on time. Guess what? It doesn't get paid on time. So, I mean, there's, there's steps there. And so you can create, you can create workflows, you know, all day long, but somebody still has to execute. And so, and when you have all these nuances, or you understand these nuances through records, you know, you can, you can account for that. So and so is on their vacation, who normally handles the Verizon bill, but you have a procedure in place because you've understood what has happened in times past. And hopefully then you've optimized the process for whoever takes it over in the future. That's right. And it helps you drive accountability. Yeah, I love that. That's great. And then tell me, as far as I understand, you not only have, you know, engagement from your centralized organization, but you also work with vendors who utilize your setup in, in a way that keeps everything centralized. Is that, is that true to the nature of the way your department runs? So yeah, that's what we've tried to do to the best of our ability. So we leverage the enterprise service management. And what we've, what we're able to do is allow, take customer service, for example, right? So we have a lot of customers. National Sugar Marketing is a marketing organization for sugar cooperatives. Okay. And so we distribute sugar throughout the United States to me. Everybody loves sugar. Dentists, dentists all approve, right? You know, they're all happy with our work and it keeps them in business. No, I, but I do, I do. I do think that with what we do and, and where we're positioned, we have a lot of, a lot of business that comes in via email and through, through means like that. So be, because of that, the exchange mailbox just isn't the greatest place to store all of these emails coming in from these big CPG companies and all of the, all the transactions. We leverage EDI where we can, but not all customers can handle that want to do EDI. We still deal with some very small organizations who buy a lot of sugar. Our goal was to come up with a, a central a central repository where agents could be assigned almost like, well, it is customer service representatives are assigned through, by their manager. They're assigned to specific customers. And then as those customer emails come in, they are then sent to the responsible agent, or in this case, customer service rep. And, and so this way now we're actually able to allow our, our customers, they email in what would be a ticket type in IT, but it's really an order, you know, for our customer service team and they're managing orders. They're managing what's creating revenue ultimately for the cooperative. They're, so they're handling all of this through the, through the service platform. That's great. Yeah. I, I think that's such a, such an amazing example of how you really can bring things in one place and make it work for a variety of different organizations. I mean, we, we like to talk about different use cases of how service desk can be so flexible for, you know, the different needs of different departments, or in your case, vendors, things like that. So it's great to hear like a real life example of bringing those things in and, you know, centralization this, that's the theme of the day, right? These are things that maybe we think we can overlook, but actually no, like this is streamlining the chaos. This is making it so that things are expected. It's creating that comfort with, you know, the people who are working the tickets or working the project, but also the people submitting them. And that's, that's the whole goal. And I think you guys are definitely leading the way in centralization. So let's find out if that's true of standardization as well. You know, the second pillar, standardization, just to keep everyone on line with our agenda for the day. Once you have all these different types of requests coming into one place, you know, how do you standardize your team's response? How do you make sure that, okay, you have everyone coming into one place, you've reached your goal of centralization. Now, how do you make sure that when those things come in, you're creating consistent workflows, you're ensuring efficiency? What are the ways that standardization helps that, that system of resolution rather than engagement? Well, I would, I would love to say that we have this really fine-tuned standard, standard engine that we follow, but the truth is, is that we're still building on that, right? So we're, we're attempting to, to leverage, you know, automated responses and, you know, we, we, we want to get to, and I know this is going to come up later, but I'll go ahead and hit it now. Right. So we're, we're really hoping to get in, you know, more in line with AI and how it can benefit us by, you know, automating some responses and providing, you know, through the knowledge base articles and, and it's, it's engine, right. Be able to provide end users with a, basically an agentless experience. Right. I mean, that, that's the ultimate goal. Now, where are we today? Back to your original question. Today, we're not quite there, right. It's, it's a little bit much for us in the small environment that we're in, the added costs and things to leverage AI right off the bat. We would love to, we would love to say, oh gosh, yeah, we're, we're knocking it out of the park, you know, and everything. But the truth is we just, we're, we're working to get there, right. We're making the use case. We're fortunate that we're pretty efficient and, and the end users themselves aren't too needy. I am very lucky to have the end users that I have because they're, you know, they're very patient. They, you know, are also the type of users who are willing to dive in a little bit and be like, you know, okay, look, I've already restarted. I've cleared my cache. I've, I've done, you know, I've, I've done these, you know, six steps that you're going to tell me to do. So now what, you know, and, and that, but that really does make our life easier. Right. So for us, again, we're working to get there, but today we're, we're working through it with some basic workflows. We leverage, you know, the service catalog where we can, you know, especially when they're, of course with the service catalog works best if they're using the portal, you know, for us, we can manually go in and, and leverage those, those tools, but it's for us, I think in the, in the it department, you know, our, our, our message to the end users is really, Hey, here's this portal. It can be really beneficial for you if you utilize it and it can help you a ton. And there are, there are, there are steps there that are going to walk you through certain requests, like hardware requests and things, but the reality is they have to use it. You know, the old adage, you can lead a horse to water. Well, same thing. You can lead a user to the portal, but you can't make them use it. Yeah. Yeah. It's so true. And, you know, like I think you've done a good job accounting for those things, having, you know, email turn into tickets and then you can, you know, you can put your processes in place after the fact, but yeah, a hundred percent, the portal is truly the gateway to standardization, right? Like if they, number one, can access the knowledge base articles, you might deflect some tickets. But that's a standardized resolution to their problem, even if they can find it for themselves. But, you know, you touched on the service catalog. That's, that's an amazing way to really ensure that what comes into your team has the context that you need. I'd love, I'd love to hear as an IT leader, like your thoughts on what, what a service catalog can do for standardization. Maybe it's a dynamic form, maybe it's something like that, but how do you feel like a service catalog, the ones you have set up, how do they, how do they assist, you know, in that resolution? Well, I want to, I want to just hijack you a little bit there and just put a little focus on the knowledge base. So one of the things that we're very careful of is, just real quickly, is when we are creating the knowledge base, that we're very particular in the words that we use and in how we're building these knowledge base articles, right? So we want them, and part of that is because we want it to be very adaptive to AI later. So although, you know, and we, we've thought about this for years, right? I mean, you know, this is something we've thought about for a long time is when, you know, we don't just click the box and say, make this an article, make this a knowledge base article or whatever. We're, we really look at, could this be a knowledge base item? Could this be something that users could benefit from later? And in a lot of cases, it's not. In our, in our situation, like a lot of the tickets that are open, right? You know, if Citrix isn't working or whatever, it's, you know, we do have some standard things we can do and we have built some standard knowledge base articles, but for us, it's something that we're, we're really just focused on and making sure that it works well. Now, jumping to the service catalog, I just wanted to mention that about knowledge base. It's very important. No, that's great. I, like what's coming to my mind is like standardization with intention. I think that's incredible because you're, you're thinking, you know, the solution you need now, but also you're considering your long-term needs, which is, you know, that's going to, that's, that's standardization to the max. And it's going to be so great for you when, you know, you start to implement further things. Well, we hope so. To your original question, right? About what is a service catalog and how can it impact, you know, organizations and, and, you know, specifically as a leader, what, what do I feel it, it really is? And you, you kind of hit the nail on the head, right? With the, with the forms and things. But I think what it does is it provides, it provides, let's take HR, right? We'll use a new user on board. That's a great example where you can really have the steps to walk through. You work, you engage HR and you say, Hey, what are the things that I need to know? And I need to ask you what's really important. If we're going to onboard a user and their biggest thing to me, they came back to me and they said, well, really timing is a, is a big element. And I said, well, look, I need a couple of weeks for hardware. I can't guarantee you, we don't keep tons of hardware to sitting on shelves anymore, right? We're more like just in time. And part of the downside of that is I need, sometimes I need two weeks from Dell or whoever the, whoever the hardware manufacturer is. And, and so she's, you know, in HR, they'll be like, Hey, we need, but we don't want you to order hardware until they pass the drug screen until we know they fully accepted the job. And sometimes that's a few days before they start. And so we really run into, you know, when we think about life cycle and keeping hardware, I mean, so you have to plan in IT and HR and the business, right? You really have to plan together and come up with an aligned strategy on how things are going to play out. And it's important to engage HR in the building of the catalog and specifically on the user onboard, off board, et cetera, all of those elements, because when you do that, you get much better partnership. And so now all of a sudden a new user onboard is coming. Well, it might be the actual hiring manager who's putting in this ticket, right? So they're going to the portal, they're putting in the service management ticket, and then it's, you know, within the, the, the workflow kicks off, right? Okay. I've got a new user coming in. I need, you know, here's what I need to know. Okay. Well, this has to go to HR. HR has to do a few things and it's going to kick it back to IT. And then as these steps are executed and things happen, you know, we're, it, it, it really helps drive one, it, you make things like deadline, you know, like date needed and all of that mandatory. So you have control over the environment, the elements you're receiving. That's, that's critical because if one, I mean, and I know it sounds silly to say something like a date, but if you don't, if I ask this all the time, even of the utmost CEO executive, right? I say, they'll say, here's a task for you. And I'm like, well, when do you need it? They'll say, well, I really don't, it's really not urgent. I'm like, but when do you need it? Because if you don't tell me, it goes to the bottom of my pile. I don't care who you are in the organization, CEO, CFO, you know, end user. If you don't have a due date, it deprioritizes, right? And, and so I, I put all of the priority items to the top of the list. That's how we have to be. You're right. The KTLO, keep the lights on always and always takes priority. And then you have, of course, your project work, which hopefully outweighs your KTLO, right? But you, you really want to find out that date. So again, something, some simple element like date on the, on the, the form really is key to, you know, in, in these, in these phases, right? So you can really build in, Hey, here's all the fine details I need. I need this date. I need to know, you know, if hardware's needed, what software licenses are needed, who they report to. It's more than just name, first name, last name, and what, you know, what department they're in. There's so many more pieces to that because now, especially going back to being all SaaS, right? We live in SharePoint, not gonna, you know, push and say, Oh, we're in this environment or that environment. Everybody knows who SharePoint's with. So I'm not, not dropping any, any company names here, but so we live and die in SharePoint. You have to build security out. Of course we have role-based security, group-based security. And so I need to know what groups they need to be assigned to, how, you know, how they're going to function. And then on top of that, whether they need certain ERP access or, you know, what offices are they going to work out of? Are they going to be full-time remote? Are they going to be hybrid remote? Are they going to be full-time? Well, unless they're in a warehouse, they're not full-time in office, but they're, you know, it's some kind of hybrid, but, you know, do they have the tools that they need? You know, so those are all things that we have to look at. And so by, by providing the proper information in that, in that catalog, we, we guarantee that we're going to have the right information and we can execute as planned and be that strategic partner to the business. Love it. The, the service catalog, the dynamic forum, it gathers all the context that you need. Like often we talk about gathering the context to get to the resolution, but actually you guys are gathering to even, you know, start to prioritize, to start to categorize, to start to put a plan in place so you can operate as efficiently as possible and ensure that you're prioritizing things that keep the lights on, as we say, you know, that keep things running. So I think, you know, what, what I've gleaned from you today, Jeremy, is like, you were the perfect person to come talk to about the foundations of standardization and centralization. I can see that you, you live it every day, that you see it not only as the solution to your existing problems, but it helps keep things running smoothly for the short, medium, and long-term, which, you know, I think today we wanted to talk about what, what are the things that need to be done before you start building the, the more AI, the more automated workflows. You have to have these things in place to ensure that those things work properly. That's right. You know, well, and it's important. Yeah, sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you, but it's very important. I'm very passionate about that, right? So when you think about how you're going to go into the AI elements, right, especially with the control you need around AI, keeping your data yours and not getting it, you know, exposed to the, to the public, you really, you really want to be very, again, back to the knowledge base, right? You really want to be very mindful of how you're setting things up, you know, whether it's your ticket classifications, all of the, you know, the, the workflows, all of it, right? It all goes into that because then when a user actually is leveraging the AI and they're searching for something, guess what happens? They're getting what they need and they're not getting frustrated and be like, oh, the tool doesn't work. I'm just going to email. So then all this work that you've done, right, to get, to get them into the portal and to set up the AI and the money you're spending and the time you're investing, you're basically right back to reading an email, right? So. 100%. And you've just answered my closing question, which was, you know, what, what, what is the first step people should take to start standardizing and centralizing? But I think, you know, we've just, we've just heard it here, like make sure you have your knowledge base in order, make sure you're intentionally building your knowledge base and your service catalog and your dynamic forms. I think intention is the word that I've heard from you today in, in setting your foundation. So do you agree with that as being what's someone's first step into standardizing and centralizing? I do. And I always think of the term, you know, I always try to tell people like this, think strategic, right? And if you, if you can't, if you don't know what that means, look it up, read about it. If you're thinking strategic, thinking about being a good business partner and not a, a, you know, just a tech person or, or whatever, you, you start to think about how, you know, the different areas you impact the business and how you can drive change. And we have a, we have a saying in our organization, it's influence without authority. And that's, you know, and that's what we do. I love that. I love that. Great. Well, I think that's the perfect way to wrap up today. Jeremy, thank you so much for sharing your experience, your leadership, your knowledge with us in a world where shift happens. We need to, you know, get back to the basics of standardizing and centralizing. And I think we all have a lot to learn from you. So really appreciate you spending your time with me today and wish you best of luck. Hope I get to chat to you soon. I hope so as well. Thank you very much. Thanks everyone for joining us.
