Background
Many professional services teams don’t have the tools they need to deliver the service experiences they want to provide; often having to manage high volumes of enquiries, in lean teams, and with little useful reporting or automation to support their work.
In September 2023, MSD IT Services and the Nuffield Department of Medicine developed a partnership to identify common needs and priorities across their service teams. This included a review of existing university systems and the wider service management market to consider potential solutions.
A joint proposal was submitted to the Digital Transformation Programme who commissioned an ‘ESM investigate’ via SUMS Consulting in February 2024. The investigative recommended the launch of small-scale pilots across Professional Services to establish potential proof-of-value for wider use of ESM systems.
The first pilot was launched with the Nuffield Department of Medicine’s Finance Team in June 2024, replacing the team’s use of a single, shared inbox with basic ticketing features for finance-related enquiries – reducing admin and increasing accuracy by automating processes that make sure right requests go to the right team.
Funding until December 2025 was then secured to plan for a wider ESM pilot to onboard cross-divisional Professional Services teams and explore the benefits of AI-enabled features.
Planning started in August to define 4 simple and agile delivery phases:
- Phase 0 (August-October): Engagement with pilot groups and technical setup of system.
- Phase 1 (November-December): Onboarding and support for early adopters (IT Support Staff).
- Phase 2 (January-March): Onboarding and support for additional pilot groups.
- Phase 3 (March-December): Maturing use of ESM, launching AI-enabled features, pilot evaluation and next steps.