Endpoint and service management integration: the key to SRH IT solutions’ efficiency and performance

SRH is a foundation company active throughout Germany. They accompany people on their individual path in life with leading offers in the fields of education and health. Its facilities include acute clinics, rehabilitation clinics, technical schools, service institutions, colleges and a university. 

SRH IT Solutions manages strategic and operational IT for more than 45 SRH companies throughout Germany. With the integration of Endpoint Management (EPM) and IT Service Management (ITSM) through Ivanti solutions, SRH IT Solutions succeeded in setting up smooth and efficient processes for endpoint management. This ensures seamless management of the device fleet and makes the analysts' work more seamless by providing them with all relevant information centrally. In cooperation with Ivanti and Invent AG, the company finally succeeded in increasing efficiency as well as service performance.

Extensive challenges

The activities of SRH IT Solutions are very extensive. For example, employees must operate central core applications for the SRH business areas, expand a high-performance IT infrastructure and support 15,000 end devices — as well as 3,000 to 6,000 tickets per month. Also, COVID-19 has changed the pace, nature and intensity of workloads. Overall, customer requirements vary greatly depending on the sector served. For example, in the healthcare sector, the focus is on IT stability, reliability and availability. While in the education segment, innovation is more in demand. "This area of tension requires flexibility from partners, which we have found at Ivanti," says Sascha Tebben, Head of IT Service. 

SRH IT Solutions has already been successfully using the Ivanti Endpoint Manager since the end of 2016. However, SRH IT Solutions aimed for a strong integration of the endpoint management with the general IT service management. In 2017, discussions began with Ivanti about such an interlocking. In June 2018, the complete suite went live: Ivanti EPM, Ivanti Service Manage and Ivanti Patch Management have been in use on-premises since.  

Invent AG helped build the system and is a partner of SRH IT Solutions for further development and maintenance. The integrated solution is generally used for ITSM according to the Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) standard, such as: 

• Incident.  
• Service request management. 
• Change management. 
• Configuration management database (CMDB)  
• General task management. 

The project was particularly concerned with ensuring efficient and smooth processes. For example, avoiding duplicate data storage in the CMDB area required an ITSM platform that could also trigger deployment processes for the operating system and software. On top of that, the platform had to be ITIL-compliant. The fact that the Service Manager belongs to one of the few ITIL 4 toolsets certified by Pink Elephant spoke in favor of Ivanti. Another goal was to avoid context changes. Previously, analysts sometimes had to use three different solutions to answer a single customer query.

Ivanti scores with the integration of EPM and ITSM

To achieve these goals, the processes of EPM were to be embedded in the front-end of ISM, so work could be done in just one application. Ivanti met this requirement by providing an interface for holistic ITSM, including endpoint management and CMDB. Ivanti's efficient and high-quality services were another plus point for winning the contract. Patch management was also extremely important, especially for the healthcare sector. The integrated Ivanti solution also met this challenge.  

"We were enthusiastic about Ivanti's willingness to engage with our ideas, for example on product development, as well as the generally positive and cooperative dialog," says Sascha Tebben about the collaboration.

The results

Without the context switch, more time is freed up for processing customer inquiries, and analysts can also provide more intensive support to customers. Customer-driven innovation can also be implemented quickly due to the good adaptability of ITSM. Since all analysts have access to comprehensive options and information thanks to strong integration, even more efficient and higher-quality services are possible. Additionally, all work steps are now mapped in ITSM. This mapping increases the level of standardization in the organization, leading to heightened efficiency. Another positive aspect is the flexibility of the product. In many work situations at SRH IT Solutions, fast and agile action is required to quickly program appropriate features. Here, employees can become active themselves and use or build up their own know-how, increasing both the effectiveness and efficiency of the working method. Ivanti provided important support during the transition from Windows 7 to Windows 10, a challenge for many IT organizations.

Outlook

The successful cooperation with Ivanti also shapes the development for the near- future. Against the backdrop of the COVID-19 crisis, SRH IT Solutions is focusing strongly on how they can support customers pragmatically and responsibly in the current situation. A digitalization push and workplace flexibility clearly accompanies this. On the product side, SRH IT Solutions is planning to commission further solutions in identity management and is also looking into Ivanti Neurons.

_{Note: A customer’s results are specific to its total environment/experience, of which Ivanti is a part. Individual results may vary based on each customer’s unique environment.}