Design and implementation of new ITIL Service Desk for insurance companies

Transcription

1 Design and implementation of new ITIL Service Desk for insurance companies Anel Tanovic*, Asmir Butkovic **, Fahrudin Orucevic***, Nikos Mastorakis**** * American University in Bosnia and Herzegovina Mije Kerosevica Guje 3, Tuzla 75000, Bosnia and Herzegovina ** College of Computer Science and Business Communications empirica Bulevar mira bb, Brcko District Bosnia and Herzegovina *** Faculty of Electrical Engineering Zmaja od Bosne bb, Sarajevo 71000, Bosnia and Herzegovina **** Technical University of Sofia St.Kliment Ohridski Boulevard, Sofia 1756, Bulgaria [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected] Abstract: - Insurance companies are today faced with the challenge of solving of increasing number of user's incidents, problems and requests. These companies are introducing and producing new IT services which are delivered to users every month. All today's insurance companies have some Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tools which are responsible for solving all these tasks. But the problem is variety of all these tools which are producing positive results in some departments and not so positive results in some other departments. The only solution for all insurance companies is to introduce Service Desk solutions which are based on IT Service Management (ITSM) 'best practises'. This paper describes Service Desk solution for insurance companies that was developed on Sarajevo School of Science and Technology (SSST) University in Sarajevo. The aim of the paper is to analyze results after the implementation of Service Desk solution in one insurance company in Bosnia and Herzegovina and to compare these results with results that are achieved before the implementation of Service Desk solution. The new developed Service Desk solution contains 6 ITSM processes: Supplier Management, Change Management, Event Management, Incident Management, Request Fulfillment and Problem Management. Key-Words: - ITSM, Service Desk, Supplier Management, Change Management, Event Management, Incident Management, Request Fulfillment, Problem Management. 1 Introduction Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) is the most popular framework for the management of IT services. It consists of five phases and 26 processes. Service Desk solution which is presented in this paper contains these 6 processes: Supplier Management [1], Change Management [2], Event Management [3], Incident Management [3], Request Fulfillment [3] and Problem Management [3]. All these processes are integrated in single software solution which is customized for insurance companies. Supplier Management is responsible for the definition of new supplier and contract requirements, identification of business needs, evaluation of new suppliers and contracts, categorization of suppliers and contracts, establishment of new suppliers and contracts and for the management of new suppliers, contracts and s [1]. Change is responsible for planning and controlling changes, scheduling changes and releases, making change decisions and authorization of the change, ensuring that remediation plans are in place, understanding the impact of the change and continual improvement [2]. Event is responsible for the detection, notification, categorization, prioritetization of events, response selection and for forwarding of events to incidents, service requests and problems [3]. Incident is responsible for the detection, notification, categorization, prioritetization of incidents, initial diagnosis and incident escalation, investigation, resolution and recovery [6]. Request Fulfillment is process responsible for the detection, notification, cathegorization, prioritetization of user requests, requests view and request model execution [3]. Problem Management is process responsible for the detection, notification, categorization, prioritetization of problems, problems investigation and diagnosis, raising a known error record, problem resolution and major problem review [3]. ISBN:

2 Service Desk solution is implemented by using web server Apache, PHP programming language and MySQL database. It contains 12 sections which include: registration of new contracts and suppliers, monitoring of all contracts and suppliers, detecting and loging of new changes, monitoring of all exisisting changes, loging of new events, monitoring of all existing events, loging of new incidents, monitoring of all existing incidents, loging of new user requests, monitoring of all existing user requests, loging of new problems and monitoring of all existing problems [4], [5]. The scientific contribution of this paper is a new developed model of Service Desk that can be implemented in any business environment. The new developed model of Service Desk integrates 6 main ITSM processes in one solution that can be converted for the usage in any other business environment [7]. The professional contribution of this paper is new Service Desk solution that can be immediatelly implemented in any insurance company. Previous researches in this field [8], [9] have showed the implementation of ITIL processes in business environment of Telecom operator. In these researches are also taken some other ITSM frameworks and standards like: PRINCE2, CobiT, etom, ISO/IEC and ISO/IEC Section 2. describes organization model for the insurance company, data model and business processes. Section 3. of the paper describes the implementation of all business processes which are the part of new builded Service Desk solution. Section 4. of the paper describes measurements for all processes after the implementation of new Service Desk solution and the comparison with measurements for all processes before the implementation of new Service Desk solution. Section 5. is the conclusion of the paper in which are described advantages of new Service Desk solution and its usage in insurance companies. 2 Organization model for the Insurance company Insurance company in Bosnia and Herzegovina in which is implemented new Service Desk contains these seven organization units: IT & Technical Support - The development team improves upon the existing system the company uses and also develops some inhouse solutions. The technical support team runs, maintains the system and offers support to all its users. Development & Marketing - Is focused on watching out for future prospects, ideas and solutions and innovations. The marketing team focuses on managing the marketing of the company through different media. Car Insurance Sales - This department is responsible for bringing in new clients, collaborating with external agents and introducing new business partners in regards to mandatory car insurance. Voluntary Insurance Sales - This department is focused on the same as the car insurance sales department but is responsible for all other types of insurance like home insurance from fire, theft, life insurance, travel insurance and other. Economics and Finance - This department manages the finances across the entire company, managing budget, payouts of claims and more. General & Legal - This department takes care of all legal aspects of the company, from verifying marketing campaigns to be within regulations, to handling suing, to bringing in experts for the verification and legal proving of cases before court. Claims - Processing of all filed claims and cooperating with other departments based on the requirements of each case to successfully resolve and pay out the claim. The Entity Relationship Diagram from figure 1. shows the core database and relationships between the tables which will support the main business processes of the company. This includes policies, claims and descriptional data about entities. It reflects the business processes on a modular level where bridge entities show how the data relates to each other and how the process flows. The one of main entities in this ERD is Agent. It is very important entity because it connects almost all other entities and does big part of the job. It is connected to two other entities - Address and Customer, the bridge entity is Customer agent between Customer and Agent. Customer Entity is another very important entity. It is important because it may be the largest one, and issues all the customers. It is connected to Address entity, Policy holder and Customer agent. Policy is also important entity. It is connected to all policy related entities - Policy holder, Auto policy, Property policy and Policy payment. Another more important entity is Car entity. It is connected to Auto policy via bridge entity Covers car, once again because of many to many relationship. ISBN:

3 Figure 2. shows use case diagram which shows how an insurance company operates in an abstracted form. On the left hand side we can notice the customer which can have two scenarios. First, the customer can come and request (or buy) an insurance policy where the agent verifies and enters the data into the database and after payment issues the insurance policy (car, life, property or any other type). The second scenario is where the user files for a claim. The claim is then processed, approved or disapproved and finally paid out and notifies the customer. 3 Implementation of business processes for the Service Desk solution Realized Service Desk contains 23 modules which are divided in six categories which include six different realized processes: Event Management, Incident Management, Request Fulfillment, Problem Management, Change Management and Supplier Management. All these modules are responsible for monitoring of existing events and for submiting new events which are divided in five different categories: incidents, requests, problems, changes and suppliers [8]. There are four different type of users which include: end user-agent, admin, super admin and manager. When we log in with regular Agent profile there is the main page which is shown on figure 3. On this page we can see which options admin can use. Beneath those options there is counter that counts how many unresolved events, Incidents and problem there are. From the main page, as you can see we can go where we intend to (figure 4.). First, we will go to events page in order to explain Event Management [9]. There you can clearly see all the events currently in the base. Besides ID and title, they all have start date, deadline, number of action and description. Also there is status which, logically, represents status of the event, and priority for issuing. Besides the table, there are also actions row with which authorized personnel can edit the event (figure 5.). By using this form, each user can submit different kind of events which include: incidents, requests and problems and specify who is responsible for solving all of them. From agents these messages are forwarded to administrators which are responsible for solving all of them. Incident Management, Request Fulfillment and Problem Management have almost the same forms. Change Management uses a similar form as the other management systems, but it relies on different user permissions where the manager can issue requests for new changes where the administrator can view them and after solving and implementing the new changes can be marked as resolved. Managers are only roles who are responsible for creating new changes. Changes are than solved by super administrators and administrators. Changes can be seen even from agents but they are not responsible for solving them. Admin user can see Change Management, and this is what they see. There, they can see changes, with all data connected to it. Once more, they can edit and delete the field - change. Only this time there is no plus sign for adding changes. Figure 6. shows monitoring of changes for the Change and figure 7. shows submiting new changes for this process. There, in spreadsheet Admin can see all the data related to supplier. Also, admin can manage it but cannot add (there is no standard plus sign for addition). One more important thing here is that Admin can only see data related to him (Agent field carries his name). Besides that, this is more or less standard table in our system, containing all the same colours, sorting features and actions [10]. Super admin can access the Supplier Management too but he can not submit a new supplier without the permission of manager. Supplier Management is basically same as Change Management, except that it contains different data. SuperAdmin there can see all the dates, actions description as same as statuses of suppliers. Figure 9. shows the process of submitting new suppliers. This form is also responsible for adding new contracts with suppliers and for monitoring all these different contracts. The module for monitoring all contracts is very important because of the evaluation of all contracts and making decisions about future choosing of contracts [10]. The module for submitting new suppliers clearly mark what is the deadline for entire finishing of some project and which super admin is responsible for the maintenance of the same. 4 Measurement of implemented processes Tables I. to VI. show measurements for six different processes before the implementation of Service Desk solution. Table I. shows results of the implementation for Supplier, table II. for Change, table III. for Event, table IV. for Incident, table V. for Request Fulfillment process and finally table VI. for Problem. The time duration for the measurement of all these key s was 3 months. ISBN:

4 Table VII. shows results of the implementation of key s (KPIs) for all six processes before the implementation of ITIL Service Desk solution. Supplier Management has achieved 59.20% of successful implementation of all KPIs, Change Management has achieved 66.20% of successful implementation of all KPIs, Event Management has achieved 75.40% of successful implementation of all KPIs, Incident Management has achieved 73.20% of successful implementation of all KPIs, Request Fulfillment has achieved 79.80% of successful implementation of all KPIs and Problem Management has achieved 75.80% of successful implementation of all KPIs [9]. Tables VIII. to XIII. show measurements for six different processes after the implementation of Service Desk solution. Table VIII. shows results of the implementation for Supplier Management process, table IX. for Change, table X. for Event, table XI. for Incident, table XII. for Request Fulfillment process and finally table XIII. for Problem. All these measurements are constantly taken in time period of six months after the implementation of Service Desk solution. Table XIV. shows results of the implementation of key s (KPIs) for all six processes after the implementation of ITIL Service Desk solution. Supplier Management has achieved 73.40% of successful implementation of all KPIs, Change Management has achieved 82.80% of successful implementation of all KPIs, Event Management has achieved 86.00% of successful implementation of all KPIs, Incident Management has achieved 87.80% of successful implementation of all KPIs, Request Fulfillment has achieved 86.80% of successful implementation of all KPIs and Problem Management has achieved 88.80% of successful implementation of all KPIs [9]. 5 Conclusion This paper has showed the process of introducing Service Desk solution based on ITIL principles in business environment of one insurance company. During the process of implementation of Service Desk solution, the study connected to the comparative analysis about differences in successful implementation of business processes before and after the implementation of Service Desk was also finished. Six business processes are taken into the consideration: management of suppliers and contracts (Supplier Management), management of changes from management or from production (Change Management), management of all different events (Event Management), managements of incidents (Incident Management), management of user requests (Request Fulfillment) and management of problems (Problem Management). Measurements have showed that each of these six processes have achieved a better result of the implementation after the implementation of ITIL processes by using Service Desk solution. All six ITIL processes followed their key activities that were implemented by Service Desk which is used now in all layers of this insurance company. This study has clearly showed that it is worth to investate in the realization of ITSM processes because of the increasing of all important parameters of metric which are important for users, stakeholders, managers and suppliers. Results show that Supplier has achieved a better result of the implementation for 14.20% after the implementation of Service Desk. This improvement has been underlined at these key s: the number of suppliers meeting the targets within the contract and the number of suppliers with nominated supplier managers. Results show that Change Management process has achieved a better result of the implementation for 16.60% after the implementation of Service Desk. This improvement has been underlined at these key s: the percentage of reduction in the number of incidents attributed to changes and the percentage of reduction in the number of changes with incomplete impact assessments. Results show that Event has achieved a better result of the implementation for 10.60% after the implementation of Service Desk. This improvement has been underlined at these key s: the number of incidents that occurred and which are triggered without a corresponding event and the percentage of events compared with the number of incidents. Results show that Incident has achieved a better result of the implementation for 14.60% after the implementation of Service Desk. This improvement has been underlined at these key s: the percentage of incidents solved remotely without the need for a visit and the average number of service desk calls during one day. Results show that Request Fulfillment process has achieved a better result of the implementation for 7.00% after the implementation of Service Desk. This improvement has been underlined at these key s: the percentage of service requests closed by the service desk without reference to other levels of support and the percentage of service requests ISBN:

5 solved remotely without the need for a visit. Results show that Problem has achieved a better result of the implementation for 13.00% after the implementation of Service Desk. This improvement has been underlined at these key s: the percentage of problems solved remotely without the need for a visit and the average number of service desk calls during one day. Figure 10. shows improvements for all six processes after the implementation of Service Desk solution. References: [1] S.Taylor, V. Lloyd, and C. Rudd, ITIL Service Design, Cabinet Office, July [2] S.Taylor, S. Lacy, and I. Macfarlane, ITIL Service Transition, Cabinet Office, July [3] S.Taylor, D. Cannon, and D. Wheeldon, ITIL Service Operation, Cabinet Office, July [4] A. Keller and T. Midboe, Implementing a Service Desk: A practioner s perspective, IEEE Network Operations and Management Symposium (NOMS 2010), pp , April [5] M. Jantti, Exploring Self-Service Support Methods in IT Service Management, 10 th International Conference on Service Systems and Service Management (ICSSSM 13), pp , July [6] M. Jantti, Defining Requirements for an Incident Management System: A Case Study, 4 th International Conference on Systems (ICONS 09), pp , March [7] Z. Jang, Research and design of digital Campus Operation & Maintenance Center (O&M) center based on ITIL, International Conference on Computer Application and System Modeling (ICCASM 2010), volume 5, pp , October [8] A. Tanovic and F. Orucevic, Proposal of the improvement of actual ITIL version based on comparative IT Service Management methodologies and standards Previous research and research methodology, Recent Advances in Automatic Control, Information and Communications, pp , August [9] A. Tanovic and F. Orucevic, Proposal of the improvement of actual ITIL version based on comparative IT Service Management methodologies and standards The improved model of ITIL 2011 framework, Recent Advances in Automatic Control, Information and Communications, pp , August [10] M. Jansen, What does IT Service Management look like in the cloud? An ITIL based approach, Recent Advances in Computers, Communications, Applied Social Science and Mathematics, pp , September ISBN:

6 Figure 1. Entity Relationship Diagram for Service Desk of insurance company Figure 2. Use case diagram for Service Desk of insurance company ISBN:

7 Figure 3. Main page Figure 4. Event Management Monitoring of events ISBN:

8 Figure 5. Event Management Submitting new events Figure 6. Change Management Monitoring of changes ISBN:

9 Figure 7. Change Management Submitting new changes Figure 8. Supplier Management Monitoring of suppliers ISBN:

10 Figure 9. Supplier Management Submitting new suppliers Figure 10. Improvement of ITSM processes after the implementation of Service Desk solution Key for Supplier The number of suppliers meeting the targets within the contract The number of service and contractual reviews TABLE I. MEASUREMENTS FOR SUPPLIER MANAGEMENT PROCESS key s % % held with suppliers The number of service breaches caused by % ISBN:

11 suppliers The number of suppliers with nominated supplier managers The number of contracts with nominated contract managers % % Key for Change changes that meet the customer's agreed requirements reduction in the number of incidents attributed to changes reduction in the number of unauthorized changes identified reduction in the number of changes with incomplete change specifications reduction in the number of changes with incomplete impact assessments TABLE II. MEASUREMENTS FOR CHANGE MANAGEMENT PROCESS key s 70% 95% 74% 18% 30% 60% 17% 25% 68% 16% 25% 64% 11% 17% 65% Key for Event The number of incidents that occurred and which are triggered without a corresponding event events compared with the number of incidents events caused by existing problems or known errors events that resulted in incidents TABLE III. MEASUREMENTS FOR EVENT MANAGEMENT PROCESS key s % 54% 75% 72% 66% 85% 78% 69% 90% 77% or changes events indicating 68% 88% 77% ISBN:

12 issues Key for Incident incidents closed by the service desk without reference to other levels of support incidents solved remotely without the need for a visit The maximum allowed time for solving every type of incident The average number of service desk calls during one day incidents handled within agreed response time TABLE IV. MEASUREMENTS FOR INCIDENT MANAGEMENT PROCESS key s 67% 82% 82% 40% 55% 73% 32 hours 24 hours 67% % 74% 100% 74% Key for Request Fulfillment process service requests which are completed in agreed target times service requests closed by the service desk without reference to other levels of support service requests solved remotely without the need for a visit the total number of calls on Service Desk connected to service requests problems handled within agreed response time TABLE V. MEASUREMENTS FOR REQUEST FULFILLMENT PROCESS key s 71% 85% 84% 68% 92% 74% 45% 60% 75% 35% 30% 83% 83% 100% 83% ISBN:

13 Key for Problem problems closed by the service desk without reference to other levels of support problems solved remotely without the need for a visit The maximum allowed time for solving every type of problem The average number of service desk calls during one day problems handled within agreed response time TABLE VI. MEASUREMENTS FOR PROBLEM MANAGEMENT PROCESS key s 73% 85% 86% 39% 55% 71% 8 days 10 days 80% % 82% 100% 82% TABLE VII. THE RESULTS OF THE IMPLEMENTATION OF ITIL PROCESSES BEFORE THE IMPLEMENTATION OF ITIL SERVICE DESK ITIL process name The result of implementation for each ITIL process Supplier Management 59.20% Change Management 66.20% Event Management 75.40% Incident Management 73.20% Request Fulfillment 79.80% Problem Management 75.80% Key for Supplier The number of suppliers meeting the targets within the contract The number of service and contractual reviews held with suppliers The number of service breaches caused by suppliers The number of suppliers with nominated supplier managers The number of contracts with nominated contract managers TABLE VIII. MEASUREMENTS FOR SUPPLIER MANAGEMENT PROCESS key s % % % % % ISBN:

14 Key for Change changes that meet the customer's agreed requirements reduction in the number of incidents attributed to changes reduction in the number of unauthorized changes identified reduction in the number of changes with incomplete change specifications reduction in the number of changes with incomplete impact assessments TABLE IX. MEASUREMENTS FOR CHANGE MANAGEMENT PROCESS key s 79% 95% 83% 25% 30% 83% 21% 25% 84% 19% 25% 76% 15% 17% 88% Key for Event The number of incidents that occurred and which are triggered without a corresponding event events compared with the number of incidents events caused by existing problems or known errors events that resulted in incidents or changes events indicating issues TABLE X. MEASUREMENTS FOR EVENT MANAGEMENT PROCESS key s % 65% 75% 87% 74% 85% 87% 77% 90% 86% 75% 88% 85% ISBN:

15 Key for Incident incidents closed by the service desk without reference to other levels of support incidents solved remotely without the need for a visit The maximum allowed time for solving every type of incident The average number of service desk calls during one day incidents handled within agreed response time TABLE XI. MEASUREMENTS FOR INCIDENT MANAGEMENT PROCESS key s 74% 82% 90% 51% 55% 93% 28 hours 24 hours 83% % 88% 100% 88% Key for Request Fulfillment process service requests which are completed in agreed target times service requests closed by the service desk without reference to other levels of support service requests solved remotely without the need for a visit the total number of calls on Service Desk connected to service requests problems handled within agreed response time TABLE XII. MEASUREMENTS FOR REQUEST FULFILLMENT PROCESS key s 79% 85% 93% 77% 92% 84% 56% 60% 93% 39% 30% 70% 94% 100% 94% ISBN:

16 Key for Problem problems closed by the service desk without reference to other levels of support problems solved remotely without the need for a visit The maximum allowed time for solving every type of problem The average number of service desk calls during one day problems handled within agreed response time TABLE XIII. MEASUREMENTS FOR PROBLEM MANAGEMENT PROCESS key s 82% 85% 96% 48% 55% 87% 9 days 10 days 90% % 91% 100% 91% TABLE XIV. THE RESULTS OF THE IMPLEMENTATION OF ITIL PROCESSES AFTER THE IMPLEMENTATION OF ITIL SERVICE DESK ITIL process name The result of implementation for each ITIL process Supplier Management 73.40% Change Management 82.80% Event Management 86.00% Incident Management 87.80% Request Fulfillment 86.80% Problem Management 88.80% ISBN: