Toyota Motor Corporation Australia’s Information Systems Division (TMCA ISD) has received industry recognition for its comprehensive service management transformation that included the implementation of ITIL and the consolidation of five service desks into a single outsourced contract.
With considerable cost savings in the bag as well as dramatically improved service levels, TMCA ISD beat a broad field of nominations to be announced as the winner itSMF Australia’s ITSM Project of the Year award presented on the Gold Coast this week.
This transformation has included a technology refresh and a review of operational processes for the internal group that supports IT for all of TMCA’s manufacturing, design, sales and marketing and administrative functions in Australia.
Toyota ISD's corporate manager service delivery, Ellis Brover, accepted the award at itSMF Australia’s 15th Annual Gala Dinner held during its LEADit 2012 National Conference and Expo on the Gold Coast this week.
“This IT reform project has been extensive and has reaped a range of business benefits and efficiencies for our IT operations,” Brover said. “The core objectives of the three-year transformation program focussed on enhancing the level of customer service experienced by staff across Toyota’s diverse operations.
“It also aimed to improve the efficiency, governance and business value provided by the ISD group. As an example of the service improvements we have achieved, the time taken for an average PC restoration has been reduced from five days to four hours”
Toyota’s IT team includes over 100 full time staff and up to 30 contractors. With diverse business needs to service, Toyota ISD faces unique challenges including managing a broad variety of systems and applications that include a mix of global systems, departmental systems, national systems and outsourced systems. It is their responsibility to integrate, customise, maintain and manage it all.
Concerted attention on IT operations came with a refresh of personnel at the senior levels of Toyota ISD in early 2010, including the appointment of Brover to drive change and continual improvement.
One of Australia’s longest established ITSM consulting companies, Pro-Active Services was a key external and independent contributor to the project. It conducted the original maturity assessment, setting a baseline for improvement and then helped design a new organisational structure which would lead to “millions of dollars of savings” in outsourced IT services according to Brover.
“The biggest value ProActive Services brought to the equation was the experience of its consultants in providing cost benchmarks,” Brover said. “Knowing what sort of return on investment we could expect was crucial for Toyota as the program came with a lot of risk and change and we wanted to be confident that this change would bring the sort of bottom line results that would sustain executive buy-in.”
Other winner announced at the itSMF Australia ITSM Industry Awards, included Queensland based banking, insurance and financial services company, Suncorp which took out the Innovation of the Year category for the way it completed an implementation of the Agile software development methodology as part of the organisation’s broader IT Service Improvement Plan.
IT services provider, Fujitsu won the Service Desk Team Project of the Year award following a program of improvement that was initiated under the banner “The Foundations of Service” (FOS). This project included educating staff, providing insight about the practices customers’ value as well as assessing and monitoring the use of those practices and rewarding employees when they are consistently displayed.
David O’Reardon was announced as the winner of the National White Paper competition while RMIT’s Brian Clark was declared 2012’s Service Management Champion. A lifetime Achievement Award was also presented to Bob Arthars from Queensland.
Computerworld was the official publication of the ITSM Awards 2012