Founded 175 years ago, a British financial institution (operating like a U.S. credit union) with 18,000 employees emerged to become one of the world’s largest providers of mortgages in its mutual banking class. Like countless other organizations its day-to-day operations, which thrive on supporting some 15-million members and local communities, were disrupted by the pandemic. Fortunately, the bank’s technological backbone was future-ready, thanks to a digital transformation project that sought to re-purpose their workspace infrastructure with the help of outside vendors and IT systems integrators.
Prior to 2020, the bank was looking to refresh their outsourcing strategy to improve the quality of their IT service desk and customer data center. A previous supplier deemed to have “lost interest” and considered lacking in innovative solutions, was consequently unable to add value to data center services. That’s when the institution turned to Capgemini expertise to leverage their prior assignments working with some of the largest world-class financial service providers.
Taking Charge of IT Operations
Using the Intelligent Service Centre (ISC) methodology, Capgemini deployed experienced Web Chat and Virtual Agents to provide round-the-clock IT support to 30,000 end users (including 10,000 laptops, 15,000 desktops and 5,000 VDI).
Service desks were seamlessly transitioned by offering dedicated transition team members to support operations, travel, facilities, HR, and other departments. The solution featured the latest in autonomics such as password resets and automated service requests that included artificial intelligence (AI) to process help desk requests and automate fixes.
Introducing this model immediately resulted in the dual benefit of reducing abandon call rates from 12% to two percent while also increasing first contact resolution from 32% to 45%.
Remote desktop ticket closures were also improved significantly from closing three tickets to now closing seven tickets per day. As a result, users received a more personalized experience. At contact, service desk staff now know if someone is based in a branch office or a central office, what the key business activity is, and what applications are necessary for the resource to carry out their business activities effectively.
Capgemini also found a way to optimize Citrix Workspace by reducing the number of licenses down from about 10,000 to less than 6,000, upon realizing that the bank was running Windows 10 desktops in concert with virtual desktops to access the same set of applications, inadvertently occupying two licenses as opposed to only needing one, effectively doubling their licensing costs.
Restoring services overnight amidst a surging pandemic
When it became clear the pandemic would endure, the bank’s offices were forced to close, prompting an urgent requirement for IT to come under Capgemini management to pave the way to supporting hundreds of remote desktops in the effort to sustain business continuity. The bank’s 1,000 call-center staff tasked with answering customer calls and web chats and who relied on desktops in traditional office settings, now needed to be up and running as remote services as soon as possible. After careful consideration of available options, Capgemini proposed a Citrix solution that was not only quick to implement, but also secure, flexible, and scalable for future growth.
Because the bank was equipped with a Citrix backbone, Capgemini was able to enable remote workers to securely connect to their in-office desktops via home devices using Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) technology. This helped to minimize downtime and buy some time until the team could source and deliver vanilla-build laptops to all remote workers.
Upon successful delivery of new laptops employees were able to functionally control their remote desktops and operate as though in-office. To ensure a successful roll-out of this scale, Capgemini overcame several unexpected challenges. For example, most in-office machines tend to fall to sleep-mode when not attended, marking a need to roll out a user policy to ensure desktops would not become inaccessible while employees were trying to connect remotely.
“As things begin to normalize, our pulse remains on customer success,” says Tariq Mohammad, Infrastructure Delivery Manager at Capgemini. “We continue to evolve and adapt to changing needs by leveraging next generation technologies and best practices to go beyond simply fulfilling service level agreements. We share a common value system with our customer-facing clients, which is that we both exist to serve.”
About the Author
Gary Taylor is a workspace offering manager and architect for Capgemini, responsible for developing end user transformation services for the company’s Connected Workspace offerings globally. Capgemini is a global leader in consulting, digital transformation, technology, and engineering services. A multicultural company of 265,000 people in nearly 50 countries, Capgemini’s purpose is to unleash human energy through technology for an inclusive and sustainable future. With Altran, the Group reported 2019 combined global revenues of €17 billion. Contact [email protected]; Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gary-taylor-3779ba11/
