February 8, 2010 at 16:20IT inside HP
So, it is given : HP CIS - offices in 11 cities of Russia, in Minsk, Kiev, Baku, Almaty and Astana; about 1,500 employees who are always in a hurry. Local subnets connected via VPN and connected to global services (mail, Sharepoint, IP-telephony, hundreds of business applications).
Question : How many IT employees do you need to keep this all right?
Of course, to preserve the intrigue, the answer will be at the end of the post. In the meantime, let's see how the IT infrastructure is generally arranged in our large, large company.
Today, HP employs 304,000 people worldwide in 170 countries. Geographically, they are divided into 3 large roughly equal regions: Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA), America (North and South), and the Asia-Pacific. The needs of each region are served by its own giant data center, which runs the main enterprise applications: Exchange, Sharepoint, SAP ERP, Siebel CRM and several hundred others. Internal workflow in the company is almost completely electronic.
The IP Telephony service for HP in Europe is provided by British Telecom. In Russia, their contractor is the French Orange Telecom, registered under the name "Equant". They are in charge of the entire infrastructure: from the telephone on each desk and the PBX in the offices to the large hub in the vicinity of London, through which all calls go. Any of the 75,000 employees at EMEA can be called by their 11-digit extension number.
But despite the fact that most of the time it all works like a clock, sometimes something goes wrong. What in this case should the user do to solve the problem?
More than 20 years ago, Hewlett-Packard began to actively participate in the development of the ITIL / ITSM methodology . During this time, we ate countless dogs in IT management automation and today we sell our experience to customers in the form of dozens of software products . And it is logical that inside the company everything is built on them.
The solution to a typical problem (a letter is not sent, it is not possible to enter the virtual conference service, etc.) can and should fall on the shoulders of the user himself. To do this, the Get IT utility is installed and enabled by default on each working computer. And any solution starts with clicking on its tray icon (corporate OS - Windows).
The Get IT application is a local copy of the knowledge base available on the HP internal portal. It is constantly updated, from time to time the utility is automatically updated. The information in the database is divided into 10 main topics (mail, software, printing, telephones, etc.) and is available in 6 languages. You can search for a solution to your problem either by going deeper into the rubricator or by trying to formulate the problem in the search bar.
Not only IT gurus work in IT companies, but 70% of the problems are solved at this stage - after finding the most detailed guidance on how to fix them. A major role in the success of this approach is played by the continuous unification of the fleet of computers and applications that are used in the company.
If the solution did not work out (the problem is beyond the scope of typical ones or there was simply not enough patience), the user can contact a live specialist of the first line of technical support around the clock and year round. That is - to Bangalore or Costa Rica (depending on the time of day). Or, sometimes, to Poland. Even Homer Simpson was in favor of the idea of outsourcing!
As soon as communication begins (by phone or web chat), the IT specialist can already see the current configuration of the user's computer. And he often finds and solves the problem before the user has time to describe it. In most other cases, the solution takes no more than a few minutes.
If (sometimes it happens!) Even in India they don’t know how to help you, the application for the problem is escalated to the local support service. Only, again, a paradox, a local support service can also be located thousands of kilometers from you!
And here we are smoothly approaching the answer to the question at the beginning of the post. Throughout the CIS, the “last line” of support is in charge of ... drum roll ... 2 people. Meet: Denis Bogachev ( irreplaceable ) and Georgy Parygin ( Georgy_IT ). By the way, they are also not HP employees, but work in the company on a contract basis. HP's full-time IT support staff in the EMEA region is actually only 2 top managers. Tell me honestly, did you think so?
And now another question: what do you think, how many requests from colleagues have to personally process Denis and George within a month?
Well, now you ask questions to us :)
In the next episode of our exciting series: How to print a document if you work in the largest printer manufacturer? And the circuit of computers in nature - who said that the horse does not change at the crossing?
Question : How many IT employees do you need to keep this all right?
Of course, to preserve the intrigue, the answer will be at the end of the post. In the meantime, let's see how the IT infrastructure is generally arranged in our large, large company.
Big numbers
Today, HP employs 304,000 people worldwide in 170 countries. Geographically, they are divided into 3 large roughly equal regions: Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA), America (North and South), and the Asia-Pacific. The needs of each region are served by its own giant data center, which runs the main enterprise applications: Exchange, Sharepoint, SAP ERP, Siebel CRM and several hundred others. Internal workflow in the company is almost completely electronic.
The IP Telephony service for HP in Europe is provided by British Telecom. In Russia, their contractor is the French Orange Telecom, registered under the name "Equant". They are in charge of the entire infrastructure: from the telephone on each desk and the PBX in the offices to the large hub in the vicinity of London, through which all calls go. Any of the 75,000 employees at EMEA can be called by their 11-digit extension number.
But despite the fact that most of the time it all works like a clock, sometimes something goes wrong. What in this case should the user do to solve the problem?
Knowledge is power
More than 20 years ago, Hewlett-Packard began to actively participate in the development of the ITIL / ITSM methodology . During this time, we ate countless dogs in IT management automation and today we sell our experience to customers in the form of dozens of software products . And it is logical that inside the company everything is built on them.
The solution to a typical problem (a letter is not sent, it is not possible to enter the virtual conference service, etc.) can and should fall on the shoulders of the user himself. To do this, the Get IT utility is installed and enabled by default on each working computer. And any solution starts with clicking on its tray icon (corporate OS - Windows).
The Get IT application is a local copy of the knowledge base available on the HP internal portal. It is constantly updated, from time to time the utility is automatically updated. The information in the database is divided into 10 main topics (mail, software, printing, telephones, etc.) and is available in 6 languages. You can search for a solution to your problem either by going deeper into the rubricator or by trying to formulate the problem in the search bar.
Not only IT gurus work in IT companies, but 70% of the problems are solved at this stage - after finding the most detailed guidance on how to fix them. A major role in the success of this approach is played by the continuous unification of the fleet of computers and applications that are used in the company.
Live chat
If the solution did not work out (the problem is beyond the scope of typical ones or there was simply not enough patience), the user can contact a live specialist of the first line of technical support around the clock and year round. That is - to Bangalore or Costa Rica (depending on the time of day). Or, sometimes, to Poland. Even Homer Simpson was in favor of the idea of outsourcing! As soon as communication begins (by phone or web chat), the IT specialist can already see the current configuration of the user's computer. And he often finds and solves the problem before the user has time to describe it. In most other cases, the solution takes no more than a few minutes.
If (sometimes it happens!) Even in India they don’t know how to help you, the application for the problem is escalated to the local support service. Only, again, a paradox, a local support service can also be located thousands of kilometers from you!
last hope
And here we are smoothly approaching the answer to the question at the beginning of the post. Throughout the CIS, the “last line” of support is in charge of ... drum roll ... 2 people. Meet: Denis Bogachev ( irreplaceable ) and Georgy Parygin ( Georgy_IT ). By the way, they are also not HP employees, but work in the company on a contract basis. HP's full-time IT support staff in the EMEA region is actually only 2 top managers. Tell me honestly, did you think so?
And now another question: what do you think, how many requests from colleagues have to personally process Denis and George within a month?
Well, now you ask questions to us :)
To be continued ...
In the next episode of our exciting series: How to print a document if you work in the largest printer manufacturer? And the circuit of computers in nature - who said that the horse does not change at the crossing?