BankservAfrica adopts Marval’s ITIL-based ITSM Expert

BankservAfrica, South Africa’s automated clearing house, has implemented Marval’s MSM Expert, an integrated ITIL-based solution that will enable the organisation to increase the efficiency of its IT service operation. This will improve and lower the cost of services to clients, and provide a framework that will enable the organisation to identify and implement continual operational improvements.

Chris Nolte, head of operations at BankservAfrica, explains an integrated view of all ICT service systems was needed. “Marval will ensure we now have clearly defined processes with continuous improvement measures and transparency into processes and operations. As an ITIL solution we can be assured of best practice integrated IT service management.”

Operating 365×24, BankervAfrica switches approximately two billion financial transactions a year, including interbank transactions and debit and credit card transactions. “Our aim is to ensure continuous improvement to meet our very stringent and demanding service level agreements, having achieved 100% uptime for real-time services in our last financial year. Operating in a highly regulated environment, we needed a system to effectively manage our critical ICT environment.”

Adopted globally, ITIL (www.itil-officialsite.com) provides a practical framework for identifying, planning, delivering and supporting IT services to the business. ITIL advocates that IT services be aligned to the needs of the business and underpin core business processes. Best practices are encompassed in five core guides that map the entire ITIL Service Lifecycle, beginning with the identification of customer needs and the drivers of IT requirements, through to the design and implementation of the service, and monitoring and improvement.

Efficiency, governance, adding value
Says Nolte: “By increasing the efficiency of our operations – and specifically the IT services that drive operations and client service – we can add further value to our primary clients, the financial institutions, and their customers. With changing market dynamics, there are ever higher demands on performance e.g., debit cards as a primary means of transacting is becoming more pervasive. Our clients and consumers expect 24×7 access to transact. At the same time, we are dealing with very sensitive information. The banks operate in a highly regulated environment with stringent security and governance policies surrounding all transactions. In addition, there are the King III good governance and the Payment Card Industry (PCI) Data Security Standards (DSS) to conform to.

“It is vital to understand IT service demands, along with the cost of and value derived from the application of its resource. Marval’s ITSM solution offers BankservAfrica the functionality needed to consolidate its IT Service Management functions into a single integrated system whilst adopting ITIL and best practices. This solution allows BankservAfrica to understand IT service demands along with the cost of, and value derived from the application of its resources – an integrated view of all IT service functions whilst adopting ITIL for governance,” says Edward Carbutt, Executive Director at Marval South Africa.

Marval is a single-source supplier of integrated, ITIL and ISO/IEC 20000 compatible IT Service Management (ITSM) service desk and software solutions, consultancy and accredited ITIL and ISO/IEC 20000 educational services. Established in 1989, Marval is a co-author of ITIL and ISO/IEC 20000, and currently still the only service management vendor who is ISO/IEC 20000 certified.

Marval’s ITSM solution, MSM Expert, is a 100% Web-based solution, developed using the .NET technology platform. It delivers a zero footprint, thin client solution to any browser enabled desktop. MSM is modular and integrated, incorporating service desk, incident management and request fulfilment, event management, problem management, knowledge item management, change and task management, release and deployment management, service asset and configuration management, service portfolio and catalogue management, service level management, service measurement and reporting, capacity management, service continuity management, availability management and outage tracking, and financial management. Various utilities and components, such as mail import, event monitor, contract service entitlement and Web self-service, are also included. MSM is certified under the PinkVERIFY toolsets for compatibility against 15 ITIL processes and carries both Gold and Silver OGC Swirls for all 15 processes.

First phase ITSM go-live
Marval’s IT Service Management Expert solution replaces all of BankservAfrica’s disparate systems and provides an ITIL certified governance framework. The solution rollout has begun and is accompanied by ITIL training of all relevant staff. The first phase go-live – which sees the Marval ITSM solution implemented for incident management and service desk, change management and problem management, is planned for later in October 2012. A knowledge management component will be introduced in a later phase.

Says Nolte: “This project is all about optimisation and providing more value for our internal and external clients. To achieve greater customer service efficiencies, we must drive our internal inefficiencies and implement real continual improvement. The software implementation is therefore just the first step.

“The real task will be mapping the organisation’s processes into the ITIL framework to measure and benchmark our operations, understand what we are doing and embark on improvement. This ’measure, review, improve’ process is ongoing,” he emphasises, “it is a journey. It is what will ensure the organisation remains a world class organisation providing world class services and has the agility to continue meeting the changing needs of its clients.”