Independent Purchasing Company Australasia (IPCA) provides supply chain management and business solutions to over 3,000 SUBWAY franchisees in 13 countries across Asia-Pacific, including Australia, New Zealand, China and India.
“ServiceNow has made everyone’s life a lot easier. It gives us clear audit trails and process flows. And DXC ServiceNow practice has really ensured the scalability of the platform and low maintenance requirements.”
Lucy Armstrong Systems manager, Independent Purchasing Company Australasia
Within the last 5 years IPCA has grown from a staff of 10 to more than 70 employees. It has also grown geographically, with offices now located in Sydney, Auckland, Shanghai, Delhi, Seoul and Singapore.
Company growth supported by an adaptable system
Lucy Armstrong, systems manager, IPCA, describes the business as one that is always branching into new areas. “We work on requirements such as making sure stores receive fresh produce all the way through to helping them recruit staff. We’re always looking for new ways to support the franchisees, which is ultimately what our business is all about,” she says.
For any organisation, achieving a continual expansion of services during a period of such rapid growth requires good support management systems and exceptional visibility of issues management activity. At IPCA, this task was becoming a challenge and there was a need to reduce the reliance on Microsoft Excel and Access and move towards a more scalable software in order to support the growth.
Armstrong says, “We were relying on basic software and, at the time, were a relatively small team. We didn’t have any software-specific knowledge and we didn’t know anything about scripting. We needed a system that was agile and responsive, that could manage queries and connect all our information.”
The search for a cloud-based solution
To minimise the technology burden on the organisation, Armstrong decided to look for a cloud-based service desk platform. The cloud would reduce maintenance demands and ensure easy access for management while travelling throughout the region.
“The solution we were looking for had to have clear process loads so we could monitor and easily know where we are up to with all of our tasks and franchisee requests,” Armstrong says.
After considering the options, she selected a proposal from DXC’s Practice for ServiceNow, a leading cloud-based platform that focuses on transforming the organisation by automating and standardising business processes.
“We wanted to use the core functionality of the ServiceNow platform. At the same time, because we are not an IT help desk, we wanted something that we could customise easily without it costing a fortune. Ultimately any sort of business decision had to come down to a partner we could trust,” Armstrong says.
“ServiceNow’s self-service functionality and the licensing structure were key to the selection because if we’d had to pay for traditional licences for all of the 3,000-plus restaurants we support, or for the 1,000 supplier contacts, it wouldn’t have been possible.”
“We work on requirements such as making sure stores receive fresh produce all the way through to helping them recruit staff.”
Lucy Armstrong Systems manager, Independent Purchasing Company Australasia
Self-service keeps franchisees in the picture
DXC deployed the platform and developed the custom applications IPCA needed.
“We used DXC to design the systems,” Armstrong says. “The team helped to grow our ideas and decide on the best path of action. We needed that extra bit of external advice to get the best out of the implementation.” Initially, activity focused on developing service desk functionality for the support team. The project took 6 months to complete.
“It might sound like a long time but, within the initial build, we wanted to make sure we had the right relationships and the right structure to support future roll-outs,” Armstrong says.
As the system was rolled out across the region, users responded eagerly. Using the self-service functionality, for the first time, franchisees could log into a portal and track and view the progress of their requests to IPCA. Automated notifications also helped to keep them informed of activity.
“Prior to this, the communication with franchisees was via a phone call or an email, so this new visibility was really beneficial for them,” Armstrong says.
Within IPCA, Armstrong said, “ServiceNow has made everyone’s life a lot easier. It gives us clear audit trails and process flows. And DXC has really ensured the scalability of the platform and low maintenance requirements.”
“ServiceNow’s selfservice functionality and the licensing structure were key to the selection because if we’d had to pay for traditional licences for all of the 3,000-plus restaurants we support, or for the 1,000 supplier contacts, it wouldn’t have been possible.”
Lucy Armstrong Systems manager, Independent Purchasing Company Australasia
A platform for many needs
Since then, DXC has continued to develop the system, customising ServiceNow’s standard contract management module to enable it to capture additional information, including product and country-specific details for each contract.
A facility for suppliers has been added, enabling them to access the portal and enter sales information or queries directly.
To ensure a complete record of every query or request, the system also stores every piece of communication — internal, external and even meeting minutes — creating a single source of truth for service.
Tablet and smartphone interfaces have been added to complement the original desktop interface.
“We’ve made lots of improvements since launching the system based on feedback from users,” Armstrong says. “Because we are confident in the abilities of the software, we know we can tweak and perfect the system after it has gone live.”
Growing in scope
“The platform has grown in scope as we’ve seen what it can do. Initially, our primary concern was to make sure our help desk was streamlined and unified but the additional functionality was so easy and so obvious to add on,” Armstrong says.
“DXC has been integral to the growth of the system. We couldn’t have done half as much without them. They’ve set very high standards for all the other companies we deal with. The big thing is they’ve always been very invested and committed to the success of our rollouts. And, because they’ve helped us so much in minimising costs, we have been able to bring them on to do more, to carry out complex builds and discovery.”
Up next: External connectivity
Armstrong has already set her sights on the next challenge for IPCA’s ServiceNow platform. “I suppose the thing moving forward for us will be linking to external platforms. IPCA is one small cog within the huge SUBWAY world. There are many other areas of the SUBWAY system where we have a relationship, and there is an opportunity to integrate with each other’s systems to allow for automatic updating,” she says.
“Creating those APIs and that integration will be a big project. We haven’t started on this yet, but we are keeping it in the back of our mind. What’s good about this is that is that DXC also knows where we are heading and they are already thinking about how to get there.”