Customer since 2017

Over 200 employees, supporting over 180 customers.

Awarded 'Pension Provider of the Year' and named 'Top Administration Software Provider' in 2024 by two industry publications.

Product: ITSM

Heywood Pension Technologies is the largest pensions administration software provider in the UK and Ireland. With offices in Cheshire and Surrey, the company employs over 200 people and serves operators of public sector and company pension schemes, third-party administrators, and life and pensions providers. Its software supports 90% of local councils in the UK, helping administer pension schemes with hundreds of thousands of members. Their mission is business-critical: ensuring pensions worth millions of pounds are paid correctly and on time every month.

What Heywood Pension Technologies was looking to achieve:

Heywood Pension Technologies aimed to enhance its service management approach to meet the evolving demands of both internal staff and external customers. With over 18,000 annual requests, 70% from external customers and 30% from internal staff, their legacy helpdesk systems were struggling to differentiate requests based on importance. This created inefficiencies, particularly during spikes in activity such as end-of-tax-year deadlines or new software rollouts. The company wanted to align with ITIL best practices, improve service visibility, and streamline its processes to provide exceptional support while transforming its business KPIs to address customer needs in a digitally driven world.

How Sunrise helped them achieve this:

Heywood Pension Technologies selected Sunrise IT Service Management (ITSM) software after an extensive market review. The solution provided built-in support for ITIL processes, robust reporting capabilities, and a user-friendly self-service portal. Key improvements included:

• Self-Service Portal Adoption: Customers could raise requests, check outstanding actions, and access knowledge articles to solve problems independently.
• Improved Request Categorisation: ITIL guidelines enabled better differentiation between incidents, problems, service requests, and changes, ensuring faster and more appropriate responses.
• Enhanced Reporting: Flexible management reporting helped embed service management further into the organisation, aligning with business objectives and supporting customer retention.

With these tools, Heywood transformed its approach, enabling proactive service management and fostering smoother, faster processes that met the expectations of a digitally savvy customer base.

The Results

Sunrise ITSM delivered significant improvements to Heywood’s service operations. One of the most impactful changes was the adoption of the self-service portal, with most requests now submitted through this platform. “We spent a long time educating everyone about the benefits of the online portal, and they’ve now adopted it enthusiastically as they see how it gives them greater visibility and makes the whole service management process smoother and faster,” said Steve Haslam, Head of Service Operations.

Service levels were enhanced through ITIL-aligned categorisation and differentiation of requests. “It allows us to manage all our work, categorise and differentiate, and get queries to the right person quickly and efficiently,” Steve explained. This approach ensured critical issues were prioritised while routine tasks were managed efficiently, directly supporting the company’s service level agreements (SLAs).

The ability to proactively log and track over 1,000 change requests annually provided greater oversight, while streamlined processes significantly improved customer satisfaction. As Steve noted, “Digital adoption has dramatically changed how the pensions world operates... their employees and ex-employees expect to be able to log on to a website whatever their time zone is and get the information they need instantly.” By adapting to these demands, Heywood ensured its service remained exceptional, helping customers and safeguarding millions of pounds in pension payments.

With Sunrise ITSM, Heywood Pension Technologies has successfully aligned its service operations with ITIL best practices, significantly enhancing efficiency, visibility, and customer satisfaction. The software supports the company’s mission-critical processes, ensuring that pensions worth millions of pounds are paid accurately and on time every month.

The adoption of ITIL has empowered Heywood to categorise and prioritise incoming requests effectively, allowing the team to respond swiftly to critical issues while maintaining high service standards. By embracing digital transformation and proactively evolving its KPIs and SLAs, Heywood is well-positioned to continue thriving in the dynamic pensions industry.

“Thanks to Sunrise and ITIL, we’re confident that we can better understand and respond to changing customer needs,” said Steve Haslam, Head of Service Operations.