UB selects Sunrise for IT Service Management

News Release

IT Service Management and Self-Service boost IT efficiency and save UK’s leading biscuit manufacturer £25,000 a year

Chessington, 1 October 2013 – UK-headquartered Service Management company Sunrise Software has today announced that United Biscuits (UB), the UK’s leading biscuit manufacturer, has selected its flagship product Sostenuto ITSM to support 4,000 users at more than 15 locations in the UK, Belgium, France, Netherlands and the Republic of Ireland. Since deploying Sostenuto ITSM and Sunrise Software’s Self-Service portal ‘Iguana’, UB has significantly boosted IT efficiency and expects to save in the region of £25,000 every year. Based at the organisation’s headquarters in Liverpool, the new Sostenuto ITSM Service Desk delivers round-the-clock support to employees throughout the organisation, with UB’s third party support partners based in India also accessing the central Service Desk to manage incidents around the world.

After reviewing several vendors in the marketplace, UB selected Sunrise primarily for its high degree of flexibility and cost-effectiveness

According to Gary Devaney, IT Service Manager at United Biscuits, “The time had come to create a more dynamic Service Desk environment that could deliver faster, more efficient IT services to help staff tackle the challenges of our expanding international business activities head on. Sunrise was streets ahead of the competition. It met all our requirements for simplicity and flexibility all within a cost-effective package.”

United Biscuits went live in just four months with both Sostenuto ITSM and Iguana Self-Service solutions. UB’s 40+ strong IT team is using Sostenuto ITSM to develop robust and consistent processes for Incident, Change and Problem Management across the organisation.

Using Sostenuto ITSM, UB’s IT department can create new fields, develop the right security framework, handle all their own trouble-shooting and then report back on the performance of the Service Desk themselves without accruing additional costs from external consultancy or add-ons.

Sostenuto ITSM now captures 100% of IT incidents ensuring all receive prompt attention. Staff are able to log their own issues via the Iguana web-based Self-Service portal. In addition to saving time and reducing the number of calls coming into the Service Desk, the introduction of Self-Service has given users complete visibility, of how their incidents are being handled and the ability to track progress from beginning to end.

Using Sostenuto ITSM, United Biscuits has significantly improved the company’s Change Management process. Requested IT changes are now sent automatically by email to managers with sign-off authority who simply accept or reject them at the click of a mouse. The speed and simplicity of the process means that far greater numbers of changes are approved and subsequently administered than ever before.

In the short time since deploying Sunrise Software, United Biscuits has reaped considerable benefits. The simplicity and flexibility of the system alone have delivered significant time savings through customisation and self-service. Most striking, however are the tangible cost benefits of Sunrise Software made possible by a single, consolidated platform that is easy to maintain, in a totally virtualised environment without the need for new or additional hardware. Add to this a cost-effective software licensing model and UB’s initial investment in Sunrise technology is expected to yield impressive savings of around £25,000 a year, every year.

Geoff Rees, Sales Director of Sunrise Software, concluded: “Above all, United Biscuits values the simplicity and flexibility of Sostenuto. As a forward-looking organisation, it is continually looking for creative solutions to the challenges of working in a fast-paced, international business environment whilst minimising capital and operational costs. Sostenuto ITSM has transformed UB’s Service Desk environment enabling them to deliver an efficient, transparent service to users today with the power to do more with less, continually innovate and successfully support their business in the future.”

For more information on Sunrise Software, its products, services and customers, please visit www.sunrisesoftware.com

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NOTES TO EDITORS

About United Biscuits

United Biscuits (UB) is one of the world’s pre-eminent branded snacks businesses. It produces some of the best known and loved sweet and savoury snacks, with products ranging from biscuits and crackers to cakes and savoury snacks. The company’s unrivalled portfolio of brands has been meeting consumer needs for well over 100 years and includes such favourites as McVitie’s, Jacob’s, Carr’s, Jaffa Cakes, Mini Cheddars, go ahead!, Verkade, Sultana, BN, and Delacre.

UB holds leading or strong number two positions in its core markets of the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, France, Belgium and Ireland. Moreover, the company’s brands and products have global appeal. It has a rapidly growing international business unit serving consumers from North America to the Middle East, Africa, and Australia.

For more information, please visit www.unitedbiscuits.com