 | Oil States International, Inc.Collaborative Teamwork Quadruples Global Support PresenceOverviewOil States International, Inc., is an oilfield services company and a leading, integrated provider
of remote-site accommodations with prominent market positions in the Canadian oil sands and
the Australian mining regions. Oil States is also a leading manufacturer of products for deepwater
production facilities and subsea pipelines, as well as a provider of completion-related rental tools, oilcountry
tubular-goods distribution and land-drilling services to the oil and gas industry. In 2011, Oil
States posted revenues of $5.86 billion.Challenge: Connect Nine Companies to One Global Support GroupOil States International is a highly diversified company that has experienced exponential growth
through acquisition. But when it acquires a new business, it also acquires an IT system that will not
connect to its existing platforms. “Oil States is a conglomerate consisting of nine different companies
spread around the world,” said Robb Harper, Lead Technical Support Analyst for Oil States. “Two
of the companies had large, automated systems management solutions in place, and the others had
smaller, home-grown systems. The fact that the systems were segmented and could not talk to each
other created significant problems when it came to supporting our environment.”No Standardized Support ProcessesIncident management and request fulfillment are the meat and potatoes of technical support. They were
proving to be major headaches for Harper’s team. “Each IT group was performing these two critical tasks
differently,” he explained. “Because we did not have global, standardized support processes in place, we could
not implement consistent, repeatable practices across all of our companies. In addition, because we did not
have global visibility into the different companies’ management systems, we never knew what our fellow
technicians were doing. Both issues caused problems. For example, users at companies with small IT staffs
might experience delays in receiving services even though technicians at other companies were available to
pitch in and help.”Inconsistent Fulfillment ProcessIf users wanted to order a new PC, software or other products, the fulfillment process was not intuitive or
fast. “If an employee needed a new hardware component,” said Harper, “an IT technician would end up
researching and choosing items because we could not display all the standard options available to our users.
The process was slow and so were delivery times. This was frustrating for the users and ate up a lot of our
technicians’ time.“Oil States’ various IT departments needed to work collaboratively. “Each IT group had its own practices
and approach to supporting its environment,” noted Harper. “In order to align all of our teams, we needed
everyone working on a single management platform. We also wanted a system that was process-driven so we
could apply repeatable support practices and take control of our global environment.”Solution: LANDesk Service Desk Ties Teams TogetherHarper researched several of the leading automated management systems on the market. “It came down to LANDesk
and one of its major competitors,” said Harper. “We picked LANDesk for several reasons. It is ITIL compliant, which
was a big point for us; we wanted to be compliant with a highly recognized framework of best practices. Scalability
was also a deciding factor. Our company grows quickly and LANDesk will grow with us and for a very reasonable
cost. While price played a part in our decision—we understand that it costs money to work smarter—we always have
to do more with less and LANDesk offered the toolset we needed at a very cost-effective price. In fact, we estimate
that LANDesk will pay for itself in the first twelve months.”High Level of Service, Customized for Each CompanyThe solution allowed Oil States to combine each IT group into one big team. “In one stroke we quadrupled our
support presence,” said Harper. “The defined workflow in LANDesk Service Desk in conjunction with LANDesk
Management Suite allows us to provide a consistent, high level of service to all users around the world. In addition,
each of our nine companies has slightly different support needs, and we can customize the solution to address these
particular needs. Now that we have a single management platform, we have global visibility into our inventory,
software licensing, ticket queue and more. If necessary, a technician in Houston can service a PC in Thailand.”300 Items in CatalogThe LANDesk Service Catalog has transformed request fulfillment. “We have over 300 items in our catalog and
dozens of views based on company membership” said Harper. “When we first rolled it out, we thought it might be
a little overwhelming for the users. But we were surprised at how well it was received by the large number of people
who used it, successfully, on the very first day. We customized the catalog so users at each company see only the
options available to them specifically. We put the purchasing decision in their hands, freeing up hours of technician
time and speeding up the fulfillment and delivery processes.”Data Drives Bottom LineData is mission-critical to the success of the company. “If the various businesses under the Oil States umbrella can’t
access their data,” said Harper, “then the IT Department is not doing its job. There is a direct correlation between
productivity and revenue: getting users up and running quickly affects the bottom line. LANDesk is instrumental in
allowing us to maintain productivity at high levels and help grow the business.” Read Story
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 | Nuremberg AirportIncreasing Efficiency and Cost Savings through Centralized Client ManagementOverviewNuremberg Airport (Flughafen Nürnberg GmbH, Nuremberg, Germany) has approximately 1,000 employees and offers 60 direct and connecting flights to more than 300 destinations worldwide. It manages a passenger volume of approximately four million travelers and over 100,000 tons of air freight. As one of the top 10 commercial airports in Germany, Nuremberg Airport serves as a hub for the carrier airberlin and it is also Germany’s third-largest transfer airport.* In 2010, the “Business Traveler Award” named Nuremberg Airport the best airport in Germany for its outstanding service offerings and excellent traffic and transport connections.ChallengeTwo hundred different applications serve the requirements of Nuremberg Airport, including applications for flight planning and handling, access and time registration, tank storage, baggage handling and sorting, as well as for building-related planning and managing tasks. Realizing that the consolidation of IT makes work easier, increases quality and provides savings in software license costs, airport operators wanted a solution for reorganizing their IT environment into a centralized, and thus more efficient and more cost-effective client management solution.The airport’s existing heterogeneous IT landscape included Microsoft SQL and Oracle databases; partly outdated UNIX, Linux, and Microsoft server environments; and VMware and Microsoft Windows Vista clients. Novell products needed to be replaced for cost reasons. It was also essential that client management functions, which until then were accomplished with several systems, were centralised.SolutionBased on technical requirements and a cost-benefit analysis, Nuremberg Airport operators decided in favor of LANDesk® Management Suite, LANDesk® Patch Manager, LANDesk® Process Manager and LANDesk® Application Virtualization solutions—integrated in a single console. They compared various client/server tools combined with an integrated solution for application virtualization—an important point in selecting the right technology for as many as 200 software applications. LANDesk® technology represented the solution that best suited the airport’s needs. Matthias Wunram, Project Manager, Flughafen Nürnberg GmbH, explains: “The entire package offered by LANDesk stands out mainly because of its ease of use, stability, and continuous innovation. Furthermore, tools like LANDesk® Package Builder and AdminStudio for LANDesk® Edition, along with the Autoit for Windows freeware support the packaging of applications which is very important for Nuremberg Airport.”Since the beginning of 2010, Nuremberg Airport has been using LANDesk® solutions to centrally manage its IT infrastructure. In order to ensure the best possible implementation within a short period of time, airport operators engaged Sparxent, a LANDesk partner who provided excellent support during the initial phase of the project. Besides troubleshooting,
the LANDesk professionals set up a hardware-independent OS distribution for Microsoft
Windows Vista, including driver integration. They also incorporated dynamic software
installation as a component of the OS deployment, as well as an automated patch process
using the integrated LANDesk Process Manager product. Sparxent proved itself right away as
a good choice, and today Sparxent partners with the airport on an ongoing basis for all of its
services needs regarding LANDesk, such as training, consulting, and project management.Matthias Wunram is convinced: “We highly recommend LANDesk. Complexity has been
greatly reduced by consolidating our client management solutions, and costs with regard
to server hardware have dropped. With the virtual bundling of applications, which is an
extremely important point for us, they provided an ideal solution,” he says. Concerning
Sparxent Wunram adds, “Expert advice and consulting, as well as the in-depth understanding
of our requirements by Sparxent have significantly contributed to the fact that our IT
infrastructure was optimized and works flawlessly. Our staff were also able to benefit from
Sparxent’s knowledge and know-how of LANDesk solutions.”Wunram concludes, “LANDesk client management has already proven its worth in practice.
The new system delivers valid data that the airport operators can again rely on, and it is also
running smoothly during software distribution.” Read Story
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