How ABN AMRO Asset Management Banks On IT Service Management

Market Wire, 20050229

Asset management is a fast-moving business. So when staff have IT problems, they want a quick return on their employer's investment.

ABN AMRO Asset Management is one of the world's leading asset managers, looking after more than 175 billion euros (108 billion sterling) from more than 30 locations around the globe.

If decisions are not taken quickly and correctly, ABN AMRO Asset Management loses money. This means that even small problems must be fixed quickly. In such an environment, all IT systems are critical.

ABN AMRO Asset Management uses what it calls a 'straight-through' process: when a fund manager makes a decision to buy or sell, he keys the instruction into his workstation; the instruction then passes through several layers of IT infrastructure before arriving at the Dealer Desk, which executes the deal.

The bank's central Service Desk in Amsterdam delivers support to the Amsterdam area, covering all Dutch Asset Management offices and some European satellites. The Service Desk, which uses Axios Systems' assyst Help Desk and IT Service Management software, takes some 1,200 calls a month. That might seem like a lot when you consider the number of employees, but not when you understand the asset management business.

In banking, the reliability of data is also crucial: even several digits after the decimal point can make a big difference. It is important that all data received is correct and readily available.

Up to 500 employees work in the company's main office, just a few steps away from the Ajax football stadium. The seven-person IT Service Desk staff provide first-level support.

Three groups provide second-level support. Another group at a computer centre in Amstelveen deals with several business-critical applications.

Logging and tracking incidents via the internet

ABN AMRO Asset Management implemented Axios's assystNET, a tool for customer Web-based incident logging and status tracking. The system delivered easy access over the Internet/intranet to the business, reducing the number of non-critical calls to the Service Desk.

As the Service Desk takes over responsibility for other European centres and ponders a global support role, it will benefit from the use of assystNET.

The introduction of assystNET means ABN AMRO Asset Management staff can log fault calls and track the resolution of their incidents over the Web as well as by phone. Incidents will still be solved locally as well as centrally, but they will be logged only in a central database in Amsterdam.

Apilot scheme at the company's head office showed about a quarter of all calls could be logged via assystNET - equivalent to around 300 calls a month. Managers can track problems by department, and individuals can look up their own incidents for progress reports.

"That's what the business really wants to know. The worst thing is hearing nothing," said Erno Doorenspleet, IT Production Manager. "Now they can see what the status is. They can call us if they want more information, but everything we do is in the system and available to them."

If more information becomes available about a particular incident, staff can add it to the logged incident themselves, using assystNET.

Aknowledge database, functioning like a conventional help screen, provides answers to Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) and should reduce call volumes even more.

"assystNET should also be helpful for logging calls outside office hours, especially from different time zones," added Erwin Boon of IT consultancy CMG. "Staff know they'll be called back first thing in the morning."

Where are the desktops?

Abarcode scanner which links hardware items to different locations helps the IT department keep track of non-authorised movements of hardware.

ABN AMRO Asset Management works on very broad software platforms including NT, Unix, Novell, Microsoft and IBM. A total of around 600 different software items are on its database in Amsterdam alone, together with some 1,200 items of desktop hardware items, excluding screens.

Every year, it installs around 200 new PCs. The bank therefore needs an efficient system to track where these machines go and to ensure that old machines have been returned. The barcode scanner makes this process quicker and easier.

One IT staff member was able to complete the first physical verification in three weeks, collecting and adjusting data in assyst. With the scanner, the whole process should take one person just three hours.

Verifications will be carried out every quarter, increasing the reliability of information about the locations of hardware items.

Finding the right IT Service Management System

ABN AMRO Asset Management's search for an improved IT Service Management system began as a project - managed by CMG - to put IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) processes in place. It then needed a product to support them.

The IT team wanted to make it easier for the department to run its business and gain more control over it. The first step was to use ITIL as a baseline and make it work in ABN AMRO Asset Management's environment in the Netherlands. It had to be sure that the product it chose could also be used in other countries where the company operates.