“Transformational” was the latest buzzword at BMC’s Partner Summit held two weeks ago. Ken Berryman, BMC SVP Corporate Strategy and Development, explained that BMC’s new strategy is “ to achieve transformational growth by driving a winning strategy aligned across BMC Partners, Sales, and Services.” Vance Loiselle, BMC Vice President, Global Services, said that his top priority was to shift BMC Global Services from transactional to transformational. And, coincidently, Jeanne Ross and Peter Weill of the Wall Street Journal this week wrote an article entitled, “Four Questions Every CEO Should Ask about IT.”  Question No.1:  Are we using technology to transform our business, or are we just adding bells and whistles to existing processes?

According to this WSJ article, the question should not be “how do I use technology strategically?” Rather, it should be, “What would be the ideal way to interact with and serve my customers?”  This brought to mind the visit I had with Orange County, a RightStar and BMC customer, several weeks ago. Orange County is a large county serving central Florida. Their IT department supports 9,000 employees with a staff of 180. Orange County, like most municipalities, must deal with budget cuts and increasingly demanding constituents. At the heart of their IT infrastructure sits BMC Service Desk Express for traditional IT functions: Incident, Problem, Configuration and Change Management.

Orange County understands the value of application consolidation and utilizes SDE in a multipurpose fashion.  Additionally, you’ll find SDE as the centerpiece for several case management applications, a potential HR application, and, most importantly, a 311 application. The 311 application is used by its citizens to request information and to report non-emergency situations such as road potholes. Due to the call volume, the 311 service desk is staffed by 30 full time agents. In order to provide a transformational customer experience, Orange County is expanding its 311 service to their web site and utilizing SDE for both self-service and direct callers.

One important benefit is that citizens utilize a GIS based web-interface that allows them to identify precisely on a map where, for example, a traffic light is out, or a dog is barking. The goal is not to just improve service to its citizens by offering an easy to use portal, but also reduce the number of agents required to answer the phone.

At Hershey Medical, RightStar is putting the finishing touches on a BMC ITBM project portfolio management (PPM) system, which will allow Hershey to transform the total customer experience and reduce the their insurance costs significantly. By connecting project management to the service desk, a project manager can use the BMC SRM portal to set up a project and view the current status of one or all projects.  The system is drawing a lot of positive attention because PPM is not only used for the hospital’s IT projects but also for improving the quality of their health care services. With the ability to track critical care factors, such as length of time in the emergency room, staph infections, duration of stay, and more, Hershey Medical can maintain tighter control over the quality of care they provide to their patients.