Doubling down on high-velocity IT
The booming online casino and gaming industry boasts double-digit growth and revenue dollars in the tens of billions. In the US alone, the industry had more than $5 billion in revenue last year. For gaming companies, keeping pace with growth is one challenge; another is addressing frequently changing government regulations.
Greentube has proved adept at managing both challenges, serving up digital casino games similar to classic Las Vegas-style games—slots, table games, video bingo and poker. Some of its popular titles include Book of Ra™ deluxe, Lord of the Ocean™ and Lucky Lady's Charm™ deluxe.
People play Greentube games directly on the company's branded online websites and indirectly through Greentube B2B partners that run games through their own online casinos, video lottery terminals (VLT), and as social casino gaming, which builds loyalty to physical casinos. Greentube games are also on in-casino machines made by its parent company Novomatic. Its omni-channel strategy aligns well with the increasing convergence of digital and physical gaming to open up even more growth opportunities.
With many solutions and an extensive partner network, Greentube needs its IT services team to work as collaboratively and efficiently as possible. "We have to quickly onboard new markets and partners, monitor game availability and resolve issues fast", says Davy Eitler, Head of IT Service and Organization at Greentube.
The challenge was that these activities, and others directly affecting how teams work, relied on disconnected tools and manual processes. "We set out to streamline and align processes on one tool—standardise on a platform of platforms", explains Susanne Eickmann, IT Service Management Team Lead at Greentube.
A future-proof foundation for services
Eitler wanted a proven, agile and well-supported solution rated a leader by industry analyst firm Gartner. Eickmann recommended ServiceNow based on her own experience—and Eitler agreed. It was a smart decision. Following a careful rollout to gain user buy-in, Greentube saw an 80% increase in partner satisfaction, a 40% reduction in manual tasks, dramatically faster new market onboarding and substantially better uptime.
The IT service team quickly realised that ServiceNow could be used broadly across Greentube, unifying processes to accelerate problem resolution and maximise game uptime. With the help of trusted partner Do IT Wise, the team began by defining the relationship between where problems originate—in gaming applications, third-party applications, software, network and hardware—and how to fix them.
"With ServiceNow as a foundation, we defined a common services data model and configuration database based on insights from our process experts and Do IT Wise", says Eitler. This model optimised both partner and IT service catalogues.
Next, Eitler and Eickmann moved Greentube B2B partner support workflows, accounts and contacts into a new integrated partner portal using ServiceNow Customer Service Management. Do IT Wise assisted in the migration and applied best practices. The team populated the portal with insights from network operations centre (NOC) engineers and partner data from spreadsheets.
Partners can now self-register, manage their contact details and submit service requests through a standard portal process to the B2B partner service desk. This approach is much more efficient and traceable than the previous approach, which required more manual actions, and also makes the status transparent for the entire organisation.
"By streamlining and automating partner support in ServiceNow, all Greentube teams are aware of issues and can work together to accelerate resolution", says Eickmann.
ServiceNow simplifies market and partner onboarding processes as well. "Thanks to ServiceNow, entry into new markets and new partners has been dramatically shortened", says Eickmann.
Always open for business
Availability is a priority for all websites and platforms running Greentube games. If the games and payment apps don't work, money isn't coming in. Greentube needs to monitor availability, flag issues as early as possible, hone in on potential causes and fix them.
Greentube first gathered a detailed understanding of the architecture of each website and platform—numbering more than 300—using horizontal Discovery and Service Mapping. All details, including configuration information, changes, expiries and retirements, are all stored in the ServiceNow Configuration Management Database (CMDB).
"With IT Operations Management, we know the infrastructure behind each website and critical details such as which payment service and games run on each site.
This simplifies identifying and resolving problems", says Eickmann. "From a security compliance perspective, it is easier to make sure everything is up to date."
NOC engineers use a predefined workflow to open incidents, which IT analyses in context of the infrastructure. Other internal IT requests and incidents flow reliably through the IT service desk and self-service portal built on ServiceNow IT Service Management.
Single-pane dashboards display the availability of websites and B2B partner infrastructures. Downtime events trigger notifications to Greentube directors via the ServiceNow Mobile Agent, saving time that can be used to further process improvement.
"We have faster workflows and greater visibility to incidents with ServiceNow, minimising website downtime", says Eickmann. "When our games run smoothly, our gamers are happy and we generate more revenue."
Agility in every process
To overcome resistance to new ways of working, Do IT Wise and the IT team ran workshops during design phases to gather input on incident and change management. Then the team led education sessions at scale in phased rollouts for a year—introducing attendees to the customer portal, incident management, change management and the benefits of ServiceNow.
"Greentube did a remarkable job gaining support for the new solution. They smoothly onboarded hundreds of people from multiple teams and cultivated a pool of strong advocates, many of whom initially preferred another approach", says Chavdar Hristov, Do IT Wise Service Delivery Manager.
Subject to strict industry governance, Greentube's security and risk team saw an opportunity to use ServiceNow for third-party supplier risk assessment. By centralising vendor details, the team can easily request information from multiple vendors. "When a threat arises and we have to understand associated risk, we can use ServiceNow Third-party Risk Management to quickly get responses from all vendors to affirm compliance", says Eickmann.
One thing that particularly impressed the team was the big jump in demand for ServiceNow tools across Greentube. With interest from many groups, the IT team now tests and uses ServiceNow for contracts, IT projects and licensing management. For HR processes, the team built an employee service centre that supports onboarding and offboarding. In addition, Greentube is interested in event management and integrating artificial intelligence (AI) into its operations.
"Our platform is scalable, processes are faster, people are happier and the word is spreading", concludes Eitler. "With ServiceNow, we continue to find new ways to accelerate our business."
About Greentube
A leading full-service online and mobile gaming provider, Greentube supplies classic and tailored content, real money and social operations. Greentube products and services include classic slots, video bingo games, video poker games, table games, server-based gaming, social casino gaming and much more.
About Do IT Wise
Do IT Wise focuses on transforming the way organisations operate and improving their end-to-end processes digitally. The company combines years of Transformational Consulting experience with deep implementation knowledge of leading software platforms, such as ServiceNow. Do IT Wise has over 140 certified consultants that guide clients in every step of their digital journey. The company has worked with Greentube for four years.