EPFL partners with ServiceNow to transform its service desk

To bring systems and quality to EPFL’s IT support services for students and staff, the university turned to ServiceNow to deploy a new service desk. A major expansion followed—supporting and enabling many business-critical activities.

A center of excellence

The École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland is one of the most prestigious science and technology universities in the world. It’s also one of the most diverse and cosmopolitan, with 120 countries represented by its 16,000 students, faculty, partners, and support staff. Today it specializes in natural sciences and engineering, and amongst its many achievements in its 150-year history was the invention of Velcro, used in thousands of everyday applications by millions of people worldwide.

Robust and reliable

Rated among the best universities in the world, EPFL is a large and complex organization. Time is precious for students, research teams, faculty, and administrators alike, budgets are under constant scrutiny and the drive for quality, efficiency, and outstanding academic excellence and achievement is intense.

Everyone relies heavily on robust and reliable IT to succeed — and when they need help with their technology and devices, support services, information, and guidance need to be instantly available.

Strategically important platform

To achieve its ambitions for a service desk that provides great support and advice, resolves issues quickly and efficiently, and keeps everyone connected and productive, EPFL partnered with ServiceNow. With its service desk transformed, use of the Now Platform has expanded rapidly, and is now established as a “strategically important platform”. It’s used to digitize thousands of weekly supplier invoices, manage vital research funds, enhance its security profile, co-ordinate events, and organize all major IT infrastructure projects. 

Flexible, educational employment

The service desk is now the first port of call for students and staff, with a user-friendly and functionality-rich portal encouraging self-service. But EPFL’s masterstroke was to staff its service desk with its own students. Who better to understand and empathize with the needs of students than students themselves? Up to 80 undergraduates enjoy flexible, educational employment, using the Now Platform to support fellow students and staff.

Formula for success

It’s a formula for consistent success, with 88% of users surveyed “very satisfied” with the service desk — a remarkable figure achieved for three consecutive years. To ensure complete transparency, ServiceNow is enabling EPFL to record, analyze, and publish reports on its use of hundreds of millions of euros of research grants, used throughout the university’s departments and laboratories. And by upgrading and doubling the number of ServiceNow licenses, EPFL is embracing automation, artificial intelligence, and data analytics to turbocharge its IT.

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