Syntax centralises and speeds global service delivery for customers and employees

A leader in managed IT services, Syntax creates a global IT "factory"    

Syntax offers outsourced IT solutions—from managed hosting to application. management—across four continents, with offices in China, Germany, Mexico, Slovakia, and the United States.

Syntax’s 1,000 employees are perfectly equipped to support the digital needs of modern enterprises, in particular when it comes to the business-critical software on which these businesses rely.

Syntax has an ambitious vision to become a global IT “factory”—an exceptionally streamlined organisation that significantly simplifies IT delivery for customers, with the ability to serve any request regardless of a customer’s location or resource requested.

However, the reality was that Syntax did not have the global infrastructure in place to deliver on this vision. Each region was running independently, with its own local infrastructure and processes, and little interaction or collaboration among the different regions. 

The company recognised that it needed to completely overhaul its own IT systems, as Dennis Reif, Head of Global Project Management at Syntax, explains, “Historically, having dedicated regional infrastructures wasn’t problematic as we simply needed to be where our customers were. However, as our customers grew in size and ambition, it became clear that we needed to change how we were operating. We needed to put in place a platform that would support truly global delivery.”

ServiceNow provides a blueprint for successful global IT service, operations, and business management
Syntax initiated an organizational restructuring as the first step on the path to creating the global IT factory. Selecting the right technology partner to support the business all the way through the transformation was also critical and ServiceNow was the clear choice.

“We needed a cloud-based platform that would support our global requirements, which could be accessed by any employee, anywhere, anytime,” says Dennis. “With ServiceNow we can support every service delivery requirement and consolidate all data and processes onto one platform.”

A global collaboration between ServiceNow and all of Syntax’s process owners and managers created a blueprint approach for the new global delivery platform, with a multi-phase deployment.

The launch of a web shop was one of the first projects on the platform, creating a streamlined way for Syntax staff to request IT equipment. Dennis comments, “Ordering IT equipment had been a burden for our IT team. The ServiceNow powered web shop immediately showed us the power of the platform and provided a real jump start to the project.”

Today, the platform supports the full breadth of global IT service delivery, IT operations management, and Strategic Portfolio Management, bringing digital workflows to accelerate processes and customer support.

As Dennis explains, “The multi-phase implementation phase has been quite successful, and ServiceNow as well as some additional partners provided us with exceptional support all the way.”

Syntax now provides a best-in-class service experience for customers and employees
Today, every employee of Syntax uses the new global IT platform. Customer service and ticketing processes are consistent across every region, with all requests, problems, and incidents managed through the same platform.

Digital workflows intelligently capture and route every element of the IT operation, from customer support to project management, which has greatly simplified the delivery of projects and accelerated the customer service process.

As Dennis points out, “Everything in our business is a lot more transparent. Whoever needs information or service can get it anytime, anywhere, as we have a single platform for all data and business workflows.

”Syntax has seen astonishing results from its IT transformation initiative. Average project planning time is now 10 minutes, rather than up to several weeks; customer escalations have decreased by 90%; internally, project steering is down to 15 minutes per day; and project execution is up to four times faster than it had been previously.

These significant gains mean the company is now able to serve more customers and run more projects simultaneously—expanding its capacity to grow its business and gain a competitive advantage.

“With the new global approach to IT delivery, we have created a very good experience for our customers and our employees,” says Dennis. “The results we have seen so far speak for themselves. The productivity boost and efficiency savings we have achieved wouldn’t have been possible without ServiceNow.”

With ServiceNow, Syntax will continue to advance its vision through automation
Syntax is now pushing to advance its vision of creating a global IT factory, working with ServiceNow to bring skills, resource, and capacity management onto the platform. The company is also looking at how it can benefit from artificial intelligence (AI), for example by using chatbots to streamline more routine interactions, both internally and with customers.

Dennis concludes: “We are on a continuous IT transformation journey and that is extremely exciting to be a part of, together with our internal IT department, which initiated and drives the overall ESM@Syantax program. We are aiming to build a new, agile organization that is being created for the needs of our customers and employees, and that is incredibly powerful and motivational. ServiceNow is so much more than just a tool for our business.”