SNCB transforms into a process-driven organization with ServiceNow

Accelerating the digital journey at SNCB

From online ticketing to station announcements, railways are accelerating their digital journeys. As SNCB accelerates digital adoption across the Belgian railway network, IT incidents shouldn’t hinder customers’ journeys.

Getting travelers to their destination quickly and comfortably requires a railway network that always runs smoothly. For that, its IT subsidiary Ypto must resolve incidents—and quickly.

If you aren’t aware, you can’t act

Typically, IT incidents at SNCB are related to the railway’s public website or ticketing system. Rapid resolution is as much about reaching the right person as it is about fixing the problem. “We wanted to evolve from a people- to a process-driven organization with effective standard processes to help people get their IT issues resolved quickly,” says Guido Lemeire, CIO of SNCB and CEO of Ypto, SNCB subsidiary and IT service provider.

Embracing digital technologies to improve efficiency

ServiceNow IT Service Management brings together multiple tools for logging IT tickets. The cloud-based platform provides a centralized incident management system that ensures everyone follows a standard and efficient process.

Around 4,000 members of SNCB’s 19,000-strong workforce use the system to log an average of 7,100 IT services incidents and requests every month. Whether a complex event or a simple request, users can follow up on their ticket, see who is dealing with it, and understand its status.

Ypto, together with its external IT partner TCS, monitors applications from ticketing to the public service announcement system. Issues are logged automatically, so ServiceNow IT Service Management sends out alerts whenever performance falls below par. “ServiceNow has helped us shift from availability monitoring to performance monitoring,” says Christian de Closset, IS Project Manager at Ypto.

Increased transparency ensures rapid resolution

Incidents that could previously take a day to resolve are now resolved within four hours.

Guido continues, “The right people are quickly made aware that they need to intervene, so issues can be resolved quickly to minimize their impact.”

Ypto also has all-round transparency and predictability, which was not available in the past. Incident tickets can be followed up, and lessons learned. Historical data reveals which applications create the most incidents. “ServiceNow IT Service Management gives us a clear view of the incidents we are dealing with, whether we are responding fast enough, and which applications we need to invest in,” says Guido.

Back in the driving seat

Incidents no longer go unrecorded and unsolved, and aging is typically just hours. Previously, queues typically had 2,000 tickets with an aging of as much as nine months. “With ServiceNow, tickets are never left in a queue to die,” says Guido. “And they no longer need to be escalated to the executive committee before they’re actioned.”

Dashboards help ensure assignment group owners can follow up on tickets daily. They can see how many tickets have been logged and where tickets are in their lifecycle.

Business management, meanwhile, gets regular tailored reports showing whether tickets are aging in a specific team, among other things. These reports mean they can ask questions and resolve any difficulties. “With ServiceNow IT Service Management, we are in control of what is happening and in better shape to address any issues,” says Christian.

Guido concludes by highlighting how ServiceNow is helping Ypto achieve its mission: “Our mission is to increase our predictability and to become the co-creator of the SNCB. Becoming a process-driven organization is at the heart of achieving this mission, and ServiceNow is a vital element of that.”

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