NRMA fosters a culture of continuous improvement with JSM

The Opportunity

From Roadside Assistance to ITSM Overhaul

For over a century, NRMA has been the go-to name for roadside assistance in Australia. But as it expanded into diverse ventures like vehicle rentals, marine services, holiday parks and even energy solutions, its legacy IT Service Management (ITSM) system, ServiceNow, just wasn’t quite cutting it anymore.

The business needed something more agile, cost-effective, and user-friendly. Enter Elegance Group and Atlassian’s Jira Service Management (JSM).

Stuck in the Black Box

NRMA’s General Manager of Technology Engineering, Andy McCarthy, knew it was time for a change. Their existing ITSM platform had several issues: “It was like a black box,” Andy says. “We couldn’t touch it without spending a fortune and maintenance and upgrades were costly, eating into the budget.” NRMA employees couldn’t customize the system to meet their specific needs, which stifled innovation and efficiency. Additionally, the platform only updated every six months which was slowing down NRMA’s agile workflow.

The Solution

A Fresh Start with Jira Service Management

After being recommended by Atlassian, Andy and his team decided to partner with Elegance Group to implement Atlassian’s Jira Service Management. This choice was driven by JSM’s flexibility, integration capabilities, and strong market position.

The scope of the ServiceNow to JSM migration and the comprehensive JSM solution design and deployment, involved:

• More than 60 request types with unique flow and field requirements
• Advanced conditional 0 to 4-stage business and stakeholder approvals
• Advanced Service Catalogue and easy approval/assignment routing management implemented in Assets CMDB
• Incident and Major Incident, Change and Problem Management solutions, aligned with wider Service and System Catalogues and their respective owners, stakeholders and approvers
• Complex ServiceNow variable field reports merged and intricately pre-processed to form the JSM import payloads, achieving approval state, approver and escalation state mapping
• Carefully orchestrated multi-phased cutover process, involving runbook coordination across 4 timezones, 30 resolver groups, field services, asset and CMDB management and business teams
• Comprehensive training materials and video production and recorded session deliveries to multiple 60+ agent/resolver session audiences

Planning the Change

The NRMA team started the change with stakeholder engagement - meeting with different business units across NRMA. “Getting all those stakeholders together was no small task, but once they saw the potential, it was much easier to engage,” Andy shared. “We took an iterative approach using a scrum methodology to roll out the solution in stages. To keep the project moving, we took small bites of the elephant," Andy says referring to their step-by-step approach to the implementation.

Implementing the Solution

Initially, NRMA tested the waters using pilot programs with smaller teams like HR and Facilities Management and refining the system based on their feedback. JSM was integrated with tools NRMA was already using, including Microsoft Teams, Jira, Confluence and Monday.com. “Now, people can see hooks and links between what they’re trying to solve and the tools they’re already using,” Andy explained.

Seamless Integration

Numerous lunch-and-learn sessions delivering hands-on training were held to get everyone up to speed. “We had plenty of these drop-in forums to showcase how the tool could help us move forward,” said Andy.

In the Driving Seat Towards an Elegant Solution

Andy states “Elegance Group was great to work with, their Atlassian JSM experience was obvious from the outset and hugely beneficial particularly when both teams underestimated the challenge in migrating from the NRMA Service Now incumbent towards the new JSM platform. Six months of hard effort and collaboration worked in everyone’s favour and paid off with a successful implementation. Any project of such size with numerous customer touchpoints is always going to have wrinkles and challenges to overcome but our combined teams worked well together to deliver what the business needed.”

The Impact

A New Era for NRMA

The switch to JSM brought about some remarkable changes at NRMA.

Smoother Operations: Faster issue resolution: 80% of issues were triaged within SLA, a significant improvement. “It’s a huge step up from where we were,” Andy noted.

Accurate Routing: Over 75% of tickets now go to the correct teams, reducing delays. “This was a game-changer for us,” said Andy.

Greater Control: Employees can now customize their workflows, making them more engaged and innovative. “People feel empowered and more confident. It’s a big positive,” Andy commented.

Human Touch: Integrating JSM with Teams allowed for real-time, face-to-face problem-solving. “It’s not just about submitting a ticket and waiting. It’s about real-time interaction,” Andy emphasized.

Cost Efficiencies

Reduced Third-Party Dependence: The ability to manage the system in-house saved NRMA a lot of money. “We no longer need expensive third-party help, we can do it ourselves,” Andy said. “And it’s a scalable solution, it’s ready to grow as we grow".

Future-Ready

NRMA is exploring AI capabilities and integration within JSM for predictive analytics and automated resolutions. “We’re looking at AI to really push us forward,” Andy mentioned. Plans were put in place to use JSM for robust and comprehensive asset management, enhancing compliance and governance. “It’s our single source of truth,” Andy affirmed.

Benefits Gained

• 80% issues triaged within SLA
• 75% tickets routed correctly
• Increased employee empowerment and engagement
• Significant cost savings on third-party services
• Scalable and future-ready ITSM platform

NRMA’s journey with Elegance Group and Atlassian’s Jira Service Management highlights the power of strategic collaboration and the importance of a flexible, human-centric ITSM solution. As Andy said, “It’s been a transformational journey, and we’re just getting started.”

This case study demonstrates how technology, when aligned with business needs, can drive operational efficiency and foster a culture of continuous improvement and innovation.

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