Mark worked on the IT service management (ITSM) tool the IT department had used for more than a decade—an on-premise system with an installed client. This wasn’t going to work going forward. “When you made a change,” he says, “it tended to be a global change. Other functions were being forced to use an IT system that didn’t always work for them.” The university needed a flexible, cloud-based, enterprise-scalable solution that could support the numerous requirements of all departments, and deliver from one point of contact a smooth, responsive service experience.

Since the University of Glasgow is a public institution, the IT team was bound by public-sector procurement rules, which meant the search for a new Enterprise Service Management (ESM) solution needed to be open to public tender. Nineteen submissions were received from an array of vendors, several of which were proposing the same solution.

The University of Glasgow narrowed the list down to three vendors, each proposing a different solution. On-site demos and follow-ups ensued, and Ivanti® Service Manager was selected as the preferred bidder. “Ivanti scored highest against our list of criteria and licencing requirements,” Mark writes.

Focused on the vision of service management across the enterprise, the system will support staff and student services such as student records, accommodation, library services, student registry, exams, finance, HR, and campus security, as well as IT. For Mark’s team, the Service Manager implementation means that the university’s four colleges—Arts; Medical, Veterinary and Life Sciences; Science and Engineering; and Social Sciences; as well as operational services—will be unified under one central service desk.

“We always took the view that we were looking for an Enterprise Service Management platform, not making or bending an ITSM system into a shape that was acceptable for other functions to use,” Mark says. “We didn’t want a system that could be made to look attractive to HR, college professional services, campus security, or our data protection office. We wanted a platform that did all of this out-of-the box, but that we could configure without being beholden to the vendor every time we wanted to make a change.”