“We said we needed the system up and running in 16 weeks… Revo didn’t flinch”
In May 2022, Fiskars Group approached Revo with a challenging target – they needed a 4me system up and running in 16 weeks.
Gerber, Iittala, Royal Copenhagen, Waterford, Wedgwood, Fiskars – you’ll come across Fiskars Group’s design-driven brands in your homes and in many aspects of your day-to-day life. Founded in 1649, the company now has a team of close to 7,000, stretching across almost 30 countries. Like any business of this size and scale, Fiskars Group relies heavily on its IT systems working optimally to operate efficiently.
A change in their service desk partner at the end of 2021, sparked a wider review of the IT applications and tools the IT team was using to support the business. ITSM was an area where red flags were raised.
“A lot of our people didn’t use our previous portal because it was considered difficult to use. We were also paying for features in our licensing that we weren’t using. And then, on top of this, we were having to use a third-party contractor to help us administer the platform because we lacked the inhouse expertise,” explains Mike Rossi, Senior IT Manager for Fiskars Group.
Finding a new service management solution
Mike’s mission was clear – find an ITSM platform with a lower operating cost, that’s user-friendly for both end users and technical teams. 4me was quickly identified as their platform of choice, so the search then progressed to finding the right implementation partner to ensure it was fully optimised for Fiskars Group. But there was another the challenge – they needed 4me to be operational in 16 weeks.
“We liked Revo’s managed service offering – the fact that you knew exactly what we would spend – and from a personal note, I like dealing with smaller operations because you get a much better result when you can build a build a rapport between yourself and your supplier,” Mike says.
“But what we also really liked about Revo was their ‘can do’ attitude’ – even when we told them they only had 16 weeks to implement. And when problems held up the project’s kick-off, the window for the project got shorter and shorter – we really were up against it, but still Revo didn’t flinch.”
This ‘can do’ approach, combined with being a specialist 4me provider, is something Fiskars Group appreciated throughout the implementation, and now as part of the managed service.
“It’s not their first rodeo – when we say, ‘we have this challenge’ they say, ‘we have a solution for that’ or ‘let’s look at it and build a solution for it’,” Mike says. “For example, we’re looking at an integration with Jira. When we asked Revo about this, they came back and said – so you want to send information to Jira, that’s easy. But do you want Jira to send information back to you? And do you want to respond back to Jira again? They explain what we need to think about up front, so there are no surprises down the line. And they’re very open to our quirky demands.”
Optimising 4me for Fiskars Group
In fact, it’s building on the quirks that has led to some of the most significant improvements in end user service management experience for Fiskars Group. For example, although the Group is primarily an English-speaking business, it has a long Finnish heritage. Employees in their stores and factories in Finland don’t always speak English. This language barrier meant non-English speaking staff in the past weren’t comfortable logging calls on the service desk.
“Being able to log a ticket in Finnish to the service desk was huge,” Mike says. “And if they log a ticket in Finnish, and I’m an English-speaking person on the service desk, it presents it to me in English. And then when I reply, it translates back to the native language. It makes it a lot nicer for the end user experience. Revo were a real help in implementing this process and that was a big win for us.”
Over time, the teams have worked together to add more ‘Fiskars Group quirks’ into their 4me system. From introducing the ability for users to log requests through a mobile device, to integrations including Intune, Azure, Microsoft Identity Manager, Splunk, Moogsoft, Log DNA and SCCM.
And the quirks haven’t always been technical additions. Helping integrate 4me culturally across the organisation has been an important part of the Revo service. And this has, when required, also extended to other third parties working with Fiskars Group. For example, Revo delivered bespoke training sessions for key members of the Fiskars Group service desk team at HCL.
“HCL wanted training over and above the standard 4me videos – they wanted sessions to get their key people trained up so they could then go on to teach their teams,” Mike says. “We have 150+ people on our team with us from HCL. Training key people from HCL so they could go back and train their colleagues worked out great for us. As their workforce turns over, they always have a trainer available to onboard their new team members’.
Fiskars Group has never looked back
Fiskars 4me system went live on time, their old system was retired a month later, and in Mike’s words, they’ve “never looked back.”
“We went live on nine o’clock on a Tuesday morning and we immediately started getting support requests,” Mike remembers. “By that Friday, we’ve gotten feedback saying how easy the application is to use. It was accepted really from day one – It’s so intuitive, it makes you better at your job.”
For more information about how we helped Fiskars Group switch to 4me, read the full success story.
And if you’re interested in finding out how Revo 4me could transform your approach to service management, we’d love to talk you through our approach.
