Translation Results Requested Through Conyac Made Public

"When you wanted to look at issues unique to our company it was sometimes difficult to get the view of requested data, so we decided to move to a tool that we owned and that ran on our infrastructure so that we could get access to the necessary data on demand."

While the decision to install IBM TSRM for internal knowledge management capabilities was made before re-evaluating the outsourced help desk arrangement, installation of the tool proved fortuitous, Corbin acknowledges. "When we decided to bring service desk in-house, it uncomplicated the transition significantly because we didn't need to execute a transition of tool and data: that was already in place," he says.

In Oct. 2010, Unum decided to bring the service desk internally on the basis of three considerations. First, he relates, Unum reviewed performance statistics and concluded its IT organization could do better. "The second aspect was that we were implementing the IT Service Management Framework and realized this was an important aspect in terms of how IT was received by the broader organization," he says. "The third consideration was that our agreement with the vendor was up for renewal."

The transition was not a hard sell based on projected benefits and savings calculated. "Years ago when there was a movement towards outsourcing service desk, the argument was that it was a commodity that could be provided more economically on an outsourced basis. We discovered that we could bring it in-house on a cost-neutral basis, and that enabled us to invest in the knowledge management capabilities without extra investment."

While the software for managing service knowledge is already in place, populating the IBM TSRM database is an ongoing task, according to Crisp. "It's something that has to be built over time, and we have started the process."
Unum also brought new staff on board on by the end of February and trained them to be ready for the April 1 transition. "We were ramping up between hiring and the point at which we would be taking 100 percent of the calls, and the vendor was quite cooperative in helping us to manage that transition," Crisp comments. "Having service desk in the new model allows us to continually increase the level of service we provide because we can very tightly integrate training on more and more capabilities because we have more control over the process."