Deloitte, BT Automation team up for ServiceNow deployment at the Department of Industry

Deloitte and Canberra-based BT Automation has joined forces to implement ServiceNow’s Protected Platform at the Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources (DISER).

The platform was aimed to streamline and automate the Department's enterprise service management for its more than 4,000 employees.

DISER general manager of ICT operations Steve Stirling said ServiceNow’s Protected Platform was being used for multiple functions across the department.

“By using one platform to manage complex tasks and requests, we have improved our automation and streamlined a range of administrative tasks, enabling us to assign team members to more important work,” he said.

Deloitte and BT Automation implemented the platform over six months from June last year to replace a variety of systems and processes, including outdated legacy IT software and disparate tools that DISER used to manage requests manually. 

ServiceNow's platform consolidated several departmental functions into a single portal, giving employees one place to make requests and access a range of corporate services.

Requests were now automatically routed to the right teams and individuals, eliminating a reviewing and sorting process and that the platform provided a self-service capability, a virtual agent to assist with enquiries, and a knowledge base of articles, making information easy to find.

The new portal went live to the Department late last year, and this March saw some 2,300 knowledge article views, more than 6,500 self-service requests, over 500 virtual agent conversations completed and just 164 requests lodged via email.

Deloitte lead ServiceNow partner Sonia Eland said “The team at DISER considered user experience to drive adoption of new services, as well as an implementation approach that would deliver business value early and often.”

“With this in mind, they took a best-in-class approach to the project, by engaging employees early in the change process, implementing out-of-the-box functionality and adapting processes to best suit the new system.

“Through its new engagement portal and then progressively adding features like virtual agents, together with shutting down old inboxes and manual tools, DISER has reaped the rewards with near-total adoption across a large workforce, delivering significant efficiency gains across multiple teams and functions.”

BT Automation managing director Mike Bennet said, “Our long history working with Government means we have a deep understanding of public sector requirements and ways of working, which was crucial to completing such an extensive implementation so rapidly.”

“The strong collaboration between all parties and the complete focus on driving positive outcomes for the Department has led to multiple benefits and rapid time to value.”

ServiceNow vice president and managing director ANZ Eric Swift said by directing less time towards completing service delivery tasks manually the Department would be able to focus more on its primary obligations. 

“In both the private and public sectors, outstanding digital experiences for employees are the key to unlocking productivity and freeing up time.”

“This is driving significant demand from a range of regulated industries for the ServiceNow Protected Platform.” 

“In our work with more than 100 Australian state and federal agencies, we see them facing increasing demands to deliver more with less while needing to adapt to increasing security and data sovereignty obligations.”

The Microsoft Azure-based platform was developed to meet Australian government and regulated industries’ data security and sovereignty requirements.

The companies said the Protected Platform kept all data in-country, and all support services and staff in Australia to meet the Infosec Registered Assessors Program requirements for sensitive government data handling at the PROTECTED classification level.