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Document O92May 2014ROI CASE STUDYBMC REMEDYFORCEAMERITAST HE BO TTOM LI NEAmeritas adopted BMC Remedyforce to provide its IT support center with a consistent andstandardized process to address IT incidents. Nucleus found that using Remedyforceenabled Ameritas to drive continuous improvements in service level management, qualitymetric reporting, and problem management. Further, integrating Remedyforce with othersystems enabled Ameritas to increase support center staff productivity while reducingincoming incident requests through self service.ROI: 96%Payback: 1.5 yearsAverage annual benefit: 201,910T HE CO MPA N YAmeritas is a financial institution that provides insurance, investment, and retirementproducts to help its clients plan for their financial futures. Ameritas’s offerings include lifeinsurance, annuities, broker dealer services, disability income, and health insurance plans.Ameritas has continued to serve the financial needs of individuals and their families fromits Lincoln, Nebraska headquarters for more than 125 years.T HE C H ALL E NGEAmeritas had informal ITIL processes in place for incident, problem, and changemanagement, but the company was looking for a solution that would integrate theseprocesses and bring a more structured service management framework to theorganization: Limited reporting capabilities, multiple change management procedures, and lack offormal knowledge management processes limited Ameritas’s self service anddashboard capabilities.Nucleus Research Inc.100 State StreetBoston, MA 02109NucleusResearch.comPhone: 1 617.720.2000
May 2014 Document O92Without the tools to effectively measure, monitor, and report on key indicators, thecompany had to keep its internal service level agreements basic. Because of these factors, and the use of multiple systems, including spreadsheets, totrack critical system changes, Ameritas’s IT change management fell under increasedscrutiny.Cost : BenefitRatio1 : 1.6Ameritas knew it needed a new solution to support a more integrated, consistent view ofincidents and change management so that it could support more complex service-levelagreements and drive continuous improvements. The company wanted a solution thatwould be easy to deploy, could scale with growing demand, and would help standardizeprocedures for tracking incidents and changes with intuitive reporting capabilities.T HE S T RAT EG YIn April 2012, Ameritas began its due diligence, including a 60-day pilot program usingRemedyforce. Defining Ameritas’s business requirements, the need to integrate othersystems with Remedyforce, and the need to configure the user interface to ease adoptionof the new application required approximately three months. Ameritas engaged outsideconsultants to support the implementation, which went live in November 2012. Ameritasalso engaged the consultants for a period after the deployment to support furtherapplication enhancements.“We were able to quickly deliver a new application – far faster than on-premise – with fewerinternal and external resources, resulting in improved quality and process efficiencies acrossthe organization.”– Tom Schroeck, Vice President, Data Center Operations, AmeritasAmeritas recently launched self-service capabilities and expects that, over time, self servicewill deflect a significant portion of calls to the IT support center because users will takeadvantage of the integrated knowledge management capabilities to solve their ownproblems.KE Y BENE FI T ARE ASMoving to Remedyforce has enabled Ameritas to have a single integrated system tosupport its IT support center, and drive continuous improvements in service levelmanagement, quality metric reporting, and problem management. Key benefits of theproject include: 2014 Nucleus Research, Inc. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission is prohibited.Nucleus Research is the leading provider of value-focused technology research and advice.NucleusResearch.comPage 2
May 2014 Document O92Avoided hires. Remedyforce enabled Ameritas to achieve greater efficiencies forincident resolution and analysis and reporting that would have required the companyto hire four additional FTEs to deliver with an on-premise solution. Increased productivity. Ameritas was able to develop a structured format forapproaching incident recording and resolution which better positions it to reduce thetime spent by support center staff to log and resolve a ticket. The dashboardcapabilities in Remedyforce also provide more information regarding individual ticketrequests and larger system problems, reducing system assessment time and speedingthe resolution of system-wide problems. For change management, Ameritas now hasone location for all recorded changes, which makes gathering information for auditsless time consuming. Improved knowledge management and introduction of self service. The addition ofknowledge management and the self-service features enable users to troubleshoot ITissues before submitting a formal request for assistance. Through self-serviceknowledge articles Ameritas has reduced IT help requests by approximately 60 permonth and that number is expected to increase as more articles are published. Theself-service capabilities have, so far, reduced the number of IT help requests byapproximately 150 calls per month.K E Y COS T A R E ASCosts of the project included the subscription fees for Remedyforce, outside consultingfees, internal personnel time, training, and ongoing support. 2014 Nucleus Research, Inc. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission is prohibited.Nucleus Research is the leading provider of value-focused technology research and advice.NucleusResearch.comPage 3
May 2014Document O92To ensure high user adoption and success rates with the new solution, Ameritas conducteda 2-hour training session for more than 200 associates. Ameritas is also continuing toinvest in personnel to drive further enhancements to the application.BEST PRACTICESAmeritas recognized that moving to a new solution would require some adjustments forsupport center staff, and took time during the initial deployment to both train users andconfigure the interface so it would be similar to what users were familiar with to easeadoption. Additionally, Ameritas recognized that one of the benefits of a cloud solution isits ability to deliver greater benefits over time with less cost and disruption thansupporting an on-premise solution, and has taken advantage of these capabilities to useRemedyforce to drive ongoing improvements to its ITIL processes.CALCU L ATI NG TH E RO INucleus calculated the costs of software subscription, outside consulting, personnel, andtraining over a 3-year period to quantify Ameritas’s investment in Remedyforce.Direct benefits quantified include the eliminated cost for software licenses for previoussolutions, and the avoided cost of hiring four additional FTEs that would have beenrequired if Ameritas had stayed with its on-premise application. Indirect benefitsquantified include increased support center staff productivity based on the reduction intime to log a ticket and the reduced number of helpdesk calls. The increase in end-userproductivity as a result of reducing the number of incidents incurred by was alsoquantified as an indirect benefit. These productivity savings were quantified based on theaverage annual fully loaded cost of an employee using a correction factor to account forthe inefficient transfer between time saved and additional time worked. 2014 Nucleus Research, Inc. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission is prohibited.Nucleus Research is the leading provider of value-focused technology research and advice.NucleusResearch.comPage 4
FINANCIAL ANALYSISBMC RemedyforceAnnual ROI: 96%Payback period: 1.5 yearsANNUAL BENEFITSDirectPre-startYear 1Year 2Year Total per period0525,603536,059536,059Pre-startYear 1Year 2Year 3Software0000Hardware0000Project consulting and personnel0000Total per period0000CAPITALIZED ASSETSDEPRECIATION SCHEDULEPre-startYear 1Year 2Year 3Software0000Hardware0000Project consulting and personnel0000Total per period0000Pre-startYear 1Year 2Year 00000321,107331,528278,60860,750FINANCIAL ANALYSISResultsYear 1Year 2Year 3Net cash flow before taxes(321,107)194,075257,451475,309Net cash flow after taxesAnnual ROI - direct and indirect EXPENSED COSTSSoftwareHardwareOtherTotal per periodAnnual ROI - direct benefits onlyNet Present Value (NPV)Payback periodAverage Annual Cost of Ownership3-Year IRR1.5 years64%465,622330,66464%FINANCIAL ASSUMPTIONSAll government taxes45%Cost of capital7.0% 2014 Nucleus Research, Inc. Reproduction in whole or part without written permission is prohibited.All calculations are based on Nucleus Research's independent analysis of the expected costs and benefits associated with the solution.NucleusResearch.comPage 6
By the NumbersAmeritas's use of BMC RemedyforceTHE PROJECTCost : BenefitRatioThe total time to value, orpayback period, for the projectTHE RESULTSAvoided 4 additional staff hiresIncreased productivityReduced technology and outsourcing costs1 : 1.6 201,910Average annual benefitNumber of users: 3003Months1.596%yearsAnnual Returnon InvestmentAmeritas adopted BMC Remedyforce to provide its IT support centerwith a consistent and standardized process to address IT incidents.Nucleus found that using Remedyforce enabled Ameritas to drivecontinuous improvements in service level management, qualitymetric reporting, and problem management. Further, integratingRemedyforce with other systems enabled Ameritas to increasedsupport center staff productivity while reducing incoming incidentrequests through self service.Total time for the company todeploy Remedyforce“We were able to quickly deliver a new application – far faster than on‐premise – with fewer internal and externalresources, resulting in improved quality and process efficiencies across the organization."‐ Tom Schroeck ‐ Vice President, Data Center OperationsNucleusResearch.comCopyright 2014 Nucleus Research Inc.Nucleus Research Report o92 ‐ BMC Remedyforce ROI case study ‐ Ameritas
Ameritas adopted BMC Remedyforce to provide its IT support center with a consistent and standardized process to address IT incidents. Nucleus found that using Remedyforce enabled Ameritas to drive continuous improvements in service level management, quality metric reporting, and proble
