IT Service Management Platform Modernisation for a Global Investment Manager

Overview

A leading global investment management organisation engaged KA2 to modernise its IT service management (ITSM) platform as part of a wider technology refresh programme.

After seven years of use, the existing platform had become increasingly complex, with legacy configurations and technical debt making maintenance and future development more difficult.

KA2 conducted a benefits assessment to determine whether the existing platform should be re-engineered or replaced with a clean implementation. Following KA2’s recommendations, the organisation chose to implement a new instance, with KA2 leading the project from planning through to go-live.

The Challenge

The organisation wanted a fresh start for a platform that had become central to its IT service management function.

Over time, extensive customisation, redundant data and complex configurations had increased technical debt and made routine maintenance more demanding. Release cycles were particularly challenging, with testing and deployment requiring significant internal resources.

The project focused on three key objectives:

Build a solid foundation

The existing platform had become difficult to maintain and extend. Modern platform capabilities meant that functionality previously requiring custom development was now available as standard. A clean implementation would provide a stronger foundation for future adoption, particularly across the organisation’s established IT change management processes.

Reduce the operational burden

The complexity of the existing environment made each release cycle resource-intensive, particularly when testing changes and ensuring successful deployment. The organisation wanted to adopt new releases and capabilities more quickly, with less reliance on internal teams.

Remove unnecessary complexity

Years of limited platform housekeeping had resulted in redundant data, reports and configurations. Removing these, alongside unnecessary customisations, would simplify administration, improve troubleshooting and support a more agile approach to service management.

The Solution

Using the KA2 Smarter Framework, we worked with key stakeholders to understand, document and agree the desired business outcomes before designing the new implementation.

The project included:

• Project planning and governance: Developing a delivery plan aligned with business requirements, budget and timescales.
• Collaborative delivery: Combining KA2 leadership and specialist expertise with the organisation’s internal resources.
• Integration and data management: Retaining and configuring the integrations, data model and capabilities required for the new environment.
• Process improvement: Reviewing incident management, including major incidents, change management, problem management, request management, the service catalogue, knowledge management and the service portal with their respective process owners.
• Standard functionality: Challenging existing approaches and adopting recognised good practice and out-of-the-box functionality, avoiding unnecessary customisation.
• Data migration: Cleansing, restructuring and transferring data from the existing environment into the new instance.
• Go-live preparation: Planning and testing the release with the client to ensure stakeholders and change approval teams were confident in proceeding.
• Early life support: Supporting the organisation following go-live to help establish stable operations.

KA2 also worked closely with the parallel IT asset management project team to ensure the wider programme remained aligned.

The Delivery

The new platform was implemented using standard functionality, with zero customisation. This required careful planning to manage the complex data migration, integrations and transition from the legacy environment.

KA2 worked in partnership with the client’s teams throughout delivery, ensuring processes were reassessed rather than simply replicated from the old platform.

The go-live was prepared and tested in advance, with the necessary stakeholders involved in the release and approval process. Following successful deployment, KA2 provided a short period of early life support and ensured the in-house team could operate the platform independently.

The Benefits

The new ITSM platform provided a simpler, more stable foundation for service delivery and future development.

Key outcomes included:

• Faster platform releases: Releases could be deployed in days and weeks rather than months, reducing the time and resources required for testing and implementation.
• Reduced technical debt: Removing unnecessary configurations and redundant data simplified administration, troubleshooting and ongoing maintenance.
• More efficient service processes: Standardised workflows improved change approvals and supported more efficient incident, request and other service management lifecycles.
• Greater adoption of new capabilities: The clean platform enabled the organisation to take advantage of new functionality as it became available.
• More agile delivery: A stable, standardised environment made it easier to introduce additional business processes and applications.
• Greater internal capability: The in-house team became self-sufficient in operating the platform, reducing reliance on external support.
• More time for improvement: Internal specialists could focus on delivering new functionality rather than maintaining existing modules.

The result was a modernised ITSM foundation designed to support ongoing improvement, faster adoption of technology capabilities and more efficient service management.