Handwerkskammer Südwestfalen

"Life without TOPdesk would be a catastrophe"

When you strive for digital excellence and aim to be an industry leader, the right tools are key for success. Florian Fröhlich, Head of IT at the Handwerkskammer Südwestfalen, found that tool to be TOPdesk. We discuss his team’s growth spurt and subsequent need for new tooling, the impact of TOPdesk on their end-user experience, and how he scales the organization’s IT services for the future.

 

Outgrowing tools and ways of working – time for an upgrade

Starting with the burning question: what triggered the Handwerkskammer Südwestfalen’s migration to a new ITSM tool? Turns out, a combination of things.

“Before TOPdesk, we used an unprofessional tool that was essentially part of a client management platform and not strictly fit for purpose. Also, everything landed in the IT department in an unstructured and uncoordinated way. By phone, unqualified email requests, people stopping by. There was no categorization, no structure, no prioritization,” Florian says. The team also had little by way of work processes, which meant tickets would remain pending until someone picked one up voluntarily or they were manually assigned.

When the IT team rapidly grew from three employees to eight, their growth spurt amplified the vulnerabilities in their way of working. This drove the team to think strategically about moving to a single tool. Even if that meant starting from scratch.

“We previously couldn’t measure many areas at all and had no overview of service management. We had to fundamentally start over and first collect measurable data. Our goal was to keep ticket throughput time as low as possible while adopting a structured way of working, so we could offer employees the best possible user experience.”

Why (and how) the Handwerkskammer Südwestfalen moved to TOPdesk

Florian and his team blocked time to research potential new solutions. “We locked ourselves in for a few days, discussed the requirements, and looked at different tools. We also had ServiceNow, JIRA, ManageEngine and a smaller tool on the shortlist, but ultimately chose TOPdesk, mainly because of its user-friendliness. The portal completely convinced us – both how easy it is to use and how easy it is to change.”

Requirements for the new tool:

• A freely configurable self-service portal
• ITIL-oriented practices that can be designed flexibly
• Asset management with an open API
• Reporting and KPI capabilities after setup (for department leads and the CEO)
• German-speaking support
• Hosting in Germany
• Connection to M365 Entra
• Customisable look and feel
• Project implementation in partnership with the vendor
• Optional: multi-tenancy (in light of the future separation of the vocational training center from the internal administration)

 

Another key decision point? That TOPdesk is suitable for Enterprise Service Management. “Our goals included implementing more than just the IT department. Strategically, we want to provide a self-service portal for the entire organization.”

During the evaluation process, Florian spent a lot of time with stakeholders, discussing the advantages and involving people every step of the way. Because, according to Florian, the advantages of TOPdesk were clear.

“After signing the contract, TOPdesk onboarded us and presented a project plan, which was developed with us according to priority. I have hardly experienced such skillful project guidance in my career; it was extremely professional and confirmed we made the right choice.”

Project plan in hand, the team and their TOPdesk consultant got to work. “The main focus areas were incident management and service request management. The Self-Service Portal followed relatively quickly, after which we implemented the Change Management module. Asset Management is another important pillar we implemented with TOPdesk. During this process, the consultant was able to integrate many best practices with us,” Florian says.

The result? New reporting capabilities and a measurably improved user experience

The introduction of TOPdesk has changed Florian’s day to day in substantial ways: “I now have reporting capabilities. That means I can further optimize, automate, and actually measure the IT department, so we’ve been able to develop significantly.”

The biggest return on investment? “We were able to significantly improve the user experience. We now measure it as well, and regularly conduct surveys about improvements. Operating in an agile environment, we want to continuously improve and take employee feedback to better ourselves and our services.”

Florian measures five categories: user-friendliness, speed, design, functionality, and service orientation. These categories result in an overall rating of the IT service. “Before the ITSM implementation, we had a score of 4.2 out of 10. In the last survey and evaluation, we scored 8.85 out of 10.”

“I’m very proud of the implementation of the strategy and the ITSM project, especially with the professional support provided by TOPdesk.”

Happy end-users: ‘The portal is really cool, and IT can respond faster’

The new end user-portal was completely customized for the organization. “We were able to put together a beautiful wiki in the colors of the Handwerkskammer Südwestfalen. We built our branding into it and were able to craft a tailored portal for our end users.” And it works.

“We hear that the portal is really cool, and that IT can respond faster, partly because categorization lets us offer targeted training for specific departments,” Florian says.

So, how exactly is it that IT is able to respond faster? According to Florian, that’s all thanks to improved structure. Correct categorization and prioritization, allowing direct assignment to the right teams, and dashboards that provide a direct overview of open SLAs and bottlenecks have made an incredible difference. And the key advantage: significantly more efficient pre-qualification via the Self-Service Portal. “This eliminates the need to play ping pong with the ticket raiser and having to ask them more questions to get the full picture.”

Of course, there was room for improvement, too. “We learned that the number of required fields when raising a ticket was too high initially, and the categorizations didn’t fully work. We specifically addressed this, reduced the number of required fields and adjusted the categorizations. At the same time, we discussed and educated on why this is important, focusing on pre-qualification and faster, more efficient solutions.”

And it worked. Florian has received a lot of positive end-user feedback:

• “It’s been a great development in IT, being able to share a ticket with others and always being able to see what you’ve requested as well as the status of the ticket.”
• “The portal is a really good solution; support is fast and transparent.”
• “In my opinion, the ticket system works well and reliably. IT processes tickets very quickly.”
• “Graphically, it’s really well done! Structurally, it’s very well designed!”

A smooth roll-out to the HR department

After a successful IT implementation, the HR department is now part of TOPdesk, too. “Our HR team works similarly to IT. While the subject matter may be different, the working practices remain the same – because service is and always will be service. No matter who or what it’s for. Since they, too, were swamped with uncoordinated requests and also needed documented communications and traceability, I suggested to my managing director: ‘Hey, let’s start there.’”

Because people already knew TOPdesk from the IT department, the roll-out to HR went smoothly. “We were even able to train our colleagues internally. There was no resistance within the HR team at all – on the contrary, people were really happy that they could adopt TOPdesk from IT.”

As part of the HR roll-out, Florian implemented tenant separation so that IT can’t look into HR matters, and vice versa. “That was a clear requirement, and TOPdesk can offer that wonderfully.”

From ordering work clothes to reporting lost keys: clever uses of TOPdesk

Beyond HR (and the obvious IT workflows), the organization has found more ways to use TOPdesk. As part of the improved way of working, they even provide a workflow for work clothing: “Our trainers at the vocational training center wear work uniforms and can now order their work clothing via TOPdesk. Their requests must be approved by department heads, and that’s now possible through the portal.”

Other smart uses of the TOPdesk platform include asset management for the initial inventory of IT assets (with an interface to financial accounting), reporting of lost keys and tokens, booking and approval of train travel, processing time off requests and managing team contacts and personal details.

Adding more teams, a configuration management database, and other plans

Following HR, Florian plans to roll out TOPdesk to the facility management team, marketing department and even their cafeteria. He also intends to further improve the IT use of TOPdesk: “We now record our inventory via TOPdesk and also use TOPdesk as our asset management system. Looking ahead, we want to build a configuration management database using assets registered in TOPdesk.”

Additionally, he’s looking to decrease incident processing time. “We have decreased the average incident processing time for the IT team to 77 minutes. Our goal is to get that below 60 minutes. We’re working on that and trying to optimize it through automation and AI.”

In parallel, the Handwerkskammer Südwestfalen is undergoing ISO 27001 certification. “At the moment, the focus is primarily on change. We want to orient ourselves to ITIL and carry out emergency, standard, and normal changes properly. I envision implementing a case and then documenting changes properly, and that’s part of ISO. And that’s how my IT department will work in 2025.”

The future is bright: taking TOPdesk from one Handswerkskammer to many

According to Florian, TOPdesk is a future-proof tool for the Handwerkskammer – and not just in Südwestfalen. “We work very closely with the other Handwerkskammers in North Rhine-Westphalia. The focus of the Handwerkskammer Südwestfalen is the area of IT service management, and we have now succeeded in adapting this to other Handwerkskammers as well.”

Visible improvements, measurable ROI, and a host of ambitious plans: Florian looks confidently towards the future. “Honestly, I couldn’t imagine life without TOPdesk anymore. It would be a catastrophe.”