Computacenter supports Bentley Motors' IT services

Customer challenge

To maintain its high standards and reputation, Bentley Motors - the Crewe, UK, based manufacturer of luxury cars - must ensure its car research and development as well as manufacturing processes are continuous and of consistently high quality. Any downtime costs money – whether it involves the factory floor or the company's highly skilled design and engineering teams. With all the company's activities reliant on IT, Bentley was keen to provide more responsive IT support services with a greater focus on end user satisfaction.

Computacenter solution

Bentley has out-tasked a range of key IT services to Computacenter, including support for its 3,600 desktops and laptops, Unix, Windows and IBM iSeries servers and local area network. A central service desk deals with incident, changes and problems while Computacenter's Services Operations Centre provides round-the-clock network and server monitoring. Computacenter will also assist Bentley with a number of IT projects, such as automated server provisioning, that will increase efficiency and lower costs.

Results

Bentley has been able to significantly improve IT support services, resulting in greater end-user satisfaction and enhanced staff productivity. Automation and standardisation enables the company to optimise its IT support costs, with a guaranteed year-on-year cost saving agreed as part of the partnership with Computacenter. Most importantly, Bentley can ensure its staff have continuous access to the business-critical IT systems that they need, minimising the risk of disruption to car design, manufacturing and after-sales care.

Download case study

Customer profile

The definitive luxury car company
Bentley Motors was founded in 1919, setting itself the challenge of building a best-in-class luxury car. Bentley is still dedicated to this mission today through the development and crafting of the world's most respected high performance cars.
Headquartered in Crewe, UK, Bentley has been owned by Volkswagen since 1998 and has 3,500 employees and around 160 dealerships worldwide. Bentley manufactured around 4,600 cars in 2009 - each hand-built to exactingly high standards.

Business challenge

Supporting Bentley's engineering excellence
From car design and manufacturing to after-sales care, Bentley needs to ensure the continuity and quality of its operations to meet customer and stakeholder expectations and minimise costs.

Technology is essential to maintaining this continuity, which means an IT problem at any stage of the value chain could not only impact Bentley's bottom line but also its reputation. As Mike Mayer, Senior IS Manager at Bentley, explains: "A problem with manufacturing systems could leave hundreds of staff on the factory floor unproductive, while disruption to warehouse operations could prevent our dealers from sourcing the parts they need to service customers' cars."
Bentley's back office operations also rely on a plethora of IT systems, including finance and payroll applications, email and an integrated SAP enterprise resource planning (ERP) system that supports logistics, purchasing finance, warehouse management and HR.

To optimise the performance and productivity of its staff, Bentley needs to ensure that all these IT systems remain continually available. "If a system experiences downtime or degradation in performance, we need to respond rapidly to minimise the impact on operations," comments Mike. "Although we had good IT availability, our existing IT service provider did not monitor end user satisfaction levels, and we were keen to mature our approach to IT service delivery."

Computacenter solution

Standardised IT services designed around the end user
Following a comprehensive evaluation of potential IT service providers, Bentley entered into a five-year managed services partnership with Computacenter. Mike comments: "We selected Computacenter as its services are cost-effective and designed with the end user in mind."

Under a five-year contract, Computacenter is responsible for managing:

• 3,600 client devices used by staff and contractors throughout the organisation
• Unix servers that host Bentley's computer-aided design (CAD) applications, in-car security systems and manufacturing technologies
• IBM iSeries devices that support Bentley's after-sales parts warehouses
• 250 Windows servers that support ERP, email, HR and finance systems
• The local area network (LAN) via which all Bentley's business-critical applications are accessed by staff.

Computacenter provides an onsite service desk for ITIL® aligned incident, problem and change management, with overflow calls directed to Computacenter's Services Support Centre in Milton Keynes. "At weekends and on bank holidays our service desk is not very busy, but we still need to provide support for dealers that could have problems accessing our automobile parts ordering systems," comments Mike. "The model we have in place with Computacenter ensures that everyone gets a rapid response, regardless of when they call the service desk."

To help reduce the number of service desk calls and any problems experienced by users, Computacenter remotely monitors Bentley's network round-the-clock from its Network Operations Centre (NOC). A team of onsite engineers are responsible for network moves and changes and resolving any problems identified by the NOC.

With remote management and automation key to keeping Bentley's IT costs down, Computacenter has helped to identify a number of further opportunities to increase efficiency. These projects include:

• The implementation of Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager to minimise the resources involved in software distribution
• Deploying Eracent IT Asset Management software to help optimise hardware and software assets
• Automating the provisioning of servers.

Computacenter has also introduced a full-time centralised resource to assist staff with Microsoft applications. "If an employee has a problem with any Microsoft solution – from PowerPoint to Outlook – they can call the helpdesk and have deskside support within minutes," comments Mike. "The introduction of this dedicated resource to assist with Microsoft applications has made a significant impact on staff productivity and has enhanced our employees' opinion of our IT support services."

Results

Supporting continuity while minimising cost
Since partnering with Computacenter, Bentley has greater visibility of IT service performance, which has enabled it to achieve a number of improvements. For example, the speed of answer at the service desk has been reduced to a 20-second average.

"Computacenter captures useful statistics that help shape the service to better meet our users' needs, such as call volumes, wait times and when we have peaks in demand," comments Mike. "As a result, we are able to provide more proactive IT services."

In addition to improved service levels, Bentley can now enjoy:

Reduced costs: Automation and standardisation has helped to optimise Bentley's IT support costs. In addition to a lower initial cost, Computacenter has committed to a cost reduction over five years as part of the contract.

Enhanced end user satisfaction: Bentley now has regular end-user satisfaction surveys for its IT services with consistently high scores. Satisfied staff translates into greater productivity.

Support business continuity: Bentley's IT systems remain highly available, which crucially minimises the risk of disruption to car development projects, manufacturing and after-sales care as well as back office operations.

Mike comments: "Working with Computacenter means we can provide responsive and cost-effective IT services to support the business in building high-quality performance cars."