Case Study: Melgaço Municipality, Portugal

SysAid Technologies Ltd. 1 Hayarden Street, P.O. Box 1142, Airport City 70100, Israel Toll Free (U.S.): 800-686-7047 • Fax (U.S.): +1 (617) 507-2559 Tel. (Israel): +972 (3) 533-3675 • Fax (Israel): +972 (3) 761-7205

http://www.sysaid.com

SysAid Success Story: Melgaço Municipality, Portugal

While the economic recession has made the job of nearly every CIO

in the world more difficult, the situation is particularly dire for Andre

Alves, CIO of Melgaço, a tiny municipality in Northern Portugal.

“We’ve had many difficulties in our day-to-day lives here in

Melgaço,” explained Alves. “Everyone, including the IT department,

has had to do more with less. Not only must the Melgaço IT team of

four technicians provide technical support to 308 municipality

workers spread throughout the city, but they also assist the Red

Cross, fire departments, and local health services that serve the 18

parishes surrounding Melgaço. Daily responsibilities range from

fixing the internet in one moment to organizing the logistics of

charity food hand-outs the next. The common thread in all of

Melgaço’s IT operations has been what Alves calls “untangling

knots.” Members of the community have struggled with

miscommunication, disorganization, and gaping inefficiencies, and

in an economic environment where every euro is precious, this

translates into money wasted.

Doing More with Less is an Economic Crisis

Because the Red Cross had difficulty organizing their food, clothing,

and footwear distribution processes, for example, needy

community members arriving for lunch could easily receive three

meals instead of one, depriving others of any food at all. In addition,

Melgaço does not own enough cars for all members of the city

council, and because fuel is expensive, it requires planning and

coordination if a municipality representative needs to drive

somewhere. Lack of communication often caused people to

unnecessarily travel in separate cars and waste money on fuel. Alves

knew that Melgaço could not continue to function with such

inefficiencies and needed a tool to make the provision of services

easier and more cost-effective.

page1

Taking SysAidBeyond the World of IT and Becoming anAgent of Change



CIO Andre Alves aligns people and technology to do “more with less” in the Portuguese Municipality of Melgaço

Getting Costs Under Control with the Succesful Implementation of SysAid

In early 2010, Alves adopted SysAid to establish better practices

within his IT department and implemented it with the help of

Adquam, a SysAid partner in Portugal. As Alves explains, “Adquam’s

experience in service management, ITIL, and other issues allowed us

to avoid common implementation mistakes. It was the support of

Adquam that enabled the realization of my vision in one, accurate

shot.”

Implementing SysAid’s service desk and CMDB to handle incidents

and track Melgaço’s network elements allowed the Melgaço IT team

to reach new levels of efficiency. Alves then realized SysAid’s

incident management tools could be applied far beyond Melgaço’s

ITdepartment to help all levels of the municipality.

With reports from the Reports & Analysis module that demonstrated

the great improvements his IT department had made, Alves

succeeded in convincing the city council president to expand the

use of SysAid organization-wide.

With the ultimate goal of aligning people, processes, and

technology, Alves now uses SysAid to not only manage the IT team’s

technical support activities but to also establish a “culture of service”

throughout Melgaço.

One of the first moves for Alves and his team was to use SysAid to

track the municipality vehicle inventory. When a council member is

planning a trip, he or she now logs in to the End-User Portal via the

F11 hotkey and submits a service request under the category

“Reserve a Car.” With a centralized record of all municipality cars that

are currently in use, the IT team checks availability, and then

responds to the end-user with a scheduled date and time for the

council member’s trip.

“Implementing SysAid’s

service desk and CMDB to

handle incidents and

track Melgaço’s network

elements allowed the

Melgaço IT team to reach

new levels of efficiency.”

page2

In addition, Alves has given several members of the Red Cross

administrator permissions to help them organize the Red Cross

food distribution process. Employees distributing food now report

via email the amount of food they serve and to whom. Via email

integration, these emails are logged as service requests in SysAid’s

help desk for administrators to review and evaluate. As Alves

phrased it, “With proper procedures in place, fewer people are able

to ‘bypass processes’ of the Red Cross.”

Future Plans: Manage All Municipality Services with SysAid

The success of Alves’ initiatives has convinced city council members

to further expand SysAid’s implementation throughout Melgaço.

By early 2011, he hopes to expand the catalog of available services

so that SysAid will be used to organize electricity services, manage

the municipality’s gardening, and much more.

“Imagine we add electricity as a service catalog to SysAid,” says

Alves. “We give the manager of Melgaço’s electricians administrator

permissions, and he can then know at all times where his

electricians are located and which tasks they must accomplish. Not

only will it help increase efficiency and cut costs, but it will

essentially change the way all managers in Melgaço view service.

This will of course be to the benefit of everyone in Melgaço.”

With this incredible vision of how SysAid can be used to improve

the quality of life of all municipality residents, Alves plans to next

implement ITIL change management processes with SysAid. Alves

explains it best with, “In the context of crisis, SysAid has helped us

identify and track the inefficiencies that we have. Thus, we are

optimizing our operations. By replicating the example IT has set

throughout the rest of the organization, I see that SysAid has

helped our IT team act as a true agent of change in Melgaço.”



Getting Costs Under Control with the Succesful Implementation of SysAid

In early 2010, Alves adopted SysAid to establish better practices

within his IT department and implemented it with the help of

Adquam, a SysAid partner in Portugal. As Alves explains, “Adquam’s

experience in service management, ITIL, and other issues allowed us

to avoid common implementation mistakes. It was the support of

Adquam that enabled the realization of my vision in one, accurate

shot.”

Implementing SysAid’s service desk and CMDB to handle incidents

and track Melgaço’s network elements allowed the Melgaço IT team

to reach new levels of efficiency. Alves then realized SysAid’s

incident management tools could be applied far beyond Melgaço’s

ITdepartment to help all levels of the municipality.

With reports from the Reports & Analysis module that demonstrated

the great improvements his IT department had made, Alves

succeeded in convincing the city council president to expand the

use of SysAid organization-wide.

With the ultimate goal of aligning people, processes, and

technology, Alves now uses SysAid to not only manage the IT team’s

technical support activities but to also establish a “culture of service”

throughout Melgaço.

One of the first moves for Alves and his team was to use SysAid to

track the municipality vehicle inventory. When a council member is

planning a trip, he or she now logs in to the End-User Portal via the

F11 hotkey and submits a service request under the category

“Reserve a Car.” With a centralized record of all municipality cars that

are currently in use, the IT team checks availability, and then

responds to the end-user with a scheduled date and time for the

council member’s trip.

“In the context of crisis,

SysAid has helped us

identify and track

inefficiecies that we

have... I see that SysAid

has helped our IT team

act as a true agent of

change in Melgaço.”

page3

In addition, Alves has given several members of the Red Cross

administrator permissions to help them organize the Red Cross

food distribution process. Employees distributing food now report

via email the amount of food they serve and to whom. Via email

integration, these emails are logged as service requests in SysAid’s

help desk for administrators to review and evaluate. As Alves

phrased it, “With proper procedures in place, fewer people are able

to ‘bypass processes’ of the Red Cross.”

Future Plans: Manage All Municipality Services with SysAid

The success of Alves’ initiatives has convinced city council members

to further expand SysAid’s implementation throughout Melgaço.

By early 2011, he hopes to expand the catalog of available services

so that SysAid will be used to organize electricity services, manage

the municipality’s gardening, and much more.

“Imagine we add electricity as a service catalog to SysAid,” says

Alves. “We give the manager of Melgaço’s electricians administrator

permissions, and he can then know at all times where his

electricians are located and which tasks they must accomplish. Not

only will it help increase efficiency and cut costs, but it will

essentially change the way all managers in Melgaço view service.

This will of course be to the benefit of everyone in Melgaço.”

With this incredible vision of how SysAid can be used to improve

the quality of life of all municipality residents, Alves plans to next

implement ITIL change management processes with SysAid. Alves

explains it best with, “In the context of crisis, SysAid has helped us

identify and track the inefficiencies that we have. Thus, we are

optimizing our operations. By replicating the example IT has set

throughout the rest of the organization, I see that SysAid has

helped our IT team act as a true agent of change in Melgaço.”


SysAid Technologies Ltd. 1 Hayarden Street, P.O. Box 1142, Airport City 70100, Israel Toll Free (U.S.): 800-686-7047 • Fax (U.S.): +1 (617) 507-2559 Tel. (Israel): +972 (3) 533-3675 • Fax (Israel): +972 (3) 761-7205


Technology

Case Study: Melgaço Municipality, Portugal