Overview

The Very Group is a multi-category digital retailer with three brands: Very, Very Ireland, and Littlewoods. They also have a finance company within the organisation.

The company was facing a challenge with their existing service management tool, which was clunky and relied on older technology. They wanted to replace it with a more innovative and easy-to-use solution that would mirror their approach as an online retailer. They partnered with Eficode (formerly Clearvision) to implement Jira Service Management (JSM) within their teams, which they found to be a great fit for their organisation and helped them to prepare and deal with the busiest time of the year (Black Friday & Christmas).

Results at a glance 

  • Jira Service Management (JSM) was implemented and all key elements were configured successfully.
  • Coaching and training sessions were conducted for all relevant teams to learn how to use and configure JSM. 
  • A prototype staging environment was created to test and refine the solution before deployment.
  • Thanks to the training and coaching sessions, The Very Group was equipped to implement an employee onboarding and off boarding process - independently
  • The coaching sessions were instrumental in helping The Very Group establish processes which ensured compliance with Financial Conduct Authority regulations.

Project scope

For this project, Eficode were tasked with implementing Jira Service Management as the customer's new service desk solution, including help setting up their Incident, change, problem, and service request management. This encompassed everything from requesting new hardware to creating user admins (for access for joiners, movers, leavers ). Eficode worked closely with the customer to ensure the solution met their specific needs and provided a streamlined service desk experience.

Users:  500

Projects

As the project progressed, it became clear that there were additional use cases for Jira Service Management. After the training and coaching, The Very Group were able to confidently create new projects for the People, Finance and Facilities teams themselves. 

  • The People team had a specific use case for issues with a new system regarding employee data. 
  • The Finance team had accounts and payable queries that were previously handled through email. 
  • The Facilities team are now using Jira Service Management for their specific use cases.

About The Very Group:

The Very Group is a multi-category digital retailer with over 100 years of business history, having started in 1890. They have three main brands: Very, Very Ireland, and Littlewoods, as well as a finance company within the organisation. In total, they have an annual revenue of over $2 billion, with 82% of their transactions being made through mobile devices (40% of sales coming through their mobile app). 

They offer flexible payment options to help families manage their budgets through their Very Pay platform, which is regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. The company has 4.4 million active customers, sells over 2,000 brands, and has 80 million daily visits to their websites. They deliver 50 million items a year and strive to provide an experience that is fit for the future. Check out The Very Group website here.

The Challenge/Issue

The Very Group had been outsourcing their IT Service Management (ITSM) to an external company for 10 years. The Very Group wanted to bring their IT services in-house and sought a modern and innovative solution that aligned with their identity as an online retailer. They aimed to innovate through technology and provide their teams with a user-friendly and intuitive interface.

As the Very group already had experience working with Jira and Confluence for a number of years, they naturally looked at Jira Service Management (JSM) for its seamless integration. Their engineering teams had their backlogs on Jira, so integrating their tickets into that solution and using the knowledge base through Confluence would allow them to bring everything together on one platform - including incident management across multiple solutions.

The Very Group is a retail organisation with a financial services component. They operate as a regulated organisation and must comply with financial regulations set by the Financial Conduct Authority. Their unique selling point is providing  flexible payment options via their Very Pay platform, which is regulated by the FCA. This allows families to manage their household budgets and make purchases across fashion, electrical, home, and other categories. 

JSM enabled the company to lock down controls around access to financial systems and make sure they have an audit trail of access requests. They use the assets tool to record the applications against individuals in the CMDB, showing who has access to these applications and demonstrate the appropriate level of control from an audit perspective.

Solution

Eficode worked with The Very Group to showcase the capabilities of Jira Service Management (JSM) and help them understand how this tool could benefit their organisation. Eficode had previously worked with The Very Group on implementing Jira and Confluence, making them a familiar partner. 

Eficode set up JSM quickly and implemented the basics of: incident management, change management, problem management, self-service portal and self-service articles.

Eficode provided training courses and coaching to The Very Group's team to familiarise them with JSM and its configuration.

The project then moved into a prototype staging phase, where Eficode set up examples in a practical classroom environment and then encouraged The Very Group's team to set up their own configurations. This was an iterative process where Gary returned to check and help with the next stages every two weeks.

This enabled The Very Group to take ownership of the tool and continue to develop it to suit their specific needs. The knowledge The Very Group gained during the process allowed them to master the tool confidently

The implementation of JSM demonstrated impressive time-to-value, as deploying other ITSM tools is typically the most complex and costly aspect of the process. However, using JSM allowed The Very Group to get started within a matter of weeks. 

Within just 90 days the change management process was successfully implemented and The Very Group were able to automate 1,000 monthly customer queries from their Contact Centre in JSM.  A month later, they had recruited their new service desk team and were able to deploy the rest of the tools throughout the organisation.

Conclusion

After implementing Jira Service Management (JSM), The Very Group have received great feedback from their colleagues, with an average satisfaction score of 4.9/5 - a far better result than their previous solution. The self-service portal in particular has been a great success, allowing employees to easily search for knowledge articles and track their requests.

Thanks to the extensive coaching provided by Eficode, The Very Group were able to implement a Joiners/Movers/Leavers process, which allows a feed of data from the company's people systems to be integrated into the assets tool each day. This lets hiring managers search for new hires easily and choose the applications they need to have access to, submitting the requests within minutes. This has streamlined the process and helped the user admin team efficiently fulfil requests for new starters. The success of this implementation demonstrates the effectiveness of the coaching provided by Eficode and The Very Group's ability to confidently manage JSM on their own.

JSM has also greatly improved the customer experience, particularly during busy periods like Black Friday and Christmas. The company is able to quickly and efficiently resolve any issues that customers may encounter, allowing them to continue shopping without interruption. The tool is also being used by other teams within the organisation, such as the People team, which uses it for reporting any issues or requests related to new product launches. The company is currently exploring the use of JSM for their finance and facilities management teams.

The Very Group is now looking to further streamline their processes by automating more tasks and taking pinch points away from colleagues, making the process even smoother. They’re also looking to expand the use of JSM by exploring automations, integrations, and expanding its footprint within the organisation. They’re looking at ways to communicate more effectively with colleagues, such as using Statuspage to send out communications across multiple platforms. 

Overall, JSM has greatly improved the customer experience for the Very Group by streamlining their processes and making it easier for their teams to request and receive support.