Driving the DVSA towards digital transformation

The Driver & Vehicle Standards Agency turns the ignition on for their digital journey.

The Driver & Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) is responsible for safer drivers, safer vehicles and safer journeys for all across the United Kingdom. Their Service Integration and Management (SIAM) unit is in charge of core IT processes and the Service Desk – providing IT support for over 4800 DVSA staff.

An opportunity came up when the external SIAM supplier’s contract was coming to an end. Faced with a small window to implement changes, the agency’s leadership saw the opportunity to take full control of all SIAM systems and bring their entire support infrastructure in-house. For a team that is pivotal to daily operations, this was a daunting undertaking that would take a lot of planning and effort. But DVSA knew that ultimately, this step towards digital transformation would benefit the organisation in the long run.

With that strategic vision and based on private- and public-sector references, DVSA chose ServiceNow as its new platform. And, backed by further recommendations and an exceptional customer satisfaction rating, DVSA selected FlyForm as their implementation partner.

Replacing an existing platform can be complex; managing the internal change that comes as a result can make it even more difficult. Following best practices recommended by ServiceNow and FlyForm, the DVSA leadership team decided to take the slow and steady approach: tackling one module at a time based on priorities, whilst strengthening the technology foundation for future scaling – all the while delighting internal customers and getting stakeholder buy-in along the way.

Working alongside DVSA, FlyForm started by setting up the core ITSM functions and the CMDB backbone to give the team control and visibility of their systems. Following DVSA’s guidance, the relevant processes were redesigned, using extensive Service Management and ITIL knowledge to build on ServiceNow’s best practices. Both teams communicated often and openly to keep the focus on goals, whilst ramping up resources to cope with existing demand.

Once that foundation was laid, FlyForm moved on to building up the service catalogue and service portal to further refine the user experience. New catalogue items were created to answer staff requests – from ordering non-IT office supplies, to guaranteeing the swift delivery of road safety and personal protective equipment for frontline staff.

Additionally, as DVSA’s headcount grew, further focus was put on introducing more automation and self-service to reduce the workload of the Service Desk, whilst ensuring that the support level remained high. The knowledge base was continually updated to keep ticket requests to a minimum. In addition, cutting-edge support functions like Virtual Agent and Live Chat were introduced to allow DVSA staff to get the answers and requests that they needed as fast as possible.

All these progresses really paid off for DVSA during the pandemic of 2020, when the organisation had to shift to working from home seemingly overnight. Thanks to several self-service options available, service level remained uninterrupted and DVSA staff – both home-based and on the road – enjoyed a swift, uninterrupted transition during an unprecedented period.

Overall, the return that DVSA continues to get from their ServiceNow investment was due in large part to the consultative and collaborative working relationship between the agency and FlyForm. Our team was there to provide guidance and support, whilst DVSA confidently took the wheel on their ongoing journey to digital transformation.

FlyForm worked with DVSA to introduce the following ServiceNow functions:

IT Service Management

• Incident Management
• Problem Management
• Change Management
• Request Management
• Service Catalogue
• Service Portal
• Reporting
• Service Level Management
• Knowledge Management
• Live Chat
• New Starter Process

Virtual Agent

Performance Analytics

Configuration Management Database (CMDB)

IT Operations Management Discovery

• Agent Client Collector Tool (Quebec Early Access)

IT Asset Management

• Hardware Asset Management

Integrations

• BeyondTrust
• Happy Signals
• Microsoft InTune

Thanks to the continuous stream of progresses, DVSA and their staff are enjoying the following benefits:

• Increase of 170% in monthly self-service incidents after portal introduction.
• A comprehensive service catalogue offering of over 226 catalogue items, allowing the request process to be 100% self-service, reducing processes from weeks to just days.
• All staff have access to the portal and can raise incidents and requests directly from the office or the road, without delay.
• Live chat enabled the support team to transition to working from home during COVID-19 lockdown without a break in service.
• Introduction of Virtual Agent (VA) lets users immediately find the right self-service options or knowledge articles to resolve issues. Current VA conversations account for 55% of total monthly interactions – only 9.5% of which resulted in incidents raised, significantly reducing the workload of the support desk.
• Rich knowledge base allowed for instant inquiry resolution for both internal and external contacts. 370% increase in monthly knowledge article views since feature introduction.

• Happy Signals integration and performance analytics enable DVSA to collect users’ feedback and usage behaviour to inform meaningful decision making for future updates.
• BeyondTrust integration further strengthened security validation, without requiring additional resource or lengthy process.
• Early access to Client Collector Tool supported DVSA in populating their hardware and software management database.

Off the back of this ongoing success, DVSA already has their eyes on future growth, with ongoing development of Predictive Intelligence, Software Asset Management and further CMDB enrichment. They’re planning to continue collaborating with FlyForm as their consultancy and implementation partner, to reap more values out of their ServiceNow investment and delight more of their customers.