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FUJITSU
THE POSSIBILITIES ARE INFINITE
Post Office Ltd / Fujitsu Services
Retention of the Incident and
Communications Management Teams
Version 1.0
4" April 2006
Commercial in Confidence Fujitsu Services Limited, Registered in England no 96056,
Registered Office 22 Baker Street, London, W1U 3BW
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° Retention of Incident and Communications FUJITSU
Management Teams
1. Purpose
This paper has been produced following the decision by Post Office and Fujitsu Services to
move to the HNGX pricing model for the Horizon Service Desk (HSD) with effect from 1*
April 2006. This pricing does not include provision for the Incident Management Team (IMT)
and the Communications Management Team (CMT) within the HSD structure. These teams
were implemented to provide an enhanced service to maximise the availability of the service
to the business.
In the short term, Fujitsu Services has agreed to retain both functions until 1% June 2006 and
Post Office has agreed to fund the service until this date. Any retention after this date will be
subject to Post Office and Fujitsu Services agreeing a more qualified commercial
proposition. Until such a point is reached a four week notice of change is required by Fujitsu
Services from Post Office.
Fujitsu Services has prepared this paper to allow Post Office to assess the benefits and value
add that retaining both the IMT and the CMT would bring to the overall service and ultimately
the business.
2. Background
Post Office wishes to see an improvement in both the Branch and Counter availability to
enable its core business, on line services, to be expanded both within the current product set
and with any new products and services that may be introduced in the future. In addition,
changes in the HNGX architecture will result in all transactions becoming on line with no data
held at the counter. This further increases the reliance upon Branch and Counter availability
to complete the day to day trading.
Fujitsu Services believes that a level of activity within the incident and problem management
areas is both necessary and will be provided to assist in the resolution of outages. Prior to the
introduction of the IMT and CMT, Fujitsu Services provided a fully compliant incident
management process and suffered no adverse degradation of conformance to any of the
current Service Level Targets in place.
Fujitsu Services is committed to and will strive to exceed the availability Service Level
Targets that are currently in place, and subsequently the targets to be implemented from the
commencement of the HNGX application roll out. This commitment is met through the
adoption of best practice service management. However it is recognised that there are
certain value add functions that are currently completed by the IMT and the CMT which are
outside the standard incident and problem management offering. Such activities contribute to
keeping open the lines of communication with the Branches and effective management of
expectations in addition to improving the availability of the services and minimising downtime
for the business.
This document provides an overview of the functions and benefits, which the IMT and CMT.
bring to the business in order to enable Post Office to make a qualified assessment of the
value to both the existing Horizon and new HNGX services should the teams be retained
moving forward.
3. IMT and CMT Value Add Proposition
3.1 IMT
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The IMT has a number of key functions in addition to the key incident management
functions, which assist Post Office in the management of outages (in respect of hardware
and software incidents) within the Branch estate.
Incident tracking
Incident monitoring is a key component of standard incident management in line with the ITIL
framework. However Fujitsu Services via the IMT provides an enhanced level of incident
monitoring to facilitate an optimal level and speed of incident resolution. A key component of
Fujitsu's approach is to ensure that both Post Office and the Branch are informed at regular
intervals as to the status of the resolution. This approach includes:
« Pro-active chasing of internal support units.
e Regular contact (outgoing calls with Branches) as to the status of the incident
resolution.
e Assistance to Branches in resolving incidents where this can be provided
remotely for “non standard” faults, i.e. environmental issues etc.
e Liaison with Branches re changing “Access Times” and communicating these
changes to the Engineering Service to ensure support engineer attendance at the
request of the Branch.
Branch Support
Supporting Branches both during an incident and after a serious or unusual incident will
enhance the relationship between the Branch, Fujitsu Services and Post Office and facilitate
the development of a high level of confidence in the service. This is achieved through:
« Problem site liaison and aftercare
e Review of incidents received to identify potential problem branches and provide
support to the Branch Issues Managers in respect of Branch visits and after care
Reporting to Post Office
The IMT assists in the preparation and issue of the daily incident report which identifies all
Branches with open incidents and the status of those incidents. This is a highly laborious
function which involves the regular monitoring and status gathering of open incidents
throughout the day.
The reporting process is beneficial as is key to monitoring the ability of Branches to carry out
transactions. It enables Fujitsu Services and Post Office to track and monitor the progress of
resolutions and escalate any specific problems, as appropriate.
3.2 CMT
Whereas the IMT focuses on reacting to and managing incidents to a speedy and effective
resolution, the CMT is a purely pro-active function. The team consistently monitors the
communications status of the Branch estate and attempts to resolve issues prior to the
Branch becoming aware there is a problem. In addition, they provide a high level of value
add activity in managing the PSTN line issues, on behalf of Post Office, despite the fact that
from a contractual perspective, this is Post Office’s responsibility, as Fujitsu Services is not
responsible for the provision of these lines to the Branches.
Incident tracking
Fujitsu Services recognises the impact to Post Office’s business of a Branch being off line.
Best practice incident management dictates that incident monitoring is essential. Via the
CMT, Fujitsu Services provides an enhanced level of pro-active value add activity to
maximise the speed at which ensure communications incidents are resolved and the service
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restored. As part of this approach, both Post Office and the Branch are informed at regular
intervals as to the status of the resolution. The approach includes:
e Pro-active chasing of external and internal support units.
e Regular contact (outgoing calls with Branches) as to the status of the incident
resolution.
e Assistance to Branches in resolving incidents where this can be provided
remotely for “non standard” faults, i.e. environmental issues etc.
e Liaison with Branches re changing “Access Times” and communicating these
changes to the telecommunications providers to ensure support engineer
attendance at the request of the Branch.
Pro-active resolution of Non polling lents
Non polling signifies that a Branch has failed to deliver its daily transaction stream to the
Fujitsu Services data centre for onward transmission to both Post Office and Clients (in
respect of AP transactions), which could be due to a number of reasons, not specifically
related to a communications issue, i.e. a counter switched off or a hardware fault currently
being resolved.
Fujitsu Services is bound by the Data Delivery Service Level Targets which underpin the
delivery of these transactions. However, if there is a specific issue within the Branch, a call
would be raised via the HSD and would be investigated and managed as per the usual
incident management process. Through the pro active resolution of non polling incidents, the
CMT will ensure that issues are logged prior to the Branch becoming aware and will pro-
actively work with the Branch to resolve the incident for example by ascertaining the status of
all counters within the Branch even if there is no evidence of a specific communications
issue.
NB: This does not in any way absolve Fujitsu Services in its responsibilities to ensure data
delivery by Day J which would be achieved by alternative processes.
This pro active approach enables issues to be identified and resolutions to be implemented in
the fastest possible time, thus minimising down time at the Branch and maximising Branch
trading.
Management of Communications Issues with BT in respect of PSTN faults
Currently a significant part if the activity carried out by the CMT is the regular liaison with BT
in respect of communications faults within the ADSL service. In assessing the incident to
facilitate a resolution, the team does not draw a distinction as to whether the failure is within
the PSTN line, which falls within the scope of Post Office’s responsibility or the ADSL service
provided by Fujitsu Services. The priority is assessment and resolution of the incident.
Without this function, issues within the PSTN domain, i.e. filters, problems with the PSTN
line, would be referred to Post Office for resolution thereby potentially increasing the
resource required within the appropriate Post Office team and possibly delaying the
resolution of the incident. The implication of any delay in assessment and resolution is the
Branch being unable to trade for an extended period of time.
Reporting to Post Office
The CMT also assists the IMT in the preparation and issue of the daily incident report which
identifies all Branches with open incidents and the status of those incidents. This is a highly
laborious function which involves the regular monitoring and status gathering of open
incidents throughout the day.
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This process enables Fujitsu Services and Post Office to track and monitor the progress of
resolutions and escalate any specific problems to minimise the amount of time the Branch
can not trade.
4. Benefits to Post Office
Overall the retention of both the IMT and CMT would attract a number of benefits for Post
Office and the Branch Estate in the provision of an available service to underpin the
business:
e Real time and pro-active incident and problem management leading to a quicker
resolution of incidents, improved availability and improved Branch satisfaction.
e Resource savings within Post Office attributable to the management of BT by Fujitsu
Services in respect of PSTN line issues.
e After care and liaison with potential problem branches resulting in increased
satisfaction at Branch level and a measurable reduction in repeat calls due to support
and guidance being provided to avoid recurrence of non standard issues.
e Real time reporting as to the status of the Branch estate to Post Office to enable the
management of expectations within Post Office suppliers and internal Post Office
stakeholders.
e Support for the Branch Issues Managers enabling a pro-active and effective level of
support to be given via branch visits to those branches where Fujitsu Services
believes that an element of “Hands On” support is required.
5. Commercials
The current price to Post Office of £35k per month (excluding VAT) is based on a service
delivered by thirteen full time equivalents.
In order to provide a price for an on going service, it is first necessary to carry out the work
detailed below in terms of defining the scope and how the most possible value can be
delivered to Post Office Ltd via the IMT and CMT.
6. Proposed Next Steps
With the retention of the IMT and CMT only agreed until 1** June 2006, it is important that
Post Office is able to make a decision as to what, if any, part of the IMT or CMT should be
retained.
Fujitsu Services proposes that:
e A joint Post Office / Fujitsu Services “Resource Activity Exercise” is completed
with both the IMT and CMT in Stevenage during the first two weeks in April 2006.
e Fujitsu Services invites representatives from Post Office to review all of the
tasks currently undertaken by the IMT and CMT and discuss the extent of the
workload and value add provided with members of both teams.
« Once Post Office has agreed on the scope of any future IMT / CMT activity,
Fujitsu Services will provide a commercial proposition and an appropriate pricing
structure to take the provision of the service forward.
* Additionally, Fujitsu Services proposes that the final scope of the IMT / CMT
service provided is structured in such a way that it can be flexed to cater for any
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changes in the Branch segmentation which may be proposed by Post Office in
the future.
«This work is completed by week ending 21* April to allow the appropriate
commercial terms to be agreed between Post Office and Fujitsu Services and
additionally to allow Fujitsu Services to plan the adjustment to the IMT / CMT
resourcing if this is necessary.
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