In my role as Sales Assistant, one of my primary tasks is to quickly and efficiently assess the needs of potential clients. To advise potential clients whether or not there is a ‘fit’ between the needs of their organization and the capabilities of the Novo applications. Essentially interpreting their core requirements into a working model within Novo, and then attempting to share that vision with them. In this situation, truly one of the most exciting things that can happen is to be speaking with a potential client who has what the Account Managers and I refer to as ‘The Vision.’ When the potential client already sees how the flexibility in our core applications lends itself well to a variety of deployment models such as Change Management, Shared Services or a Parallel Deployment. Over my next few blog posts I’d like to focus on each of those deployments individually but I’d like to take a moment to speak to Shared Services.
At the root, a Shared Services deployment is where Novo functions as a centralized request management solution, achieving benefits of scale resultant from the use of a single application rather than a separate application (or worse, no application) per department. Requests of any type are routed to the appropriate representative in the appropriate department to handle these myriad requests. Requests for ‘help’ with IT issues are routed to the IT Help Desk. Requests for ‘Information or Assistance’ are routed to the HR Department. Requests for ‘Repair or Maintenance’ are routed to the Facilities Department.
Request types may be segregated upon submission in two manners. You may make use of templates for request submission made available to the end user in the End User Portal. You may also make use of the Novo Mail Service’s capability to monitor multiple inbound email addresses. For instance, support@domain.com would route requests directly to the IT Help Desk, HR@domain.com and facilities@domain.com would function in much the same manner. If the end user has misdirected their request an incorrect queue, it is quite easy to route the request to the appropriate queue. Custom workflows then take submitted requests and route them to the appropriate department and/or representative to manage the submitted request.
Does it not make sense to utilize one application rather than several? Would it not benefit your organization to have powerful reporting immediately available to management that provides an overview of ALL organization support activity? Does it not make sense to purchase an application that is sufficiently robust, easily customized and configurable by your own staff that it is, by nature, scalable?
This, admittedly, is an extremely simplified, high-level description of how Novo functions in this deployment model. I encourage you to contact me if you would like to have a conversation or if you have any questions. If you prefer to conduct your initial research on your own, we have made available video and other media on our site to aid you in your exploration of this deployment model.
