Yesterday and Today

In 1999, Bassem Aboukhater joined Leo Burnett Dubai as IT director, when the company had just 75 employees. By 2006, the company could boast a total of 700 end-users from Leo Burnett Group and Starcom MediaVest Group, both part of the second largest communications group in the world: Publicis Groupe holding company. Approximately half of these end-users, collectively supported by eight staff members from the IT department, are located in Dubai. The rest are geographically distributed throughout the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, including Saudi Arabia, Beirut, Cairo, and Morocco.

With hundreds of billions of dollars in infrastructure and real estate projects, it should come as no surprise that the booming urban metropolis of Dubai is where the Leo Burnett communications network would establish a strategic foothold. Since its inception, the Leo Burnett company has taken well-deserved credit for some of the world’s most memorable advertising campaigns, including:

• • Tony the Tiger (for Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes)
  • The Dependability People (for Maytag appliances)

• Morris the Cat (for 9 Lives cat food)
• Fly the Friendly Skies (for United Airlines)
• Charlie the Tuna (for Star-Kist)

Home to approximately 17 percent of the world’s construction cranes as well as The Palm Islands, the three largest man-made islands in the world, Dubai’s newest ambition includes plans to build the world’s largest airport. To service the business needs resulting from such colossal expansion, the Leo Burnett Group has grown accordingly to include 7 companies that encompass advertising, media, public relations, and digital Customer Relationship Management (CRM).

By the time 90 new employees were added to Leo Burnett Group in the year 2005 alone, Aboukhater had already realized the critical need for a IT Service Management and Asset Management solution that could effectively handle the company’s skyrocketing growth rate.

Implementing Alloy Navigator

When Aboukhater first began his association with Leo Burnett Dubai, the company had been growing steadily year after year. However, despite this continual growth, there was no ITSM and ITAM tools in place — that is, until Aboukhater discovered Alloy Navigator –  IT Service Management and IT Asset Management  solution from Alloy Software on the web.

Over the years, he continued to upgrade all the way to Asset Navigator V4.5. In the process, he identified two new pressing requirements:

• The ability to  audit networked Mac workstations and laptops, since these are used heavily in the advertising field
• To implement a fully integrated solution that would help LBG handle their staggering growth rate

When Aboukhater contacted Alloy about these issues, Alloy responded in kind about its impending Alloy Navigator 5 solution. When Alloy released Alloy Navigator 5 in January 2006, Aboukhater immediately upgraded. “Version 5 would answer all my questions,” he states.

After installing Alloy Navigator 5, they created a new blank database, then used the Active Directory Import tool to automatically import persons from the Active Directory. Next, they used the Network Inventory module to automatically audit all hardware and software assets on the network and populate the new production database with all of their infrastructure assets. Aboukhater tested the new system for about three to four weeks before officially implementing it. “All in all,” he reports, “it’s been a good experience.”

Favorite Features

“Alloy Navigator has tons of features,” Aboukhater states, “and we’re not even scratching the surface yet.” These features include the Library, Reports, and Business Logic. About the Business Logic function, Aboukhater says, “I’ve done some rules, and I can see the potential for supporting specific applications.”

For example, emails can be sent to a specific mailbox, then be automatically converted into support tickets, and then be automatically assigned to a specific technician group.

He says, “This is really, really powerful, and I like the way it works.”

One element of Alloy Navigator that Aboukhater truly appreciates is the design of its user interface. He says, “What I really like about your software is how intuitive it is, and how simple it is to use. It has a lot of functionality in a very elegant way. Alloy Navigator has one of the best user interfaces I have ever seen.” He adds, “It’s really simple, and doesn’t require a lot of training and reading to use the product.”

Streamlining More Processes

Several other service-related processes that Aboukhater says have benefited from their implementation of Alloy Navigator 5 include:

• Change Management – Using Alloy Navigator’s Change Request tickets to officially authorize changes to their infrastructure
• Knowledge Management – Using the Knowledge Base to publish “how-to” articles that can answer end-users’ questions about such common applications as Word and Excel
• Facilities Management – Including setting up phones and other tasks relevant to a constantly changing work environment

Sarbanes-Oxley Compliance

Leo Burnett Dubai is also using Alloy Navigator 5 to help ensure its compliance with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, known informally as “SOX.”

One of the major provisions of SOX is that public corporations furnish independent annual reports to verify to auditors that internal control and structure exists for ensuring accurate financial reporting.

IT has a major role in these internal controls, since financial reporting is driven by IT systems.

Aboukhater states, “We need it for SOX compliance. It’s a great tool to keep track of everything. SOX mandates a lot of things, makes you responsible for things. SOX compliance puts a lot of pressure on IT for compliance. There are lots of controls and procedures, and we need to prove authorization. The tracking in Alloy Navigator is excellent. Whenever you need to prove these things, the Alloy Navigator requests and Work Orders are a big help.”

He continues, “SOX mandates that you should be able to prove what you say you’re doing.” Aboukhater cites the hiring of new employees to illustrate a specific example: Whenever a new employee is hired, a representative from their Human Resources department submits a request to the IT department that a new person is coming on board. To submit their requests, Aboukhater provides all LBG end-users with the option to use any one of three support channels:

• Phone
• Self-Service Portal
• Email (sent to a Help Desk account and automatically converted to Incident tickets)

Once the IT department receives this request, they’ll create a new network account for this person. Their Active Directory is synchronized with Alloy Navigator’s database; that is, whenever the Active Directory Import tool is run by Alloy Navigator’s Automation Server, a new user account for this person will automatically be created in the database.

If 90 new employees were hired in a given year, according to Aboukhater, the SOX auditor would want to see documentation about all these new hires.

In this case, he can go right back to the Alloy Navigator database and show the initial requests to order and install new computer systems for these new employees.

He can also use the activity logs in Incident and Work Order tickets to easily demonstrate an accurate trail of all the tasks related to getting new employees up and running.

Fully Scalable for Future Growth

In this way, Aboukhater is not only using Alloy Navigator 5 for service support and asset management, he’s also using it to “trace their business processes,” he says. He states, “It’s helping us manage the growth, the support, and the assets. Alloy Navigator is making life a lot easier, keeping track of what’s going on.”

In fact, one of Aboukhater’s many current projects includes a total re-working of one of his company’s floors, which currently houses between 50 and 60 end-users. This requires a tremendous amount of help from the IT group, including temporarily shifting all of these employees around.

And Aboukhater has a steady flow of new employees coming in each week. He says, “This is not an average workload, and it has been this way for over a year!”

Aboukhater can clearly count on Alloy Software’s scalable Alloy Navigator solution to successfully manage the unprecedented amount of work generated from such a rapid expansion rate. By using Alloy Navigator to streamline their service processes, the IT group can deliver highly efficient support, which further enhances business productivity and drives continuous revenue growth.

The Customer

Blitz Games is one of the top 5 independent game developers in the United Kingdom with over 20 years of experience in the games business. Publishers of Blitz Games have included such notables as Universal, Disney Interactive, Sony, THQ, Empire Interactive, and Hasbro Interactive.

This award-winning company is headquartered in Leamington Spa, north of London. The region’s Midlands Business Insider magazine recently ranked Blitz Games as #17 on their list of the 50 fastest-growing companies in the West Midlands.

The Problem

After much growth, Blitz Games needed an integrated solution for IT asset management and software licensing compliance.

The Solution

Asset Navigator Professional Edition Version 4.3 with current licenses for 550 nodes and 5 users.

The Benefits

• Software inventory data to ensure licensing compliance
• Coomplete, accurate, and up-to-date network inventory
• Helping make decisions about purchasing assets and properly allocating them
• Accurate project cost analysis
• Flexible filtering of list views
• Quick-and-easy retrieval of data for audits and budgets
• Powerful reports module
• All-in-one system that readily supports future IT growth

Building an Infrastructure

When James Corrigan joined Blitz Games six years ago as its first IT manager, the company’s primary focus was, as he puts it, “Games. Plus administration.” At the time, Blitz Games employed about 70 people who worked locally on about 100 machines.

And their IT department? It was a Windows 98 diskette and a single PC server.

According to Corrigan, everything was outdated. There were no backups, standards, or procedures. They had minimal infrastructure, and there was no asset management. As Corrigan wryly states, “It was a shambles, but we were surviving.” Since that time, Corrigan reports, “We’ve grown up quite a bit and are now very structured.”

More than ready for the task at hand, Corrigan worked hard to begin building the IT department from the ground floor. He started by using a dual system of spreadsheets and Word documents to track equipment and software licenses. He also built an Access database to monitor the lending of around 4,000 library items and to track IT Service Desk tickets.

The database did a good job for about a year, although Corrigan found it to be clumsy. This piecemeal approach worked fairly well for the next three years and helped him put together a much-needed structure. However, he says he had to prove to management that the structure was actually a good idea!

Finding Asset Navigator

Somewhere around the three-year mark, Corrigan decided what he really needed was a complete package that comprised asset management and software licensing compliance. He eventually tried another leading PC asset inventory tool, which was, he states, “Very slow, so we could only use it once a month. And there were no reporting tools anyway, plus it was hard to set up and hard to maintain.” Clearly, this tool was not the solution.

Two years ago, Corrigan found Asset Navigator while surfing the web. After downloading the demo, he says, “I didn’t realize there was a full software system out there. I was quite amazed that it did everything we wanted it to do.” As he puts it, “It was an all-in-one system.” He started with the network audit and slowly developed a full system. Now, he says, “We use pretty much every bit of it.”

Today, Corrigan’s IT department comprises an IT administrator and an IS coordinator, whose daily use of Asset Navigator includes reporting and managing the library as well as moving all their equipment around. (At Blitz Games, the emphasis on game projects requires the constant reassignment of assets to the right location.) On the technical side, Corrigan has a network manager and an IT technician who manages the network and provides daily support.

As a whole, the group currently maintains an infrastructure of around 260 machines for 120 employees – around twice the size as when Corrigan started.

About Blitz Games

Blitz Games began as the tale of two twin brothers who loved computer games. While Philip and Andrew Oliver’s philosophy obviously encompasses the concept of fun (and games), their incredible success story is more about talent, dedication, and hard work than it is about rocketing to the top in record time. Blitz Games has now designed over 100 premier games across all platforms, and in the process, has earned numerous prestigious industry awards, including the first UK-based Application of Technology Award for their Fairly OddParents game. Blitz Games uses its exclusive internal FUSE engine technology in the development process. This accelerates the creation of their game prototypes and allows the company to stay well ahead in the very competitive games business.

Several recent Blitz Games titles have included:

• Fairly OddParents: Breakin’ Da Rules, a cartoon-style adventure based on the Nickelodeon show
• Bad Boys II, an action game inspired by the 2003 movie starring Will Smith and Martin Lawrence
• Disney’s The Little Mermaid II, an underwater adventure based on the Disney movies
• The Mummy Returns, an action adventure based on the movie
• Disney’s Lilo & Stitch: Trouble in Paradise, a children’s game based on the Disney movie

Using Favorite Features

One of Corrigan’s favorite Asset Navigator features is filtering, especially when he doesn’t want something as formal as a printed report. He says, “The way you can filter views, drag headers around ‘ it’s really quite brilliant. If someone comes along and wants to know how many playstations we have in the building, it’s an absolute breeze. We can get the information in seconds.”

And he adds, “We use the reporting tool to create our own reports. We have some fantastic reports. The data is all there, so it’s just knowing how to get it.”

Of course, Corrigan has numerous other favorites, including the availability of data to make informed purchasing decisions.

He states, “When we’re doing the yearly budget, I can use Asset Navigator^‘ to find out about past purchases.”

He adds, “I can determine the equipment we need when new projects are pending. I can answer people’s questions instantly from my laptop when I’m in meetings, or on-the-fly whenever someone needs proof about something we purchased.”

And when the time comes for the annual financial audit, Asset Navigator makes it easy for Corrigan to prove to the auditors that he’s purchased something. Corrigan declares, “This used to be a nightmare! I had to send out warning emails two weeks before the audit. Now I just import the audit data and it’s all there. It’s a breeze nowadays.”

And as much of the work at Blitz Games is project-based, Asset Navigator lets Corrigan quickly provide other departments with valuable data so they can perform accurate project cost analyses.

The Blitz Games environment presents its share of other unique challenges. As a company of artists, designers, and programmers, Blitz Games has more than a handful of software power users. “Everyone is always asking for better software,” states Corrigan. “This goes against standardizing across the company. ”

Corrigan uses a paper-based software allocation sheet that he constantly checks against Asset Navigator’s Software Installations list. He says, “If people are downloading software from the Internet, the IT technicians will remove it, unless it’s really needed, in which case we’ll buy a license.”

Corrigan also sends out monthly software audit reports to managers so they can decide whether to keep a software product, remove it, or just keep it until a certain date. When a project changes, they may not need the product anymore and can allocate it to someone else. Corrigan performs this same task for the hardware assets.

Growing into the Future

When discussing the growth of the company, Corrigan indicates that they’re expanding, and he states, “The Asset Navigator system will grow with the company. We’d only have to add audit and user licenses. It’s future-proved,” as he puts it. “It can do everything we need it to do.”

And he’s quick to add, “The support has been brilliant. It’s second-to-none every time that we’ve needed it.”

For more information about Blitz Games, go to www.blitzgames.com.