×
EN
Contact Us
EN

Customer Success Story

 

BMC Helix Helps to Accelerate Johnson
Matthey’s Net Zero

 

 

Data-led Insights Fusion Global Business Solutions

50%

IT tickets auto-categorised by AI

business acceleration

99%

Improvement in software deployment times

customer experience

1000+

Software options available self-service

Company Overview

Society’s quest for a brighter future relies on specialist technologies, from sustainable aviation fuels to hydrogen replacing oil and gas. For more than 200 years, Johnson Matthey has been using advanced chemical processes and metals to address the world’s most pressing challenges, which are becoming ever more vital in helping to avoid the worst impacts of climate change.

Today, this UK firm employs 11,600 people in over 30 countries worldwide, helping to drive down automotive emissions, transform energy systems, decarbonise chemicals production, and create a circular economy. Its priority is to be the top global provider of catalysts, platinum group metals, synthetic fuels technology, hydrogen fuel cells, and electrolysers.

The Challenge

To support its global strategy, Johnson Matthey requires world-class service management capabilities. However, at the end of the last decade, it did not have them. Instead, the company relied on an outdated software platform that had become complex and cumbersome after several years of customisation. “It didn’t give us the scalability we wanted, and it wasn’t driving best practice,” recalls James Dicker, Head of IT Service Management.

Wary of holding back the business, it was time to scrap the old system and start from scratch with a platform that could scale to meet the company’s needs and allow Johnson Matthey to leverage recent technological capabilities.

The Solution

Johnson Matthey was aware of BMC’s standing in the ITSM market and was keen to unlock the benefits of such technology. BMC delivers modern, intelligent ITIL® 4-certified solutions that are fast, accurate, and cost-effective, whether companies operate in the cloud, a data centre, or a hybrid model.

“We said, ‘Forget the past—let’s start from a blank sheet of paper so we can fully benefit from the capabilities of BMC Helix. If we took the old world and tried to put it into BMC, we’d end up back at square one with the same old problems,’” says James Dicker, Head of IT Service Management.

The company adopted a comprehensive ITSM package, including BMC Helix Client Management, BMC Helix Digital Workplace, BMC Helix Business Workflows, a Helix Smart IT user interface, and BMC Helix Discovery for data and application management. All these solutions were integrated by Fusion Global Business Solutions. Additionally, Fusion GBS utilised its AI platform, AI Talos, to analyse over 750,000 items within BMC Helix ITSM. This analysis identified opportunities for cross-departmental efficiencies by improving data quality and streamlining processes. It also highlighted relevant content to enhance self-service adoption and scale automation capabilities.

“We work very closely with BMC for customer success, but we use Fusion Global Business Solutions to support us in our transformation and move forward at pace,” adds James. “They have done a lot of work around automating our categorisation features with AI.”

With BMC Helix service management, we’ve taken ownership of a system that uses AI to categorise IT tickets automatically. The majority are analysed in days. We’ve gone from not categorising our tickets at all to, suddenly, using AI to deal with more than 50 percent of them and rising.
Jamer Dicker
Head of IT Service Management | Johnson Matthey

The Results

BMC technology tools work together to significantly improve ITSM responses at Johnson Matthey. For example, the time required to deliver a new software system has decreased from a couple of weeks to as little as an hour. Users can order more than 1,000 types of software on a self-service basis, with low-cost packages—costing less than £250 (around $300)—delivered almost instantly without needing approvals.

Alongside improved service levels, BMC Helix Digital Workplace provides an immersive, multichannel user environment that encourages adoption. While only around 2,000 to 3,000 employees used the old ITSM platform, every employee has now logged onto the new system.

James Dicker brings this transformation to life: “If you want something from IT, be it a laptop or a headset, the best and only way to get that now is through self-service. So that portal must be intuitive enough to find what I want, get my line manager’s approval, and get it to me quickly.”

One of the key attractions of BMC technology is its ability to meet most of Johnson Matthey’s requirements without the need for extensive customisation—a significant advantage given the company’s need to scale up IT service operations rapidly.

James Dicker explains: “To make the most of upgrades and work at speed, we don’t want to customise this platform within an inch of its life. Otherwise, we may not benefit from future innovations coming down the line. We’ve got a very experienced BMC team internally.”

BMC is also helping Johnson Matthey leverage technologies such as AI, allowing IT Service Desk Analysts to focus more on customer requirements. James Dicker underlines the point: “They’re spending less time worrying about, ‘Am I picking the right categorisation?’ and more time talking to the end user about what their actual problem is.”

AI has also enabled Johnson Matthey to launch a virtual agent that communicates with users in their native languages, from German to Chinese.

At the same time, BMC Helix Business Workflows allows the company to unify service portals for divisions such as HR, Finance, and Procurement, as well as many other internal functions.

“The level of flexibility is such that our team is running a transformation programme called Make IT Better, where users can suggest improvements. So, we can look at how we develop new requests with BMC Helix Digital Workplace,” concludes James.

Get in Touch