Customer success story: Radio France
"We needed a tool that was as easy to use as possible, especially as it had to be used by non-IT people, such as workstation or move correspondents."
This public corporation set up a portal to handle the management processes for its IT and non-IT assets, including requests for computers, inventories, decision aids for asset-replacement budgets and so on
As a result of changing its production processes over to digital technology, Radio France was faced with shorter replacement cycles for its working tools. From the year 2000 onwards, sound recording and analogue editing systems were replaced by digital tools. Journalists now do radio editing on computers and the production tool for radio programmes relies on servers.
While all these computer-based resources may be more efficient than analogue technology, they have a shorter service life and therefore a shorter replacement cycle. "As a result, we needed a decision aid to guide asset replacement from one year to the next," explains Michel Speranzon, officer in charge at Radio France.
To define the budgets allocated to IT and network resources for the following year, the public corporation's buyers need a comprehensive vision of its existing assets. This includes the purchase dates of network equipment and hardware, cost of ownership, usage rates, technical problems encountered, associated maintenance costs and so on. "The idea was to help them better manage replacements and more efficiently meet requirements for new PCs, servers and other devices," says Michel Speranzon.
In 2005, Radio France launched an in-depth study of the question. At the time, Radio France had a purchasing management tool (Generix) and a solution for managing in-house requests, stocks and maintenance for IT equipment (MP2 Enterprise). It also had an Access database and Excel files. "The tools just weren't up to what we wanted to do," adds Michel Speranzon.
In 2007, Radio France issued requests for proposals to six vendors. The future users from logistics, purchasing, finance, the help desk and maintenance were also involved in the process. In the end, the PS'Soft solution was chosen. "We needed a tool that was as easy to use as possible, especially as it had to be used by non-IT people, such as workstation or move correspondents," explains Michel Speranzon. The PS'Soft application has a suitable interface and is capable of taking into account different user profiles.
The portal offers processes for requesting hardware, requesting a move, and reporting and tracking an incident. But the PS'Soft tool also includes the full range of asset management functions, such as inventory management, purchasing management, stock management, hardware request management, etc. There is also a built-in reporting module.
The PS'Soft tool was rolled out in summer 2008 and integrated into Radio France's financial system. The aim was to recuperate the cost centres defined by the Finance Department. This means that the company can use the PS'Soft application to generate reports on the breakdown of its installed base of PCs by cost centre, i.e. by buyer or in-house user. These reports can state the age and technical history of the PCs. "This helps us decide, for instance, whether all or part of France Culture's asset base should be replaced and in what time frame," says Michel Speranzon.
Compare requests for IT resources with actual usage of the asset base "Thanks to its automatic inventory functions, the application can tell us to what extent the PCs and their installed software are being used. This data can be correlated with purchases to manage financial compliance," says PS'Soft. Radio France wanted to be able to compare requests for IT resources with actual usage of its current asset base so that it could make decisions about budgets and new deployments. "The project has delivered the expected results," confirms Michel Speranzon.
During summer 2008, Radio France made an inventory of its IT and non-IT assets: PCs, printers, networks, studio equipment (decks, mikes, headphones, etc.), as well as air conditioners, power systems and so on. It decided to use the PS'Soft tool to manage all of its physical resources, IT and non-IT alike. The only exception is the organisation's musical instruments.
Create data repositories of human resources, location and assets. To prepare for the subsequent set-up phase, three data repositories required for the tool to operate correctly were defined. A location repository was created from a legacy application, focused on the management of specific areas (and structured by site, building floor, etc.). A people repository was designed using Radio France's HR management tools and its OLAP directory.
To finish with, an asset repository was created. "This is the one that took the most work, because we didn't have a consolidated database in this area," remarks Michel Speranzon. Radio France consequently carried out an inventory during the summer of 2008, in July. This was a good time to do it, as the organisation was busy preparing the programming schedules for the year ahead and inventory staff could inspect the studios without interrupting broadcasts or recordings.
What was the users' reaction to the new portal? "Quite good," replies Michel Speranzon. The various stakeholders involved in the processes of maintaining and replacing IT and non-IT assets were very keen to have an integrated asset management solution. Not to mention the two technical purchasing departments, one in charge of managing buildings and the other in charge of the production infrastructure. Quite apart from its usefulness as a budgetary decision aid, "the project helped us harmonise the purchasing flows between the two departments," concludes Michel Speranzon.
Michel Speranzon, officer in charge at Radio France, was interviewed at the itSMF Forum on 19 October 2010 in Paris Michel Speranzon presented a testimonial at the event.
The issues
As a result of changing its production processes over to digital technology, Radio France was faced with shorter replacement cycles for its working tools. From the year 2000 onwards, sound recording and analogue editing systems were replaced by digital tools. Journalists now do radio editing on computers and the production tool for radio programmes relies on servers.
While all these computer-based resources may be more efficient than analogue technology, they have a shorter service life and therefore a shorter replacement cycle. "As a result, we needed a decision aid to guide asset replacement from one year to the next," explains Michel Speranzon, officer in charge at Radio France.
To define the budgets allocated to IT and network resources for the following year, the public corporation's buyers need a comprehensive vision of its existing assets. This includes the purchase dates of network equipment and hardware, cost of ownership, usage rates, technical problems encountered, associated maintenance costs and so on. "The idea was to help them better manage replacements and more efficiently meet requirements for new PCs, servers and other devices," says Michel Speranzon.
In 2005, Radio France launched an in-depth study of the question. At the time, Radio France had a purchasing management tool (Generix) and a solution for managing in-house requests, stocks and maintenance for IT equipment (MP2 Enterprise). It also had an Access database and Excel files. "The tools just weren't up to what we wanted to do," adds Michel Speranzon.
The solutions
In 2007, Radio France issued requests for proposals to six vendors. The future users from logistics, purchasing, finance, the help desk and maintenance were also involved in the process. In the end, the PS'Soft solution was chosen. "We needed a tool that was as easy to use as possible, especially as it had to be used by non-IT people, such as workstation or move correspondents," explains Michel Speranzon. The PS'Soft application has a suitable interface and is capable of taking into account different user profiles.
The portal offers processes for requesting hardware, requesting a move, and reporting and tracking an incident. But the PS'Soft tool also includes the full range of asset management functions, such as inventory management, purchasing management, stock management, hardware request management, etc. There is also a built-in reporting module.
The results
The PS'Soft tool was rolled out in summer 2008 and integrated into Radio France's financial system. The aim was to recuperate the cost centres defined by the Finance Department. This means that the company can use the PS'Soft application to generate reports on the breakdown of its installed base of PCs by cost centre, i.e. by buyer or in-house user. These reports can state the age and technical history of the PCs. "This helps us decide, for instance, whether all or part of France Culture's asset base should be replaced and in what time frame," says Michel Speranzon.
Compare requests for IT resources with actual usage of the asset base "Thanks to its automatic inventory functions, the application can tell us to what extent the PCs and their installed software are being used. This data can be correlated with purchases to manage financial compliance," says PS'Soft. Radio France wanted to be able to compare requests for IT resources with actual usage of its current asset base so that it could make decisions about budgets and new deployments. "The project has delivered the expected results," confirms Michel Speranzon.
During summer 2008, Radio France made an inventory of its IT and non-IT assets: PCs, printers, networks, studio equipment (decks, mikes, headphones, etc.), as well as air conditioners, power systems and so on. It decided to use the PS'Soft tool to manage all of its physical resources, IT and non-IT alike. The only exception is the organisation's musical instruments.
Create data repositories of human resources, location and assets. To prepare for the subsequent set-up phase, three data repositories required for the tool to operate correctly were defined. A location repository was created from a legacy application, focused on the management of specific areas (and structured by site, building floor, etc.). A people repository was designed using Radio France's HR management tools and its OLAP directory.
To finish with, an asset repository was created. "This is the one that took the most work, because we didn't have a consolidated database in this area," remarks Michel Speranzon. Radio France consequently carried out an inventory during the summer of 2008, in July. This was a good time to do it, as the organisation was busy preparing the programming schedules for the year ahead and inventory staff could inspect the studios without interrupting broadcasts or recordings.
What was the users' reaction to the new portal? "Quite good," replies Michel Speranzon. The various stakeholders involved in the processes of maintaining and replacing IT and non-IT assets were very keen to have an integrated asset management solution. Not to mention the two technical purchasing departments, one in charge of managing buildings and the other in charge of the production infrastructure. Quite apart from its usefulness as a budgetary decision aid, "the project helped us harmonise the purchasing flows between the two departments," concludes Michel Speranzon.
Michel Speranzon, officer in charge at Radio France, was interviewed at the itSMF Forum on 19 October 2010 in Paris Michel Speranzon presented a testimonial at the event.
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