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 answer the world’s most pressing challenges―ever more vital to help avoid the worst impacts of climate change.

Today, this U.K. firm employs 11,600 people in 30+ countries worldwide, helping drive down automotive emissions, transform energy systems, decarbonize 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 electrolyzers.

The Challenge

To support its global strategy, Johnson Matthey requires world-class service management capabilities. But it did not have them at the end of the last decade. Instead, the company relied on an old software platform that had become complex and cumbersome after several years of customization. “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 technology capabilities.

The Solution

Johnson Matthey was aware of BMC's standing in the ITSM market and was keen to unleash 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 center, 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 on square one with the same old problems,” says James Dicker.

The company adopted an 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 are integrated for them by Fusion Global Business Solutions. Additionally, Fusion GBS utilized its AI platform, AI Talos, to analyze over 750,000 items within BMC Helix ITSM. This analysis revealed opportunities for cross-departmental efficiencies by enhancing data quality and streamlining processes. It also identified relevant content to increase 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 categorization features with AI.”

The Results

BMC technology tools work together to improve ITSM responses at Johnson Matthey significantly. For example, the time to deliver a new software system has decreased from a couple of weeks to as little as an hour. Users can order more than 1000+ types of software on a self-service basis, and low-cost packages—costing less than £250 (around $300)—are 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, everyone has logged onto the new one.

James Dicker brings that 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 attractions of BMC technology is that it could meet most Johnson Matthey requirements without the need for extensive customization—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 customize 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. This means IT Service Desk Analysts can better focus on customer requirements. James Dicker underlines the point: “They’re spending less time worrying about, ‘Am I picking the right categorization?’ and more time talking to the end user about what their actual problem is.”

AI has also allowed Johnson Matthey to launch a virtual agent that talks to users in their language, 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, and many other internal functions.

“The level of flexibility is such that our team is running a transformation program 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.