Raleigh Police Department IT Team -- Really Doing More with Less!
“SAManage has delivered all that they promised. We are very pleased with our decision.“
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Background
The Raleigh, NC Police Department (RPD) services six Police Districts covering over 140 square miles. The goal of the RPD is to make Raleigh one of the safest cities in America. To do that, RPD is continually advancing strategies that prevent crime, including engaging the community in taking steps that help minimize opportunities for victimization. For example, one of these initiatives is a new online crime reporting system that allows citizens to file certain non-emergency police reports online. Many of these initiatives demand the use of modern IT products and services.
Challenges
With over 700 computer users in the department, the IT team operates under constant budget pressure. The sometimes over-used phrase "doing more with less" is reality for this team -- only eight IT specialists support the 700 plus computer users! A homegrown asset management system was being used and all incident management was handled via email only. As the size of the team was being reduced, the pressure mounted to maintain acceptable service levels. Management understood the need for better systems, but the major challenge was the perceived time that it would take to get new solutions introduced. The fear was the negative impact that this would have on service levels while the team was sidetracked with a long and drawn out implementation and roll-out project.
Solution
The rapid deployment of the SAManage Asset Management and Service Desk solution surprised the team. Within a few hours of starting, they were up and running. Within a few days, all of the computers were automatically reporting back and the service desk was accepting and tracking incidents and support requests.
"The speed in which we were able to get this implemented was the key for us," said Lawrence Cullipher, the IT Director at City of Raleigh Police Department. "I was very concerned that the time we would have to invest in implementation would severely impact the support of our users. We were very pleasantly surprised that we were fully functional in such a short time."
Benefits
Today, RPD has full control over all of its hardware and software assets. End users communicate with the service desk technicians via either email or the self-service portal. Tracking the assets, managing the incidents and being able to associate an incident with a computer has allowed the team to increase service levels despite the budget pressures. "SAManage has delivered all that they promised. We are very pleased with our decision," said Cullipher.
