Sauer-Danfoss is a hydraulics and electrical equipment manufacturer that employs over 9,000 people across 40 countries. To support these disparate locations in an optimal manner, the company pursues a shared services approach not only to IT but also to financial services.

The company provides IT and finance support to 11 of its European locations from a financial centre in Slovakia. In 2007, the volume of support calls to the IT team and service requests to the financial operation was becoming unmanageable. That led Sauer-Danfoss’s IT team to evaluate service management software, eventually selecting the FootPrints service desk management tool from Numara – a conventional choice as far as IT is concerned, but unusual in its application to finance.

But according to project manager Jozef Kois, the company recognises the universal relevance of the service management approach.

 “At Sauer-Danfoss, we believe that the principles of service management shouldn’t just apply to IT help desks but can be very effectively used by other parts of the organisation,” he says. “Best practice and automated processes in place help us to manage our business more cost effectively.”

The service desk tool has significantly reduced response times in both IT and finance support functions, and both are now open to greater auditability and analysis.