Integrated Information Technology Services (IITS) has done SMU proud by being a double winner at CIO 100 Honouree award for the second consecutive year!

CIO Asia magazine’s annual CIO 100 index is a prestigious annual listing of the top 100 enterprises and organisations in Asia that have deployed information and communications technology to derive the highest strategic value and to yield the greatest return for their key operations and businesses.

The CIO 100 honourees were chosen by the CIO editorial team based on the strategic impact, customer impact, financial impact, social impact, and operational impact of their projects.

Mr Lau Kai Cheong, SMU’s Chief Information Officer and Vice President for Integrated Information Technology Services, received the awards at the CXO-CIO Conference Singapore on 7 April 2016.

Mr Lau said, “I would like to congratulate the IITS teams for this latest achievement. Winning five CIO 100 Honouree awards in three years is testimony of the skills, dedication and creative thinking of IITS staff. These recognition will spur us to continue to deliver better quality and more innovative solutions for the SMU Community as we forge ahead towards Vision 2025.”

IITS won the CIO 100 Honouree award in 2014 for the SMU Corporate Analytics & Reporting (SMUCAR). In 2015, it scored wins for the Advance Learning Analytics (ALA) and the SIEM-X – Improving IT Operations Through Security Tools projects.

SRIMS (Service Request and Incident Management System)

SRIMS is the result of IITS’s effort to transform IT customer service in SMU through the use of a service request and incident management system. SRIMS equips IT Help Centre with the capability to gain a holistic understanding of a single user’s needs for IT assistance as well as a more complete view of the various users’ touch points with IITS, thereby offering IITS the opportunity for timely intervention, targeted communications and offer of assistance as needed.

Extensive, comprehensive FAQs in SRIMS form the integral knowledge base to ensure incidents are resolved quickly within a structured escalation process and advice by Help Centre agents are consistent. Management tools are also in place to run analytic reports for performance statistics on IT Help Centre and for user based assistance. Adopting an evidence-based approach, data from SRIMS is also gleaned for actionable intelligence to improve customer service over time and hardening SMU’s security profile by watching incidents and understanding trends.

The project team, led by Senior Associate Director Serene Yap, implemented SRIMS in May 2014.

[Caption: With SRIMS, all incidents, service requests and information needs are systematically logged, prioritised, tracked and escalated to the appropriate technical support teams, where necessary, when users contact IT Help Centre online, or by phone or emails.]

iNet – SMU Faculty and Staff intranet

[Caption: Members of the iNet team which won the CIO 100 Honouree award are (front row, L-R) Mr. Lau Kai Cheong (CIO & VP, IITS), See Hui Fen, Theingi Zaw and Karl Erik Pe Mendoza; (back row, L-R) Arkar Winn Minn Htwe, Goh Wee Sen, Melvin Tan, Jim Chua and Muhammad Nurazhan Bin Moin.]

Created for the 1,100 faculty and staff at SMU, iNET has been developed to improve operational excellence, and enhance collaboration and knowledge discovery in the university. It replaces the old intranet which has been in use for 10 years.

The new intranet offers a fresh modern design with new and updated content. It is mobile-ready and optimised for the latest modern web browsers. A redesigned information architecture and powerful intranet search engine makes information search a breeze. It also provides new ways of working and collaboration by integrating with Office 365 and a user friendly web-based content management system.

Led by Associate Director Goh Wee Sen, iNet was rolled out in May 2015.

This is the second time IITS has won an award for iNet. In October 2015, IITS also won the Gold award at the Intranet Innovation Award 2015 by IT consultancy company StepTwo Designs for its development and deployment of iNET. SMU was the first university in Asia to receive this prestigious award.

[Caption: iNet offers a fresh modern design with new and updated content. It is mobile-ready and optimised for the latest modern web browsers.]

[Featured photo: Members of the SRIMS team which won the CIO 100 Honouree award are (front row, L-R) Belinda Lim, Serene Yap and Mr Lau Kai Cheong (CIO& VP, IITS); (back row, L-R) Hew Khen Fatt, Elene Peck and Alex Goh.]