How to "sell" Jira Service Desk inside a company?

[Andrei Akentjew]

I work in a very big retail company, specifically in the ecommerce area. I work in Operations Continuity. Most of the time I'm the conection between First Level Support and the internal clients of the company because the tool we use for issues is a "custom made 2005's looked" interfacewith no real time reports, super bad comunication between agent and customer and horrible reporting.

I'm assigned to change this platform for something like Jira Service Desk. My main problem is that there is a contract with this other platform but I know if I do this right I can convince the key stakeholders in order to make this change.

We already use JIRA for developing and second level big issues so the tool is known and most of the people know is a good option.

What are your opinions/advices/recommendations to convince this stakeholders that we need to change to a better tool like this because the hours of issues not solved only because of the tool is money that we are losing.

[Jack Brickey]

Speaking from a position of someone that approves purchases for the company here is my advice:

• What problem(s) are you solving and can it(they) not be solved in today's environment?
  • collaboration
  • reporting
  • tracking
  • usability
  • flexibility
  • supportability
  • integration w/ existing tools
  • etc.
• How will productivity be impacted?
• What are the costs and how does that compare to today? NRE and recurring?
• Who will be impacted by the change and how?
• Have you socialized the idea w/ key players from the various groups and what pros, cons and issues were raised.

[Sebastian Kleinholz]

My advice, try to point out how much money (working time) could be saved when using something new compared to something old. When you present your results to the commercial thinking managers - they will love you.

One more advice: Try not to think from the perspective of the tool to the needs of their users, but vice-versa. Probably JSD is then the wrong tool and something different would even fit better ...