Providing Secure, Efficient Remote Support

• Northumbrian enhanced remote support security and the end user experience with Bomgar.
• Bomgar has helped Northumbrian improve first-time resolution rates as well as time-to-resolution.

Bomgar, a leader in secure remote support and access management solutions, has announced Northumbrian Water Group is using Bomgar Remote Support to deliver efficient and secure support to its users. Northumbrian provides water and sewerage services to 2.7 million people in the north east of England. The utility serves the major population centres of Tyneside, Wearside and Teesside as well as large rural areas in Northumberland and County Durham. Additionally, the company supplies water services to approximately 1.8 million people in the Essex and Suffolk areas of south east England.

When Alan Sherwen, head of IS service and operations, joined Northumbrian, he quickly realized the need to replace the service management tool in place. “With the incumbent solution, we were unable to adequately track the performance of our support team and how well we complied with service level agreements,” said Sherwen. “The end user experience was inadequate as well.”

Sherwen and members of his team attended a service desk tradeshow in the U.K. where they first heard about Bomgar Remote Support. “We were using Sunrise IT Service Management software and several people at the conference told us how well Bomgar integrates with that solution and enables robust remote support from within the Sunrise platform,” said Sherwen. “Based on those recommendations from Bomgar’s users— and after experiencing its ease of use during a due diligence trial—it became clear that Bomgar was the remote support solution for us. In fact, the Bomgar Remote Support appliance we used for our trial never left our building.”

Security was another critical reason Northumbrian chose Bomgar. As a public utility, the company is subject to the strict requirements of the U.K.’s Centre for the Protection of National Infrastructure (CPNI). Every software solution must be analysed by a CPNI security team and data protection specialists before it is deployed to ensure it will not introduce vulnerabilities to the network infrastructure. With its on-premises appliance and advanced encryption of all session data, Bomgar easily met the requirements for CPNI approval.

Since implementation, Bomgar has improved first-time resolution rates as well as time-to-resolution. “Before, if a user working on a pipe in the field couldn’t connect to our database with their device, we would have to ask them to describe what they were seeing on their screen and guess the problem. Now, we can gain complete visibility and control of that device, which makes troubleshooting a much quicker and easier process. It has also reduced the number of instances we need to go on location to fix an issue,” explained Sherwen.

Looking forward, Sherwen sees Bomgar benefiting the organisation in additional ways. “We anticipate greater use of mobile devices in the future. I know that Bomgar is on the leading edge when it comes to mobile, so when we are ready we can extend our remote support to those devices. Bomgar is simply a great solution that continues to help us expand our capabilities at Northumbrian Water Group. We are very happy with our decision to use Bomgar.”

About Bomgar

Bomgar connects people and technology securely, providing leading remote support and privileged access management solutions that strengthen security while increasing productivity. Bomgar solutions help support and security professionals improve business performance by enabling secure, controlled access to nearly any device or system, anywhere in the world. More than 9,500 organisations across 65 countries use Bomgar to deliver superior support services and manage access to valuable data and systems. Bomgar is privately held with offices in Atlanta, Jackson, Washington D.C., Frankfurt, London, Paris, and Singapore.