Unified ITSM improves productivity for Coherent

Facing the complexities of multiple mergers and acquisitions, Coherent, a global leader in lasers and electronics, struggled with a fragmented IT service management (ITSM) structure. Disjointed workflows across four separate ITSM platforms hampered productivity, degraded the employee experience, and posed significant risks to manufacturing and compliance.

To address these issues, Anantha Ganga, Coherent’s CIO, sought to standardize IT service delivery on a single platform. Within just four months, Coherent successfully transitioned all IT workflows to Freshservice. Coherent subsequently expanded its use of Freshservice to support HR needs—such as employee onboarding and offboarding—with plans to expand to facilities and procurement.

By adopting Freshservice, Coherent centralized IT service management on one platform, enabling over 500 agents to efficiently resolve more than 65,000 tickets to date. Freshservice has helped to improve cross-team collaboration, enhance employee support workflows, and help maintain compliance, positioning Coherent to easily manage any future mergers or acquisitions as it continues to grow.

The company

Founded in 1971 to manufacture high-quality materials and optics for industrial lasers, today Coherent is a world leader in lasers, networks, and electronics for industrial markets. With more than 25,000 employees operating in over 20 countries, Coherent provides laser-related equipment and components for a wide range of applications, from lasers for LASIK eye surgeries to mirrors for the James Webb Space Telescope.

The challenge

After numerous enterprise mergers and acquisitions, Coherent’s IT support workflows were clouded in confusion and disorganization. The company had four separate ITSM platforms (including a lingering ServiceNow instance), hampering productivity and making it difficult to make data-driven decisions. These disjointed workflows also had the potential to negatively impact public reputation and revenue across manufacturing production and internal operations, especially in light of strict compliance and auditing standards.

“With so many post-merger technologies, our teams struggled to communicate and collaborate. Without a cohesive IT service management platform, catering to teams and employees was an uphill battle,” says Ganga.

Coherent needed to unify its approach to service management across regions and functions. By centralizing IT service workflows on a single platform, Coherent aimed to improve IT support, enhance cross-team communication, and mitigate the risks associated with fragmented systems and inefficiencies.

The solution

Turning to Freshservice for its unified service catalog, robust change management capabilities, and self-service portal, Coherent has simplified and standardized its approach to IT service delivery. “I've used multiple service platforms since the late '90s, and Freshservice is unique,” says Ganga. “It’s a very intuitive, highly adaptable solution.”

In less than four months, Coherent transitioned all ITSM workflows to Freshservice, giving employees access to a centralized knowledge base with in-depth support articles and a thorough IT service catalog. Freshservice enables the IT team to structure incoming ticket flows, improve service request efficiency, and simplify user permissions.

In addition to using Freshservice for IT workflows, Coherent uses the platform to support HR-related needs and requests. Alongside Oracle HCM (Human Capital Management), Freshservice enhances employee onboarding and offboarding. A custom Okta integration and Freshservice single sign-on ensure new employees have prerequisite requirements in place before they even start. In addition to improving the new-hire experience, Freshservice simplifies employee offboarding by bringing HR compliance data under one roof.

"What began as a way to centralize IT service management has evolved into improving the holistic employee experience at Coherent," says Ganga. “Freshservice increases visibility and control, while ensuring compliance with critical people management guidelines for auditing purposes.”

Impact

Freshservice, built on Neo Platform and powered by AWS, streamlines access to IT and HR support for employees, eliminating the need to switch between multiple platforms. Currently, over 500 internal agents use Freshservice to efficiently support nearly 25,000 employees. This has amounted to more than 65,000 total ticket resolutions in just the first six months—with a projected 30,000 tickets per month in the future. 

Looking ahead, Coherent plans to expand Freshservice to other teams and functions, such as facilities and procurement. Building on Freshservice's initial success, Coherent is also exploring ways to further leverage Freshservice’s capabilities in IT asset management, project management, and generative AI (including Freddy AI).

“We're excited to integrate Freshservice with even more systems. Our ultimate goal is to create a ‘one-stop shop’ for the employee experience," says Ganga. “And Freshservice will remain a central component of our strategy for achieving this.”