Case Study: The Guardian achieves reliable nightly publication and continuous website uptime with SysAid

The Guardian - Customer Case Study

Guardian News & Media (GNM), publisher of theguardian.com and the Guardian and Observer newspapers, insourced its IT service desk in August 2013 after relying on third‑party providers. Supporting roughly 1,700 staff globally and a 60‑person IT team, the newly in‑house service desk faced high incident volumes (about 600–650 incidents/week), tight publication deadlines and the need for a smaller, flexible ITSM tool that matched its “digital first” operations and business priorities.

GNM selected SysAid’s cloud platform, heavily customized in‑house, and reorganized support with a visible “service desk bar,” strong first‑line resolution and a pragmatic, GNM‑tailored ITIL approach. The solution automated user account creation, improved business relationships through Business Relationship Managers, and reliably supports nightly print deadlines and the website’s uptime. The team praised SysAid’s ease of use and customer service (product 8.5/10, service 9.5/10), while noting reporting remains an area for improvement.

The Guardian

Louise​ Sandford​

Application Analyst