The complexity of an IT environment no longer depends on the size of a company or its number of employees. In our daily business we are faced with similar problems to those that larger companies face.

 

Andreas Puest, Head of IT, Mynaric


 

The company, founded in 2009 by ex-researchers of the German Aerospace Centre, has the goal of creating ‘optical fibre for the sky’ with the serial production of terminals for use in the air and in space. Mynaric’s terminals are produced and designed in-house and attached to planes, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), high altitude platforms (HAPs) and satellites to provide secure wireless communication with high precision across vast distances via a laser. Scenarios such as large satellite constellations will provide the connectivity required for applications in Earth observation, secure communication and telecommunication, but also in sending highspeed internet to the most remote and inaccessible parts of the planet.

As a result of the current go-to-market phase, Mynaric is showing dynamic growth, which is proven by their tripling of employees since 2014—75 new engineers, software developers, test and production experts in the current year alone. On the same note, Mynaric is increasing its development and production capacities at its locations in Gilching in Bavaria and Los Angeles as preparation for serial production. “We’re currently going through the transition from being a start-up prototype developer to a manufacturer”, says Andreas Puest, Head of IT at Mynaric. “This increases the requirements our IT landscape has to meet in terms of process security and sustainability.”

What does ITSM stand for?

IT service management (ITSM) entails the planning, provision and support of IT services for a variety of people, processes and technologies. By bundling guidelines and processes for managing and supporting IT services for the duration of their life cycle, ITSM helps to improve efficiency and boost employee productivity in a company.

Providing more power for complicated processes.

As early as July 2019, Mynaric’s digital strategist recognised IT service management (ITSM) as an important lever for enhancing IT service quality across all departments. Until then, most services provided by the IT department showed little to no automation and documentation for their IT landscape was lacking transparency. Through working with Bechtle on hardware and infrastructure projects, Andreas Puest became aware of an interesting possibility for using his favoured ITSM platform by ServiceNow that is made to meet a wealth of enterprise-specific challenges. “The complexity of an IT environment no longer depends on the size of a company or its number of employees. In our daily business we are faced with similarly complex problems to those that larger companies face”, Andreas Puest explains.

Bechtle is providing the perfect approach for Mynaric with its new ServiceNow Competence Centre. Bechtle Onsite Services and collaboration specialist HanseVision have bundled their expertise on the cloud-based ServiceNow platform in a model customised specifically for SMEs. “We offer the customer a turnkey solution from a single source” says Aniello Cipriani, Lead Solution Manager, Bechtle Onsite Services. “Our multi-service provider model offers the ServiceNow platform as a fully-managed service at a monthly price.” Support for this cloud-based service is offered by Bechtle. “Mynaric’s IT department can now fully focus on using the functions available on the platform and intelligently connecting it to other systems. In future, service management will be available to users via the Now Mobile app, and experienced in a new and intuitive way”, says Frank Hanemann, Head of Enterprise Solution at HanseVision, a subsidiary of the Bechtle Group.


We have new challenges to face almost every day, especially in the engineering departments, and these can be quite demanding. It takes very clearly defined structures and transparency to handle these. It’s important for us as Mynaric’s digital enabler to be able to scale the growth of the company.

 

Andreas Puest, Head of IT, Mynaric


 

From ticket system to business enabler.

Another benefit of collaborating with the Bechtle Group’s specialists is their speed—even in times where working conditions are constantly changing. “We opted for the ServiceNow platform at the beginning of the year because it’s our goal as a high-tech company to move forward by using the best ITSM tools available. We launched it successfully during a two-day virtual workshop with subsequent onboarding that only took weeks instead of months as it usually does” says Andreas Puest. After having transferred the existing incident management system to the ServiceNow platform as a classic service ticket system in the first step, Mynaric now plans to introduce further tools such as problem, change, knowledge and demand management  “By doing so, we hope to significantly improve the seamless documentation of the IT landscape and systematically provide knowledge across all processes.” Professional demand management should also improve the reaction speed of the IT department when supporting business with new IT services. Andreas Puest: “We have new challenges to face almost every day, especially in the engineering departments, and these can be quite demanding. It takes very clearly defined structures and transparency to handle these. It’s important for us as Mynaric’s digital enabler to be able to scale the growth of the company.” ServiceNow’s ITSM platform’s functionalities are perfect for this, meaning that the laser communications expert is ready to fly high.

Picture: © Mynaric

MYNARIC is a manufacturer of laser communication technologies for operating communication and observation applications in the air and in space. Its products for laser data transmission allow extensive sets of data to be transferred wirelessly and securely across long distances between planes, autonomous drones, satellites and the ground. The company’s headquarters are located in Gilching near Munich and their US location in Los Angeles, California. mynaric.com

 


In future, service management will be available to users via the Now Mobile app, and experienced in a new and intuitive way.

 

Frank Hanemann, Head of Enterprise Solution, HanseVision


 

This is an excerpt of an article in the print edition of Bechtle update 03/2020.
 

PRINT EDITION

Contact person.

 

Frank Hanemann

Head of Enterprise Solution, HanseVision GmbH

frank.hanemann@hansevision.de

 

Aniello Cipriani

Lead Solution Manager, Bechtle Onsite GmbH

aniello.cipriani@bechtle.com

 

 

Links.

  • Reference: EG Franken-Schwaben - Bringing home the bacon with new IT infrastructure.
  • Reference: Theo Förch GmbH & Co. KG - FÖRCH Future Workplace with Microsoft 365.
  • Reference: Bechtle Logistics - Re-inventing the box.

 

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