With over 20 years’ experience across Europe, the USA and Asia Pacific, Touchpaper is one of the most established and respected international providers of IT Business Management (ITBM) solutions, encompassing IT Service Management (ITSM), Customer Service Solutions (CSS) and Network and Systems Management (N&SM).

Touchpaper sells its solutions directly and through an extensive international network of resellers to private and public sector organizations across various vertical markets including education, financial services, healthcare, IT, law, manufacturing, professional services, retail, transport and utilities. Customers include The Bodyshop International, Friends First, Harvey Nichols, London Business School, Merrill Lynch and WWF (formerly known as the World Wildlife Fund).

The company has 2000 customers, supporting over 3 million users worldwide.

Touchpaper employs approximately 200 employees globally at its headquarters in the UK and at offices in Ireland, Germany, South-East Asia and the United States of America. 

Touchpaper is a global HDI (Help Desk Institute) member and an HDI Strategic Partner in the UK. It is also a global member of the itSMF (IT Service Management Forum).

The Touchpaper evolution from Help Desk to IT Service Management to IT Business Management

In the early 1990’s, before the days of IT Service Management, the advent of client/server computing brought with it an increased need to provide IT support for end users who had very little experience of working with computer technology. At that time, the focus was on the benefits of creating and automating a help desk that would enable the IT department to effectively manage support incidents. The help desk was then primarily a reactive mechanism for managing and responding to issues that are reported to the IT department and the first systems were used mainly for logging, managing and tracking IT (and later) customer service calls. Touchpaper’s solutions have always been leading edge, providing advanced benefits and functionality even in these early days.

Over time, PCs and PC-based applications became more powerful, complex networks and applications were developed and the introduction of the internet widened the reach of every organisation. This has created ever increasing demands on the IT department to deliver new and more sophisticated systems and services and also to support a growing number of end users on the same or reduced budgets. To meet these demands, the software market evolved through to more integrated IT Service Management (ITSM) solutions. Similar principles applied to the development of solutions for customer service and support but the focus was on the people, processes and technology needed to deliver excellent service to external customers.

ITSM extended the basic help desk, to encompass the processes and solutions needed to deliver a high quality IT service. ITSM was designed to focus on the people, processes and technology issues that IT organisations face.

Areas such as standardisation of support processes; the provision and support of multiple channels of interaction; best practices for workflow, integration, incident, problem and change management; intelligent reporting; and the provision of accurate information on an organisation’s infrastructure components, assets and inventory through a Configuration Management Database (CMDB) are all areas that ITSM suppliers have been grappling with for some time.

At Touchpaper, we believe that while these components address organisations’ basic housekeeping requirements, many are not getting full value from their investment in technology or taking a strategic view on how it can be used to deliver against key goals. This is why Touchpaper is developing solutions for what we call IT Business Management (ITBM).

ITBM is an infrastructure that enables the IT Department to measure itself against the business’s strategic and operational goals. An ITBM enabled organisation will have identified Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that are critical to its success. Their investment in IT will be a direct contributor to the productivity of the organisation. The exact KPIs will be specific to each organisation but there is a standard set that is likely to form the core measures.

Because ITBM is about creating a way of working and a way of thinking, rather than a product or solution, Touchpaper has found that the easiest way to discuss it with a customer is to look at the top KPIs that an ITBM organisation would be working towards. These KPIs will change depending upon where an organisation is in the lifecycle.

Touchpaper believes that IT Departments need to focus on service delivery, ensuring that key business services are managed effectively and that users are viewed in a more ‘customer’ orientated way. Increased flexibility will allow an IT department to effectively enable change, manage service delivery and also provide support for business priorities.

Touchpaper has been instrumental in redefining the move away from simple help desk products to complete IT Business Management (ITBM) solutions and services encompassing IT Service Management (ITSM), Customer Service Solutions (CSS) and Network and Systems Management (N&SM).

Download the Touchpaper corporate brochure

Information for Gemini Affinitas Customers

Towards the end of 2005, Gemini Affinitas became a wholly owned subsidiary of Touchpaper, the leading provider of IT Business Management solutions.  Users of Gemini Affinitas products continue to be supported by Touchpaper.

If you have any queries or problems please contact Touchpaper’s experienced support team via one of the methods below:-

Telephone:  +44 (0)1483 744449
Email:  support@touchpaper.com

You can also log, track and update calls via the 'For Customers' section of the site.