How Seagate Migrated 30,000 Users to a New IT Platform in 3 Months and Achieved 94% First Contact Resolution
The Challenge
Seagate Technology, a global data storage manufacturer with ~30,000 employees, faced a forced migration: its existing ITSM platform was expensive to maintain, lacked modern AI and automation capabilities, and faced a hard renewal deadline giving the IT team only three months to complete a global migration. Beyond the time constraint, the legacy system's manual asset management relied on disparate internal processes that created visibility gaps across a global hybrid infrastructure — a significant operational risk for a manufacturing environment where untracked assets represent both cost and security exposure. The team's goal was not to replicate the old system but to use the migration as an opportunity to redesign IT operations from the ground up.
The Solution
Freshservice replaced the legacy ITSM system with a redesigned IT operations architecture built around automation and AI from day one. The service catalog was rebuilt and SLAs standardised globally. Ticket routing hierarchies were simplified to enable automation. Freddy AI Agent was deployed in Microsoft Teams within one month of go-live, providing employees with conversational IT support without raising tickets. Device42 integration enabled automated asset discovery, replacing the manual tracking processes with continuous inventory visibility. AI-assisted recommendations provided agents with resolution suggestions for complex tickets.
The Outcome
Seagate achieved 94% first contact resolution — 27 percentage points above the industry standard — meaning the vast majority of IT issues were resolved in a single interaction without escalation. Freddy AI deflected 32% of tickets entirely, handling employee queries through conversational AI before they entered the service desk queue. Automated asset discovery catalogued over 10,000 assets that had previously been tracked manually or not at all. The entire 30,000-user global migration completed within the three-month deadline.
Strategic Takeaway
Seagate's migration illustrates a principle that applies to any large-scale ITSM transition: a forced migration is also a design opportunity. The team's decision to rebuild workflows rather than replicate them — simplifying ticket routing to enable automation, deploying AI in the first month — is what produced a 94% first contact resolution rate rather than a like-for-like replacement. The 32% AI deflection rate is the upstream benefit: tickets that never reach the service desk queue reduce agent load before any resolution efficiency improvement is needed. For manufacturing companies, the asset discovery result has distinct strategic value: 10,000+ assets previously invisible to IT represent a security and cost risk surface that is now managed rather than unknown.
- Platform migrations are redesign opportunities, not replication exercises. Teams that rebuild routing and automation logic during migration — rather than porting old workflows — extract compounding efficiency gains that inherited complexity would have prevented.
- AI ticket deflection is a multiplier on every other service desk improvement. If 32% of tickets never enter the queue, agent capacity, resolution speed, and CSAT improvements all apply to a smaller problem surface.
- Asset visibility is a risk metric in manufacturing. Untracked infrastructure is not just an inventory problem — it is a security exposure and an unquantified cost. Automated discovery converts unknown risk into managed inventory.
See how Freshservice can help your business address similar challenges.
Affiliate link — we may earn a commission at no cost to you.