How THG Ingenuity took a one-front-door approach to business-wide service delivery with ServiceDesk Plus

About the company

THG Ingenuity is a Manchester-based, end-to-end e-commerce technology and services provider that enables brands to scale globally. Built on more than two decades of experience powering the growth of THG Ingenuity’s own portfolio of high-performing brands, the platform brings together proprietary technology and digital marketing expertise into a single, integrated ecosystem.

Through its core solutions—THG Commerce, THG Fulfil, and THG Studios, THG Ingenuity enables brands to manage the entire e-commerce value chain, end-to-end. Today, THG Ingenuity partners with leading international brands such as Nestlé, Coca-Cola, and LOOKFANTASTIC. By combining technology, operations, and creative services, it helps organizations accelerate growth, simplify complex commerce operations, and deliver seamless customer experiences at scale.

Operating at this scale meant managing a complex web of requests, workflows, and dependencies across teams and systems. It required tight coordination across teams, standardized processes, and real time visibility into thousands of moving parts. Cut to ServiceDesk Plus, the AI-driven unified service management platform from ManageEngine, THG Ingenuity was able to ensure of all of this and more to bring order and efficiency to its service operations.

The challenge | Good old mailboxes and spreadsheets could no longer keep up

Since its inception in 2004, THG Ingenuity has always been driven by a mindset of turning obstacles into opportunities. That same ambition extended to how it wanted to deliver services across the business. But as operations scaled rapidly, the tools supporting its service delivery failed to keep pace. Requests from employees were managed through e-mails and spreadsheets, while external client requests landed directly in account managers’ inboxes. Since IT and other business teams like HR, finance, warehouse, and facilities worked from their own mailboxes, it resulted in requests getting lost, duplicate tasks, and disjointed collaboration. And as request volumes grew, delays became inevitable, requests slipped through the cracks, and teams struggled to keep up.

To continue operating at scale and uphold the high standards THG Ingenuity set for itself, it was clear that its service delivery needed to evolve beyond its legacy tools.

The solution | ServiceDesk Plus - One platform sparks business-wide transformation

True to its culture of experimentation and solution-first thinking, THG Ingenuity looked beyond short-term fixes and was ready to reimagine its service delivery. To this end, it needed a service management platform that could do more than just centralize requests. It needed to standardize how work moved across teams, adapt to peak demand, and extend seamlessly beyond IT into the wider business. ServiceDesk Plus provided that foundation, enabling THG Inegnuity to design structured service operations while maintaining the flexibility required to support both internal teams and external clients from a single, unified platform.

Unified cross-functional processes become THG Ingenuity's best bet

IT makes the first move

When requests came in through disjointed channels like emails and phone calls, the IT team had to track each request manually, assign it to the right team member, and communicate updates through long email threads. This fragmented approach often led to tickets being lost, delays in resolution, and inconsistent service experiences. THG Ingenuity's change initiatives were also managed in a similarly ad hoc manner, with limited visibility into approvals and dependencies. This increased the risk of errors and unplanned disruptions.

With ServiceDesk Plus, IT became the first function at THG Ingenuity to pioneer a more structured path to service excellence. Here's how;

• No matter how employees reach out, whether through email, phone, SMS, or the self-service portal, ServiceDesk Plus’s omni-channel capabilities ensure that all requests are funneled into a centralized system.
• Every internal request is now tracked, assigned, and resolved within ServiceDesk Plus, giving teams complete visibility into each request’s lifecycle.
• Incoming requests are automatically triaged, removing guesswork around categorization, prioritization, and routing from the outset.
• End-to-end workflows enforce clear standard operating procedures by stage-gating the entire request lifecycle and ensuring consistency and accountability.
• Communication flows seamlessly between team members, end users, and stakeholders, rather than being scattered across inboxes.
• Change initiatives are executed through well-planned, stage-wise processes, with workflows enforcing the right checks and approvals at each phase.

Other business verticals are quick to follow

As ServiceDesk Plus delivered clear ROI for THG Ingenuity’s IT team, other business functions quickly began to see its broader potential. The IT team was able to demonstrate how the platform’s enterprise service management (ESM) capabilities could drive efficiency and measurable outcomes beyond IT. HR saw immediate value in using ServiceDesk Plus to enhance onboarding workflows, while the warehouse team recognized its ability to bring structure to high-volume operational requests. Seeing the platform in action encouraged teams across HR, finance, facilities, and the warehouse to move away from mailbox-driven processes and come on board. By adopting ServiceDesk Plus as their enterprise service management platform, these teams were set to efficiently track work, automate workflows, and deliver consistent service experiences, all from a unified system rather than fragmented tools.

Enabling cross-team workflows without compromising data boundaries

When it came to unifying service management across the business, two things were critical for THG Ingenuity. The first was enabling effective collaboration and consistent service delivery across teams. The second was recognizing that, no matter how integrated processes needed to be, a certain level of siloing was essential, especially for sensitive data such as their HR and payroll information. To make this expansion possible, the IT team built autonomous instances for each business vertical within ServiceDesk Plus. Each department could use a unified platform and collaborate better with each other but still operate independently with its own workflows, service catalogs, and data access that helped maintain strict data segregation. This gave teams full control over their processes without compromising security or visibility. By extending ServiceDesk Plus beyond IT, THG Ingenuity unlocked the platform’s full potential, using it as a business-wide service management solution.

ServiceDesk Plus + Zoho Desk pave the way for excellent service delivery for external clients

THG Ingenuity works closely with a diverse range of third party brands which meant that it needed to extend the same service standards to its external clients too. From delivering services like website development and marketing to day-to-day operational support, the internal teams would often have their hands full with client requests. But when clients needed help, whether to report an issue, request a change, or flag something urgent, there was no efficient way to funnel those requests into a centralized system. They came in through scattered emails and informal channels and THG Ingenuity's account managers had to bear the brunt of these requests. They had to capture details manually and route them to the right internal teams. The internal teams would then work on those requests with data from disjointed sources which made it arduous to provide timely updates and resolutions to clients.

This all changed when THG Ingenuity started to use ServiceDesk Plus in conjunction with Zoho Desk, Zoho’s customer support software. The team easily integrated both platforms using Zoho Flow, Zoho’s iPaaS solution, and automated the flow of requests and updates between them. By integrating Zoho Desk with ServiceDesk Plus, client requests raised in Zoho Desk automatically gets logged directly into ServiceDesk Plus, where internal teams handle execution from a centralized platform. Throughout the requests' lifecycle, ServiceDesk Plus remains the system of action, with all status updates and ticket closures automatically synchronized with Zoho Desk. This allowed internal teams to avoid switching between multiple tools and work from a centralized system, while client updates continued to flow automatically through the clients' support platform.

Handling 200,000+ tickets without missing a beat

No ticket left behind

With five distinct service desk instances live across THG Inegnuity’s major business functions, teams now had a structured way to ensure that every ticket was logged, tracked, and resolved end to end. For example, the warehouse instance alone efficiently handled 100,00+ tickets in a year, requests that would have previously flooded the account managers’ inboxes.

Automated triaging End-to-end workflowsImproved CommunicationExpedited resolutions

At the scale THG Ingenuity operates, incoming tickets can easily get lost in a black hole if they are not triaged properly. With ServiceDesk Plus, the internal teams automated the entire triaging process to properly categorize, prioritize, and most importantly route all tickets to the the right teams.

Zia's predictive features

With workflows, THG Ingenuity defines exactly how different types of requests are handled by stage-gating the ticketing process and ensuring every ticket follows a structured path from creation to closure. For complex requests, THG Ingenuity branches workflows into multiple paths and applies dynamic approvals, ensuring every request is handled according to its unique requirements .This gives them full control over how work is managed, ensures the right stakeholders are involved at the right time, and brings consistency and accountability to service delivery across teams.

Visual workflows in ServiceDesk Plus

The team was able to bring clarity to every request by improving how they communicated with both clients and internal team members. Zia, our AI assistant, helps internal teams draft clear responses for end users and quickly generate content for any text-heavy field within the platform. Teams collaborate seamlessly within tickets through ticket notes, and AI-powered summaries bring stakeholders up to speed quickly, without having to read long conversation threads. And, when technicians chose to show notes to the requester, the updates were automatically mirrored in the Zoho Desk portal, allowing clients to stay informed about the progress of their requests without having to repeatedly check in. With the ability to balance client-facing updates and internal communication, the team was able to maintain transparency with customers while ensuring smoother coordination among technicians.

Response generation with Text Assist

Ticket summarization for quicker handoffs

With automated triaging, clear end-to-end workflows, and better collaboration between teams, THG Ingenuity could get tickets moving the moment they arrived. Tasks were routed to the right people, and streamlined ticket queues made sure nothing slipped through the cracks. The result was faster resolutions, fewer bottlenecks, and smoother coordination across teams, keeping all stakeholders satisfied.

Quicker and error free joiner, mover, and leaver workflows

THG Ingenuity's workforce is as diverse as its customer base, and one of its core goals is to create a workplace culture that brings out the best in everyone. To support this, HR processes needed to be just as structured and reliable as the services delivered to customers.

With a workforce of over 2,000 employees, joiner, mover, and leaver (JML) workflows are critical to day-to-day operations. In fact, the HR team handled close to 4,000 HR requests in a span of little over a year. Before ServiceDesk Plus, these processes were largely managed through emails and spreadsheets. This manual approach proved to be tedious and time consuming.

With ServiceDesk Plus, THG Ingenuity moved away from spreadsheets and manual handoffs to streamlined JML workflows. Employee onboarding is now enhanced end to end, from automating Active Directory user account creation and preparing hardware assets to provisioning the right access and privileges to required tools from day one. This not only reduced manual errors but also ensured new hires had a smooth and consistent onboarding experience.

End-to-end onboarding worflows

Finessing their way through the festive frenzy

Incident management Change management

During the festive season, the sheer volume of requests and incidents can naturally spike, making efficient incident response more important than ever. With ServiceDesk Plus serving as a single source of truth, communication flows directly through the platform rather than scattered emails or messages. When high-priority tickets, such as P1 or P2 incidents arrive, a custom script automatically creates a problem record, links all the incident tickets, and carries over all related incident details to the problem record. Relevant Senior Leadership Team (SLT) members are pulled into the problem record to review and approve post-incident reports submitted by the IT team. If a report isn't approved, the workflow automatically notifies the relevant team members, ensuring accountability and timely follow-up. This setup keeps critical incidents under control and maintains transparency across teams and leadership, even during the busiest periods of the year.

Visual workflows in ServiceDesk Plus

At THG Ingenuity, teams can normally propose a range of change requests, which are routed to the relevant approvers. Once approved, changes are implemented stage by stage through structured workflows, ensuring consistent execution and visibility at every step.

But during peak trading periods such as Black Friday, even small changes, if not carefully managed, can open a whole new can of worms and trigger cascading issues. To mitigate this, THG Ingenuity has configured conditions that prevent any changes from being approved without SLT review during these scheduled windows. This ensures that every change is carefully evaluated, approved, and executed, maintaining operational stability while supporting business-critical initiatives during high-pressure periods.

Stage wise and controlled change implementations

Offloading the routine grind to Zia

The IT team at THG Ingenuity actively leverages Zia's GenAI suite to reduce manual effort and speed up service delivery. From reply assistance to solution generation, Zia helps teams draft accurate responses and resolution content quickly, especially in text-heavy scenarios.

Zia's code generator has also given the team a lot of room to experiment. By using it to create low-code scripts for custom functions, the team quickly tests ideas, refines workflows, and is able to implement niche business logic without needing heavy development effort. This flexibility allows THG Ingenuity to adapt ServiceDesk Plus to its exact requirements while keeping customization fast and lightweight.

Beyond GenAI, THG Ingenuity makes use of Zia's predictive capabilities to improve request handling. Intelligent triaging helps route requests to the right teams, while template predictions assist users in selecting the most relevant request templates from the many in use. With an evolving roadmap of GenAI and agentic capabilities in Zia, the team looks forward to unlocking new productivity gains at scale.

Looking ahead

Today, THG Ingenuity is one of ServiceDesk Plus's largest retail and e-commerce customers, using the platform to its fullest potential across the organization and this is just the beginning. As a global business with colleagues, customers, and communities around the world, THG Ingenuity embraces a culture of innovation and collaboration as it strives to be a leader in its sectors. By improving visibility and accountability, THG Ingenuity has shifted from reactive service management to a structured, proactive approach that supports the diverse needs of teams from IT and HR to warehouse and facilities. ServiceDesk Plus has empowered internal teams to work more efficiently, collaborate more effectively, and deliver consistent service experiences at scale, reinforcing THG Ingenuity's broader mission of driving operational excellence and superior experiences across the business.