Help is at hand
- Article 42 of 77
- Information Age, July 2002
Every employee needs help with IT sooner or later. But what?s the best way of providing it?
No system is perfect, and most employees - computer experts and novices alike - need some help using their computing resources at some point.
Minimising the amount of time and productivity lost to the company as a result of these problems is one of the main challenges of IT management. But support can almost be as costly as the problems it seeks to solve, even when outsourced. So what structures best meet IT support needs?
According to Giga Group analyst Julie Giera, outsourcing of help desk operations is increasingly popular as a strategy to “reduce costs, improve flexibility, increase service levels and mitigate risk”. She expects help desk outsourcing to grow between 11% and 15% for the remainder of 2002. But she also says there are both pros and cons to turning over help desk operations to a third-party specialist.
“Companies whose IT application portfolio is comprised mainly of packaged applications may find outsourcing of their help desk the most economical way to improve service delivery,” she says. “Conversely, companies with custom applications may find outsourcing reduces service levels.” For that reason, she says, companies with high levels of software customisation benefit from having an internal staff of specialists for the customised applications.
The first decision for any organisation is how to structure the help desk. According to John Rugsdale of Giga, the number of levels [of support] and the responsibilities of each level depend on the type of support, the locations of the employees and the software in place for help desk automation.
“Two-level help desks are the most common, especially for desktop support, and two-level support should be the goal of companies wanting to streamline incident processing and resolution,” says Rugsdale. “However, three-level support may be a better fit when incidents are often routed to experts outside of IT, or for large companies using a consolidated level one to support multiple geographic locations.”
Rugsdale suggests that successful two-level organisations have a pool of level-one agents to answer the initial calls. Provided they have sufficient training and a database of issues upon which to draw, most level-one help desks can answer 72% of problems.
Problems that cannot be resolved over the phone are referred to level two, with support staff visiting the desktop concerned. Companies that already have level three support for specialist users or functions might be able to integrate levels two and three if they use appropriate help desk software and databases for pooling information, he says.
Running costs
Although running an internal help desk can be costly, Debbie Rosario, senior consultant at systems integration specialists Compass Management Consulting, says that through careful management, companies can do much to reduce the cost of internal support. “While it's true to say that at some point all users will require help, the type and the appropriateness of that help cannot be generalised,” she says. “What's clear is that prevention is better and cheaper than cure.”
What is needed, Rosario claims, is a process for ensuring that changes to infrastructure are well-tested before implementation, using “robust change management, testing and implementation functions, complemented by a problem management function that monitors, reports and takes action where changes have compromised the infrastructure.” A trend analysis function within problem management should identify common issues, develop fixes and inform all potentially affected users. “Self help can reduce resolution times and user impact thereby decreasing cost to the business,” she says.
Web-based self-help systems can also reduce costs. According to a study by Forrester Research, solving a support problem over the phone costs about £23. Over the web, it costs about 70p. But key to that, says Andy Foley, IT director at lifeboat charity the RNLI, is getting users interested in the technology they use. “There are those who really try to get to grips with the technology available, and there are those who don't. Those who don't, cost the help desk and their company in repeated requests to the help desk. Staff interest in technology is the key to maximising its benefits.”
Staff training is central to that motivation, Foley says. “Some may feel resentful, others feel they genuinely don't need it. However, with an extra couple of sessions, it can really make a difference to the level of investment a company gets back from IT outlay, while the processes that staff complete are more streamlined,” he explains.
For small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), the internal help desk may not be a financially viable option. “SMEs almost all want to forget about IT,” believes Colin Boag, managing director of IT support services specialist JDS. “Most organisations don't have IT support. They don't pay IT staff very much. They want systems that run without too much interference. If you offer to take away IT staff, they're very happy. And they get very real savings from outsourcing support.”
Giga's Giera says that companies can make these savings because they do not have to spend money on buying and maintaining hardware and software, and the providers can use economies of scale to have dedicated help desk operations and hire experts that a single company could not justify hiring for its own internal team.
Finding an outsourcer that can meet the requirements of a company is, however, something of an art. But British standard BS15000 aims to create a quality baseline for organisations that provide support and is on the way to becoming an ISO standard as well; companies that meet its requirements are likely to be capable of meeting any outsourcing needs.
Internal help desks remain the main support option for large enterprises. But picking the right structure for the help desk can cut costs and make it more effective when those calls from the experts and the novices alike come in.