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Do you really want to lose (inter)face?
Posted in IT Support on 15 February 2010 by
Off-shoring of IT services and especially Service Desks is gaining popularity as Financial Directors continue to reduce IT spend and headcount. But before a decision as crucial as this can be taken it is important to assess the potential short, medium and long term impact on the user community and ultimately the bottom line.
Although the Service Desk is just a component part of IT as a whole, it remains the 'face' of IT and in most cases, the measurement point of both user perception of IT effectiveness and impact on the user's ability to carry out his or her job. A good or bad Service Desk will strongly influence the user's motivation to engage with it and ultimately, solve issues that are affecting productivity.
The Service Desk has evolved rapidly in recent years becoming ever more technical and at present, with the use of remote tools, a decent desk will be achieving in excess of 70% first time fix. The downside of this, however, is the fast reducing need for any face-to-face interaction between IT and its customers. Ten years ago an engineer would often visit the user's desk to solve an issue, then it would just be a voice over the phone from another room in the same building and after that, perhaps from another company in the same city. Now users can find themselves contacting someone who isn't even on the same continent.
From the users' point of view, the lack of interface can lead to a real trust issue and a feeling of discomfort with the service they are receiving. Over the next few years it is likely that most organisations will change their desktop significantly adopting Windows 7, virtualisation, the latest versions of Office and Outlook and ever more complicated applications, as well as any number of scenarios involving personal devices. This means that users will require coaching, reassurance and genuine old-school technical support to see them through the period of change and beyond without impacting on their ability to perform well in their jobs.
Current experiences of offshore arrangements, however, show that this level of service is not always deliverable from overseas. Many organisations with a large contingent of fee-earning employees have already worked this out and are sticking with or returning to locally based highly technical Service Desk models that extract full value from the working day of the user. Asking a Lawyer or Banker to put up with anything less than a first class service regardless of its reduced cost is a false economy - in fact, investing in the front line of IT can give valuable time back to the user that equates directly to the bottom line.
Regrettably, for those businesses that have already off-shored or are about to follow the model it may be too late. The cost in terms of business continuity as well as impact on P&L are likely to make reversing the decision hugely painful if not completely prohibitive.
It is evident that there are many benefits to outsourcing, but when taken to the extreme, as in the case of off-shoring, the apparent cost savings are potentially not what they seem. Before making a decision with such far-reaching consequences, careful thought needs to be given to the overall impact on the business, with particular attention to how end users of the service will be affected by the choice.
Richard Forkan, Director of Business Development
This article is featured on Director of Finance Online: http://www.dofonline.co.uk/governance/the-impact-of-outsourcing-the-service-desk-021015.html
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