FUTURE OF THE HELP DESK THE NAVIGATING THE PATH TO BUSINESS & IT INTEGRATION
TABLE OF CONTENTS Page The Help Desk Evolution 1 Increasing Importance of Business/IT Integration 2 Top Future IT Issues 3 Steady Approach to Stable Applications 4 Moving from Reactive to Proactive IT 5 Developing a Long-Term IT Plan 6 Implementing Customized IT Solutions 7 The Help Desk s Potential 8
THE HELP DESK EVOLUTION 1 Transitioning from Solving Problems to Supporting Businesses A holistic approach to business-it integration. The idea of IT support has certainly evolved dramatically in the last 30 years; the Help Desk today is much more than a Call Center or a small staff of internal IT specialists. The Help Desk is positioned to work with its business partners to optimize IT s roll in operations and development. The speed of the technological evolution has intensified, especially as businesses transition from a centralized approach to work and computing. The when and where of work has changed, compelling Help Desks to adapt and adjust to its customers requests and expectations. TAKING IT TO THE NEXT LEVEL A Help Desk or Service Desk can take business to the next level of IT planning and management. A Help Desk now aims help a business expand its computing capabilities, boosting productivity and efficiency in the process, with a thoughtful, customized IT methodology. EXPERIENCED While it may be easy to envision 24x7 operations with a remote workforce, the transition and implementation can be difficult for any business that doesn t consolidate IT management and monitoring. Help Desks, by their nature of providing continuous, remote support to clients across the country, have met and overcome these technical challenges for many years. That experience in dealing with tasks like equipment repairs, service outages, and incident resolutions has Help Desks well positioned to help any business address the many issues involved with taking it operations outside its brick- and-mortar presence. DIGITAL REVENUE GROWTH About a third of CEOs and business leaders expect to attribute more than half of revenues to digital by 2019. GET AGILE Help Desks also help businesses stay agile, ready to adapt to technological changes and advancements as they occur, and ready to maintain business operations during emergency situations and implement disaster-recovery plans when necessary.
2 Importance of Business + IT Support IT is the epicenter of business moving forward. IT is no longer a barrier to business success it s a necessity to business success. IT is one of the operational pillars of any organization, right there with sales, finance, marketing, etc. In recent years, the conversation has shifted from the specific applications and networks IT develops and works in, to the full-scale technology planning and support IT provides to an organization. IT Spending Forecast Global IT spending projected to total $3.8 trillion in 2015, 2.4 percent increase from 2014. (Source: Gartner Inc. Forecast) IT Investment Areas Security Technologies Cloud Computing Business Analytics Application Development Wireless/Mobile (Source: Computerworld Forecast) Help Desks, increasingly, strive to understand the core business and its goals. It s interviewing key leaders, learning what they re trying to accomplish, identifying challenges, and finding technology solutions to overcome roadblocks to success. IT and business communication is more important than ever, so business can keep pace with emerging technologies, understand and meet customer expectations, and have a strategic plan and understand what tools and applications they ll depend on in the future. Top Future IT Opportunities How TOP FUTURE businesses IT ISSUES will embrace IT support and its advantages. 3 Cloud Computing SMB spending on the cloud is expected to increase by 20 percent in the next five years, according to PCWorld. Businesses are making the move to the cloud primarily for web-hosting and email purposes, but with cloud vehicles like Microsoft Office 365, opportunities exist to implement workflow processes and automation tools that improve business operations. Help Desks increasingly will be tasked to develop and manage cloud- computing solutions, andv will have to monitor and test applications that offer cloud alternatives. IT Driving Business Help Desks are consulting and advising businesses on how IT strategy and business strategy intersect; they re keenly aware of how technology is helping, or potentially hindering, business growth. When IT and business are aligned and working together, technology supports the business goials in many ways, which leads to smart investments and strong returns. The IT conversation is changing from, How can IT solve this problem today? to How can IT make the business better tomorrow? Data Protection As more businesses take their operations to the cloud, data protection and information security is critical. Many businesses view systems and network security as a barrier to being productive, so Help Desks will take the lead in ensuring businesses data is secure and encourage end-users to encrypt their devices, especially laptops. Information security will be a significant task for Help Desks, as work and information sharing is increasingly conducted on mobile devices
STEADY APPROACH TO STABLE APPLICATIONS 4 Managing Various Computing Devices, Communications Tools Communication drives business. Technology has changed how businesses interact with their customers, and it has set new standards for service expectations for end-users. As a younger, more tech-aware generation enters the workforce, IT support must adjust to meet new employees and customers needs and requests. The expectations will be high, for service that solves problems quickly and easily. How will Help Desks and their partners address these new expectations? Are self-service incident-resolution portals needed? Will IT support solve issues via instant messenger or social media? In any situation, Help Desks will consult with their partners on identifying and implementing the applications that make the most business sense; it s critical that applications have matured properly and have been tested for quality and reliability. Above all else, it s about finding the right technology to get the right result for the business and its employees and customers. BYOD Benefits Nearly 40 percent of companies expect to stop providing devices to workers by 2016, due to Increased employee satisfaction Mobile workforce Reducing/avoiding costs (Source: Gartner Inc. CIO Survey)
MOVING FROM REACTIVE TO PROACTIVE IT 5 Shifting from Incident Resolution to Avoidance Data-driven decisions. What are end-users calling about? How often are they calling about a particular issue? The answers to these questions (as shown in the chart below) inform where an organization is inefficient and dictate broader solutions that can solve these problems. Help Desks are increasingly bridging the gap for their customers, identifying inefficiencies and observing how an organization interacts with IT. While initially concerned with configuring and organizing IT environments for improved support, Help Desks are taking the next step and thoroughly examining how business can maximize IT service and support. Help Desks themselves increasingly rely on metrics like Key Performance Indicators and Critical Success Factors to, in part, answer the question, Are we operating as efficient as possible? Help Desks constantly review data on call volume, ticket times, talk times, etc., scoring and monitoring these and other metrics to ensure the work that needs to be done is completed timely and correctly. Reporting on regular issues and resolutions represents a significant challenge for businesses; often, they re concerned with their main mission and can overlook this necessary function. Top 10 User Issues 1. User Administration I m locked out of my network. VPN won t connect. 2. Microsoft Outlook I can t sign into Outlook. How do I share my Outlook calendar? 3. Citrix Need help creating a new account. Need help changing user settings. 4. Email Issues I m not receiving email. Email send/receive is slow. 5. Internet Browser Can I change my default broswer? Can I save my favorites list? 6. Printer Can t connect printer. Can t find network printer. 7. User Question Need to add user to admin account. Need assistance with software update. 8. Site Connectivity Website not updating. Website uptime is slow. 9. Server Administration Server is down. Website uptime is slow 10. Other Can I sync Outlook to my mobile device. Can I recover deltered emails?.
DEVELOPING A LONG-TERM IT PLAN The technology and business evolution continues. The IT support sector, perhaps more than any other industry, has experienced first-hand how computing has changed and improved how businesses operate and serve their customers. Helps Desks have morphed from a small, onsite group of technicians, to full-scale, remote, IT-integration specialist teams, trained to conduct a top-to-bottom business analysis and then install agile systems and networks that will maximize an organization s ability to achieve its goals. They re focused on using data analysis to develop the right solutions, maintaining open communication with their partners and ensure the business and IT plans are aligned. They re prepared for whatever changes might come, allowing businesses to focus on their core mission. 1 234 5 6 7 7-STEP APPROACH TO STRATEGIC PLANNING ENGAGE PARTNERS IN PROCESS PRIORITIZE IT EFFORTS ESTABLISH IT GOVERNANCE STRUCTURE MONITOR IT PERFORMANCE MANAGE IT VALUE MEASURE BUSINESS BENEFITS ALIGN BUSINESS AND IT IMPLEMENTING CUSTOMIZED IT SOLUTIONS 6 7 ANALYZE PLAN DESIGN DEPLOY MANAGE
8 THE HELP DESK S POTENTIAL Improving Internal Processes: Enabling Business Success Businesses have just begun to realize the potential positive effects of Help Desks. As Help Desks become increasingly embedded with their business partners day-to-day operations, understanding the systems and applications that drive the company, IT can improve those operations and help the business in numerous and various ways. Additionally, as Help Desks continue to adapt and adjust to their business partners needs, Help Desks themselves will review and analyze how they themselves operate, identify areas for improvement, and install new technologies and processes to augment their own service delivery in the same way they help their business partners every day. 1 234 Help Desks will increasingly assume the role of a trusted advisor to the business partners, serving in a consultant capacity when identifying and developing IT solutions. Help Desks will pursue all possible solutions, including identifying third-party providers that will address the business s issues; the Help Desk will remain plugged in to ensure optimal IT service performance. 5 HELP DESK GOALS Help Desks will continue to evolve into highly-skilled businesses technology services, advising business partners and recommending the best uses of the Help Desk s services to maximize business productivity and efficiency. Help Desks will seek to develop and install, where applicable, self-help and self-healing options for business end-users to solve regular, general IT incidents, either on their own or through automation, to drive down the need for businesses to invest in and maintain internal IT support staff. 5 Help Desks will remain agile and flexible, staying current with emerging technologies, applications, and operating systems, so that they can work with a diverse and wide range of business partners. Help Desks will be able to make recommendations and optimize environments for items like BYOD, mobile or fixed devices, and cloud-based or physical, central data storage centers. Help Desks, in everything they do, will measure their performance with various metrics and reports to identify their own and their partners areas of success and improvement, suggesting and implementing technologies that address those issues and improve business operations.