Outsourced Help Desk Solutions: Strategies for Excellence

For any IT organization, the management of change is a challenging process to implement.

Over the years, the process of implementing change has become codified around a core best practice concept known as Change Management.

For IT leaders, CIOs, and IT professionals trained using ITIL® methodologies, the concept of Change Management has been replaced with a new, more dynamic framework known as Change Enablement.

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IT support leaders often need to decide the best service approach for their entire organization. Forcing themselves to ask the question: "Which is better, an IT help desk, service desk, or IT service management?"

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The 80/20 Rule is the principle that 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes. It's often used in business to help identify how to operate more efficiently. It can be applied to almost every area of business, including IT Service Management (ITSM).

IT service organizations and teams are focused on providing the best possible service to their internal customers. Efficiency has always been integral to ITSM. Monitoring Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and dashboards, and adherence to Service Level Agreements (SLAs) is essential to producing successful outcomes in ITSM.

But how do IT service managers and IT leaders know how and where to focus the team's resources and time?

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In the IT sector, internal and external relationships are often governed by legal or quasi-legal documents. In IT and ITSM, the terms "Master Service Agreement" and "Service Level Agreement" are often used interchangeably. 

However, there are differences between the two kinds of agreements that can impact how you want to use them in your organization. While both can be used for similar purposes — such as establishing clear expectations for internal IT service providers or external vendors — what separates them and how they're used are sufficiently different that it's worth taking the time to understand why this is important.

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So, what is the meaning of an SLA, or what does SLA stand for, anyway?

The term Service Level Agreement (SLA) is basically self-defining: two parties (service provider and customer) officially agreeing on the level of service by which they both are willing to abide. However, defining and creating an effective SLA between an ITSM team and the rest of the organization, or between a third-party provider and a business isn't always that easy.

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IT asset life cycle management is a mission-critical function for every business.

Whether those IT assets are cloud based from software vendors, hardware, or on-site systems, the planning, procurement, management, and maintenance of them is crucial to the operational success of an organization.

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In today's society, several factors can impact the business continuity of IT environments. In addition to physical threats like theft and natural disasters, the Internet — despite its many benefits — can also wreak havoc. Downtime, in any form, can cost a company money and, perhaps, its reputation if not managed correctly.

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In ITIL and ITSM, it's mission-critical that everyone has a clear understanding of their roles, responsibilities, and how this aligns with business objectives and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).

One way for IT leaders and CIOs to manage and monitor this is using a Responsibility Matrix, also known as a RACI Matrix. Another way to describe this is a Linear Responsibility Chart (LRC).

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In the software and IT sector, software companies and IT help desks and service centers manage customer relationships and expectations using Service Level Agreements (SLAs).

Service Level Agreements are integral to the smooth running of relationships between IT help desks and Software as a Service (SaaS) companies, cloud-providers, other technology vendors, and customers.

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