As technology evolves, business demands have become increasingly complex. Organizations across industries are re-evaluating the efficiency of their business operations. Some companies are turning to automation to meet the needs of partners, stakeholders, and consumers. That’s especially true for IT teams tasked with leading many of these efforts.
But too often, IT organizations are so focused executing on day-to-day tasks that they can’t focus on more strategic initiatives. They may get by in the short term, but it can make long-term business strategy planning nearly impossible. Engaging a managed services partner that can support your business operations—big or small—can be a key part of the solution. In this blog, we’ll explore the main benefits of partnering with a managed services provider to meet the specific IT needs of an organization.
A Team That Understands How You Operate: There are several reasons why organizations decide to outsource their IT service desk, often turning to trusted service desk providers that specialize in scalable support. Perhaps your current team can’t be online 24 hours a day, or maybe you simply want to increase the number of people answering customer emails and phone calls.
Regardless of the service desk outsourcing services or support needs you have, it’s important to hire a team that has experience supporting your area of business and operations—something reputable desk outsourcing companies are built to deliver. You also need to trust that they can operate autonomously and efficiently to truly serve as an extension of your organization.
Expertise in your industry and the tasks at hand
A comprehensive partnership that encompasses all IT and service desk tasks
Service management and operational reporting that shows the performance drivers that matter and provides full transparency.
A cost-effective solution at a competitive price
A well-defined process for onboarding and building and maintaining a comprehensive knowledge base
A strategic IT provider and service desk partner that will proactively address current and future challenges
The ability to support key applications that power your business and provide visionary oversight for your technology roadmap
The 24x7x365 Difference : Technical support is not conducive to a 9-to-5 workday. In today’s always-on business culture, organizations need to be able to support their customers at any time of the day, every day of the week— including weekends and holidays.
Companies that have customers in multiple locations and time zones experience even stronger demand for round-the-clock service. This kind of constant service by in-house teams can get expensive fast. Beyond providing support to IT teams with extended coverage hours—24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year—hiring a managed services partner can be a smart financial decision.
An Onsite Extension of Your IT Team: While bringing in an outsourced team can quickly add value and save money, some organizations are reluctant to bring one on because they prefer to have all IT resources onsite. However, a flexible managed services partner like Netrix can provide on-site staff to customers intent on structuring their IT team operations in a specific location.
IT: Ripe for Opportunity: If there’s one thing we know about successful IT teams, it’s that they play a vital role as problem solvers. On any given day, support teams receive multiple incidents and request tickets, address complex issues, and move on to the next challenge. They react to problems, but don’t necessarily play a role in proactively preventing them. A managed services provider can build on the success of traditional IT teams by empowering them to deliver proactive support as well as reactive solutions by employing the ITIL methodology.
Understanding ITIL: ITIL, short for Information Technology Infrastructure Library, is a framework of best practices for IT Service Management (ITSM) that focuses on aligning IT services with the strategic goals of an organization.
In ITIL 4, the Service Value Chain is a central model that helps organizations understand how IT and business activities work together to co-create value and achieve strategic goals.
Start by planning—understand the vision and direction of the organization’s products and services. Then, engage stakeholders, including employees and customers. You’ll want to make sure your team understands stakeholders’ needs, maintains strong communication channels, and is prepared to maintain these relationships.
Next, conduct an audit or review of products and services. Ensure expectations are continuously being met in terms of quality and cost by streamlining your IT service desk processes.
Once you’ve made these preparations, you’re ready for the “build” stage. This might mean developing software internally to solve organizational challenges, or procuring third-party software or service, such as a managed services team to serve as an extension of your IT organization.
Deliver and support these initiatives by resolving incidents, building and maintaining key processes and procedures, analyzing issues, and keeping tabs on the operation at large. Lastly, create an improvement plan to make sure team members are actively and continuously improving products and practices, while managing planned changes effectively.
To measure the success of your outsourced IT services, particularly first-line support, consider the service level metrics reflected in the following key performance indicators (KPIs).
1. Average response time – How quickly does your service desk team respond to support requests?
2. Time to first response – How long does someone have to wait before they receive a first reply from a service desk agent?
3. Response time bands – How many tickets resolved by your team fell within the span of ten minutes? 30 minutes? Five hours?”
4. First contact resolution – What percentage of tickets did the outsourced IT service desk resolve on the first interaction with the client? This metric is used to determine the quality of the overall client experience and ultimately drive higher customer satisfaction. Results can vary based on several factors, such as the type and complexity of the support transaction or the tools you have deployed.
Of course, outsourcing your IT team doesn’t do you much good unless you can justify ROI. A few factors to consider:
1. Wait Time: There are many reasons that an organization might look to outsource its IT operations, but one of the main complaints from customers is that they’re waiting too long for someone to answer their phone call or email. Netrix Service Desk provides a single point of contact, with an average phone call answer time is 30 seconds or less, and the average email/voicemail response time is one hour or less.
2. Financial Savings: Partnering with a managed services provider doesn’t just save time—it also results in significant cost savings. By switching your fixed costs to variable desk costs, you can scale back services you don’t necessarily need. A managed services partnership also eliminates the cost of training your IT staff, which can run between $5-10K per person per year. If you have a large IT team, that can end up costing over $100K in savings annually.
3. Redeploying Internal Resources: Outsourcing your service desk operations allows your team to focus on core competencies such as strategic IT and digital transformation initiatives that improve overall business efficiency. Instead of spending time addressing technical issues and troubleshooting employees’ issues, your IT engineering team can be moving the business forward.
While there are a number of best practices that can help you maximize the efficiency and productivity of your IT team, there is no one-size-fits-all approach to success. The right team will give you the flexibility to experiment, while offering recommendations based on the complexities of your business.
In today’s digital world, your organization must be equipped with the skills and expertise necessary to navigate the future of work. For many companies, outsourced service desk support is a practical way to strengthen IT capabilities while keeping operations agile. It’s up to your key leaders and business stakeholders to figure out what IT services and solutions will give your business a competitive advantage—and gather the resources to make those goals a reality.
