Outsourcing your IT department to a service provider is not a new concept, in fact, it has been around for more than two decades now. IT help desk does not stand for just the technological side of the deal but the whole kit and kaboodle. The whole package with the people, processes, and technology, where your organization is essentially putting someone else in charge of its IT-support life.
It is a proven alternative for companies who want to increase productivity and efficiency. If your company is thinking of hiring an ITSD, here is a list of pros of outsourcing your IT helpdesk.
Cost benefits
Often people think that outsourcing to an IT service provider is all about saving money as it is cost-efficient. And no doubt it is true. Outsourcing can save substantial money as compared to doing it yourself, in the main because of various economies of scale. An example of that is since outsourcers are operating at scale, they can pay suppliers less for the same services that you as an individual will be paying a lot more. Hence, better deals are negotiated with the help of IT help desk tool providers. Moreover, if they are providing the customer’s IT equipment, third-party services along with IT support, then there will probably be more cost-cutting.
There will also be cost-cutting from the workforce angle. Firstly, your organization will not have sole access to IT support experts since they have multiple customers. Secondly, most likely the work will be delegated to lower-cost economies wherever possible to minimize the labor bills without impacting the service quality.
But the benefits don’t end at the cost-efficiency. Help desk outsourcing is beneficial in multiple other ways. Here are a few:
24*7 availability
For any successful company, 24*7 availability of company personnel is always advantageous but the costs of running a 24×7 help desk might be restrictive for your in-house help desk. So that is out of the question. But, an outsourced help desk provider allows you the opportunity to use shared resources. The IT help desk is especially useful during off-peak hours as it is most likely to function outside of core working hours.
Best practices, processes, and trends
Since there are several helpdesk service providers, they are constantly competing to attract customers. The only possible way to differentiate themselves from the competitors is to stand out of the herd in terms of better quality as well as cost. Therefore, an outsourcer will always be equipped with the best tools and up to date with the latest processes and trends, that too, at the best prices.
Additional benefits
To replace the customer’s existing help desk capabilities, The outsourcers will also provide the option of bringing in additional capabilities. By doing that, your company’s in-house IT department can fulfill its responsibilities. The additional capabilities could be a variety of IT support, or ITSM, activities that are not currently conducted in your organization. For instance an IT asset management or problem management.
Access to rare technical expertise and skills
To be honest, not every organization can appoint a dedicated IT guy for particular skills. It is hard to justify such an appointment cost-wise in the competitive industry. But, an outsourcer can appoint experts in every field as they share various customer accounts. An IT support provider works on a scale that entices experts with scarce skills to work with them as they can offer higher pay rates and a variety of work opportunities and learning.
Enhanced geographical presence
If your company is global or is planning to go global, you have another thing coming. To diminish the language differences you have three options- 1. Use only corporate language, English to converse. Hence, all staff will have to converse with IT support personnel in English only. 2. Appoint local-language speaking employees to cover different geographical regions as per the language they know. 3. the Third option is the technology that can translate the interactions so that is more of a self-service thing. Clubbed with the other benefits like availability, expertise, and cost above, an outsourced help desk firm will be able to offer multi-language support at a lower cost as they follow a shared staff model.
Benchmarking capabilities
An outsourced help desk provider is better equipped and productive than an in-house help desk when it comes to measuring its performance against industry standards and similar benchmarks. In fact, outsource help desk have SLAs (service line agreements) with their employees. These SLAs are likely to have targets created following the industry benchmarks to measure metrics like first-contact resolution levels, resolution times, and average call-waiting durations.
Latest help desk technologies
An outsourced help desk provider is obliged to deliver a blend of quality and budget. Hence, it will invest in the latest technologies to bring down the total cost of operations. That may include a wide range of IT support technologies ranging from a proven help desk tool and advanced telephony systems to monitoring and systems management tools or remote control, chat, and knowledge management capabilities. The outsourcer is also likely to be investing in artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning technologies to increase productivity in the form of automated ticket classification and chatbots. Since the outsourcer is investing, you don’t have to. At one price, your company will get to benefit from all the services without paying extra.
Payment models
Outsourced help desk contracts do not follow a single payment model. It can be custom created in different flavors as suitable to the company and the provider. From a costly “all you can eat” model to a usage-based model which is also known as “pay as you go.” In such a model, the fewer services your company, the less it costs.
Choose what is right for your company
Your choice must depend on your organization’s wants and needs. To make the choice, ask yourself how important is IT to your business and can you risk it by sticking to the in-house IT. If your answer makes you an outsourced IT helpdesk, Contact Gravity Philippines for more info.
