The IT help desk has often been under-appreciated – seen as a necessary function, but one offering little value beyond responding to basic user issues. Taking that view, however, can result in a missed opportunity for your business.

According to a recent study, the help desk function typically makes up less than five percent of an enterprise’s IT spend, but can represent almost 50% of the IT organization’s perceived value. Further, with the increasing adoption of ITIL and continuing trend towards globalization, the traditional level 1 IT help desk is re-emerging as the “global IT service desk” – and the heart of a successful global IT service management operation.

Here are three key ways that the service desk can deliver substantial value:

1. Information Gathering

As the central point of contact for resolving IT issues, the service desk can be a critical source of information as to what is working across an organization and what is not. Data collected at the service desk is both real-time and comprehensive – and because it comes primarily from business users, it provides important insight into how IT is working from the business user’s perspective. This is essential information for a results-oriented IT operation.

2. Reducing Costs, Increasing Quality

One effective way to use this information is by leveraging the ITIL discipline of ‘problem management’. This involves analyzing data to identify and resolve the root causes of incidents – helping to avoid them in the future and thereby boosting user productivity, increasing satisfaction and lowering costs.

Further, advancements in remote management technologies mean that the service desk can attend to many end-user computing issues that have traditionally required on-site personnel. This capability decreases down time and reduces the cost to resolve incidents.

Some companies have even extended the role of the service desk team to include broader Remote Infrastructure Management (RIM) – including network, server and application monitoring, and resolution responsibilities. This not only reduces staffing requirements, but can also enable service desk personnel to resolve issues more quickly and efficiently – before they impact the business.

For example, a global ophthalmic company with more than 15,000 employees in 90+ countries recently leveraged this RIM approach. As a result, it reduced alert resolution time by 30%, increased first level resolution to more than 80%, achieved end-user satisfaction of more than 90%, and exceeded its initial target for Return on Investment.

3. Enabling Globalization

Many companies are globalizing their service desk as an early step in a broader initiative to globalize IT. Implementing a global service desk with standardized processes and tools provides a full global view and a consistent approach to user support that can aid significantly in deploying global enterprise technologies. Additionally, when deploying new technologies, the service desk is an excellent advocate for the end user – working on the deployment team, helping to anticipate user challenges, and enabling proactive actions to achieve a smooth rollout, uninterrupted productivity and satisfied business users.

A global manufacturing company with more than 10,000 end users across Europe and North America took this approach ahead of deploying its first global applications. Not only did this approach help to ensure an effective implementation, but there was an added benefit – as the global service desk was implemented, it raised visibility to the performance of external vendors, helping the customer more effectively manage those vendors globally.

From cost reduction to increased efficiency to enabling globalization, realizing the full potential of the service desk can have a substantial impact on IT – and business – success.

Peter Keane is the EMEA Director of Performance Management Office & Business Process Improvement Team for TechTeam Global, Inc., a provider of IT and business process outsourcing.

Source: www.Techteam.com