Planning to update your help desk technology? Be sure to consider all of the components that
determine the overall cost as well as success or failure of an enterprise help desk
project.
When an organization implements a new help desk solution there are
several cost components that must be considered to get the new technology solution into
production. To insure the success of a help
desk implementation the project team must have a detailed understanding of each of these
components, it’s cost, and it’s effect on the organization.
In future worlddeskpro.com business updates we will discuss in detail
each of these cost components and provide insight on how to minimize its impact on your
organization, but briefly these cost components can be described as follows:
Software
Software support
Support infrastructure
Customization
Implementation
Training
Change management
Software is the enabling technology that allows an
organization to automate a particular aspect of their business. The goal for any enabling technology is to allow
an organization to more readily achieve its business mission.
Software support is required to provide ready answers to
questions from end users of the software application.
This is especially critical in the ramp up phase of a help desk project. Software support also provides software updates on
a regular basis that offer additional functionality as well as fixes to software problems.
Infrastructure is the equipment, technology and resources
required to support a software application. The
level of support required depends on the software application and the environment but can
include databases, servers, networks, desktop computers, hand held devices, database
administrators, systems administrators, and software administrators.
Customization is required to allow a commercially available
software product to support business requirements that were not considered in the original
development of the application. The
complexity of customization is dependent on the software architecture, the requirements,
and the customer environment.
Implementation is the process of installing the software
application and integrating the software application with other enterprise solutions as
required. This process can involve multiple
applications at multiple locations and can take a significant period of time to complete. The longer the implementation process takes to
complete, the greater the risk to the success of the project.
Training is the process by which the end users of help desk
technology learn how to efficiently operate the software application. Training is typically required and can run days to
weeks in duration.
Change management is in some ways the toughest obstacle to
successfully get a software solution into production.
An organization may have many solutions in place from spreadsheets to
homegrown databases to monolithic client-server applications. These solutions may meet a portion of an
organizations requirements or they may meet the requirements for an individual group
within an organization, and as such there is typically resistance from that group when
they are required to change. Managing this
change is critical to the success of a help desk project.
At worlddeskpro.com we have developed a framework to simplify help
desk implementation and allow our customers to achieve immediate return on investment from
our help desk solution.
Software from worlddeskpro.com can be purchased outright in
the classic software model or leased in an ASP hosted environment.
Software support is included in the cost of the hosted ASP
environment.
Infrastructure to support the worlddeskpro.com ASP hosted
application is reduced to a web browser running on a desktop computer with internet
access. The database, server, software
upgrades, software support, backups, etc. are all provided by worlddeskpro.com.
Customization with worlddeskpro.com is significantly easier
than customization with traditional client server help desk applications. Worlddeskpro.com was written from the ground up as
a 100% web based application. This advanced
framework allows World Desk Pro to quickly customize and add functionality to support
complex business processes for our customers.
Implementation of worlddeskpro.com is radically faster than
traditional help desk applications. The ASP
hosted environment allows organizations to put a help desk into production in a matter of
minutes and allows the solution to grow with the organization as the automation
streamlines operations and the organization matures to take maximum advantage of the new
capabilities.
Training with worlddeskpro.com is not required for most users. The simple workflow and browser based interface
make this a solution that anyone who uses the internet will instantly find familiar and
comfortable.
Change management is also reduced with worlddeskpro.com
because the solution is very intuitive and easy to use.
Training and implementation are all but eliminated so the time required to
go to production is cut, reducing the risk of a help desk project based on
worlddeskpro.com as compared to a project based on older technology platforms. Immediate ROI and reduced risk provide World Desk
Pro Customers with a significant competitive advantage.
Worlddeskpro.com has developed robust workflows for our customers to
precisely support their business requirements. For
more information on this paper or worlddeskpro.com, email us at
info@Worlddeskpro.com.
“You cannot improve what you do not measure”
