Cost-Effective IT Support Is Possible
Posted by Brad McMillan on Sun, Jan 02, 2011 @ 02:20 PM
As technology becomes more and more complex, the cost of IT support becomes more and more expensive. The Gartner Group, a leading research and advisory firm, estimates that it takes 50 to 250 employees to justify a single IT person. This makes it difficult for a company with less than 50 employees to find cost-effective support. Although technology can be an equalizer, expensive support puts small and midsize organizations at a disadvantage. This article explores how emerging technologies and the establishment of new IT support programs have created cost-effective IT support models.
The development of the personal computer and local area networks (LANs) has provided small and midsize organizations with access to the same technology as their larger counterparts. Unfortunately, these PC-based LANS create many support challenges. Conservative estimates come in at $2000-$3000 a year to support a single PC. This is a large investment for small organizations.
Leading analyst firms agree that the added complexity of technology has contributed to the dramatic increase in support costs. Fortunately, new technology and new support models have developed to address the IT needs of small and midsize organizations.
In the last ten years, three new technology developments have changed IT support.
• Inexpensive high speed Internet bandwidth now means that your IT infrastructure can be hosted anywhere.
• Remote access software that enables every day applications like Microsoft Office to run out-of-the-box over the Internet.
• IT companies who provide IT management using a cloud computing model make it easy to take advantage of economies of scale and pass those savings back to the customer.
These technology developments form the foundation for new support models. Using the internet to create a secure path between organizations significantly lowers the cost of traditional onsite support. Remote capability allows a support firm to proactively monitor servers to ensure network stability and quickly resolve end-user issues with remote desktop sharing.
A few support organizations have emerged that successfully leverage these developments and industry best-practices to bring cost-effective support to small and midsize businesses. ‘Best-practices’ include the establishment of a central help desk for issue tracking and the development of Service Level Agreements (SLAs) to guarantee responsiveness. The help desk must also provide access to specialized engineers in database, desktop, network, server and security issues. Finally, the support organization must develop a partnership with their clients and tailor services to address specific business needs.
This new support model helps small and medium business compete with their larger counterparts. Ongoing support plans “build-in” emergency response to eliminate unforeseen expenses. Unexpected problems can make a huge gap in the bottom line of small organizations. The investment required for this new IT delivery model ranges from $100-$150 per month per PC user. That is $1,200-$1800 a year per user compared to traditional support estimates that are two to three times that.
By combining these technological advances with an IT Delivery Model that includes remote access, access to diverse expertise, and a central help desk, an IT support firm can deliver comprehensive and cost-effective IT support to small and midsize organizations.