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Outsourcing is on the up. As the number of companies subcontracting helpdesk services increases, so will the number of organisations claiming to be able to provide a good outsourcing service. There are many articles in the more PR-based service management press, demonstrating what a wonderful and logical business decision outsourcing can be. It ain't necessarily so. As a consultant specialising in helpdesk and support management, I have often witnessed the seedier side of outsourcing. Sorry to be so negative, but I think that such an important decision deserves a fuller picture. I know of many occasions when outsourcing the helpdesk has been a boon to the user community, a fillip to service levels, and a giant boost to the careers of all involved. I know of many others where outsourcing has been a farce of management self-deception on both sides, leading to the unnecessary and careless disposal of a strategic corporate asset. The most common reason for a host company to consider outsourcing its user support service is to hand what is seen as a problematical department over to a specialist organisation. "Supporting computers is the forte of the computer industry, so an outsourcing company must be better at it than we are". Seems logical, but it is the first fallacy of helpdesk outsourcing. Some of the biggest names in the outsourcing industry have service levels that are no better and in some cases worse than internal helpdesks could achieve. And it's not just the new startups, or the cowboy outfits - large, well-known organisations, offering support services for years, can still make the most fundamental service management errors, and offer service levels below the current industry average. It's astonishing - even exasperating - but true. The thinking that leads to the thin end of the outsourcing wedge is also suspect: "If the helpdesk is supporting computers, then a computer company should do the job". Here, it's the basic premise that is flawed. If your support group is supporting computers, then it has already failed. Helpdesks and support groups should never support computers. To do so is to misunderstand their business. The purpose of a helpdesk is twofold: to maintain the hour-by-hour business productivity of those of the company's employees who depend on information technology to restore that productivity to optimum in the reasonably shortest possible time when it has been impeded by a failure in the function or operation of that technology If your helpdesk is still myopically supporting machinery instead of the business usage of that machinery, then they are missing the point, and any bunch of techies could do it, let alone a professional outsourcing company. The question should be "Could an outsourcing company support the use of technology in our specific and unique business context, to the same extent that we, knowing the business, already can or could with the right management focus?" If you make shoes, and your helpdesk supports how information technology is uniquely deployed in the daily business process of shoe manufacture and marketing, then a candidate outsourcing company must match that, and not merely offer to support computer hardware and software. So now comes the dark day when the company decides to call in the specialists. There are so many pitfalls here. The problematical helpdesk has exasperated too many users for too long. It's a seemingly bottomless money pit, the service is rubbish, they never call the users back and you can wait for ages to get through. But how did the helpdesk get to that sorry state in the first place? In too many cases, senior management, for whatever reason, has never been able to measure how important the helpdesk is. Too many managers lack a way of measuring the financial benefits of the helpdesk - they see only the delivered service, such as it is. And then they see the costs. "The helpdesk is too expensive", they cry, "and the service is abominable". As a result of this fiscal tunnel vision, the helpdesk has suffered disinvestment for years. If this were not so short-sighted, it would be masochistic. So having wasted such a valuable asset for so long, the company finally throws it away altogether. Too often, ignorance and desperation dressed up as strategy. There are two main types of outsourcing organisations. One offers a 'managed service' and the other is a body shop. The first type offers a contracted service level, with the issues of how the service is delivered kept transparent to the host company. In the second instance, host and provider agree on a headcount figure, so this is closer to an agency arrangement. In practice, a number of outsourcing projects begin as 'managed' and descend to distracting headcount debates. The management issues differ. With the first, the host company provides a service level manager to monitor delivery on its behalf. With the second, the issues are much the same as if these were permanent employees, or more accurately, contractors. Body-shopping may not cure the service ills - that requires strategy and management. On the other hand, 'managed services' is usually divorced from the host company by design, whose involvement becomes purely administrative. This again is a strategic decision. In practice, only managed service is true outsourcing. One of the bigger confusions, when negotiations commence, is the size of the job. Underestimation can creep in on both sides. The host company may not know what the true service demand is (does your helpdesk log everything it does? Seriously - everything?) and the outsourcer may not have the facilities to make a more accurate count (assume your helpdesk system will be perhaps 45%-55% accurate). The host company errs on the low side, to keep the charges down. The outsourcer errs on the low side of the host company's low side so as to offer a competitive price. The host company then pushes up user expectations, announcing "we're outsourcing and the service will henceforth be Great". So the users start using it, much more than they ever used the previous helpdesk, which they had given up on because it was so lowly perceived. Three ways the negotiation will set the service provider up for mutually assured failure. Be honest about the size of the job for everybody's sake. Outsource support by all means, if that is right for your business. But start by looking at the true importance of user support, and whether that is what you are actually providing. Improve your support cost-benefit-analysis formulae so you know you're making the right decision. Before simply divesting, consider whether you are truly investing as you should in such an important resource. Be realistic about client expectations. Above all, know exactly what the service counts and issues are and be honest with yourself.
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