Simplifying service desk management

As organisations become increasingly dependent on IT services, the quality of their service desk operations has become extraordinarily important. If the service desk isn't responsive and on top of every situation, all kinds of bad outcomes can result -- including lost productivity, lost opportunities, lost revenue and the potentially permanent loss of customer goodwill

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While the service desk is core to the business, on-premise platforms can sometimes be a chore to run. IT management has to ask if investing the time, money and staff required to implement and manage an on-premise service desk platform make sense for their business? Is this a core effort that will yield competitive differentiation, or is it an unnecessary chore that should be driven to the most efficient channel?

The emergence of SaaS-based solutions is providing companies with a choice between traditional comprehensive and customisable on-premise service desks and the simplification offered by SaaS service desks focused on the essentials.

Traditionally, the enterprise software purchase offered software with endless capabilities to allow extensive customisation. But the reality is that only a fraction of any piece of software’s potential capabilities and customisations are ultimately fully exploited. Most customisations don’t really deliver the expected ROI.

When evaluating a service desk via a SaaS model, IT executives tend to focus on addressing core essential requirements and less on comprehensive, customisable solutions. This has implications for administrators and users after deployment. Instead of bearing administrative, operational and customisation overhead, organisations using SaaS tend to focus on fully exploiting the capabilities available quickly.
With SaaS, organisations know enhancements will continue to be made to the platform—and that new capabilities will show up automatically, without the customer having to implement potentially complex upgrades, testing, training and all the other efforts often associated with implementing on-premise service desk platforms. And, because it is only contracted for a time, if it doesn’t work out, you can move to a different platform without extensive financial implications.

In the end, the proliferation of SaaS changes everyone’s expectations. When it comes to outsourcing the service desk, moving to SaaS can usher in a range of benefits, and a focus on getting the job done quickly, efficiently and simply.

But simplicity isn’t something you should have to strive for—it’s an expectation of users and increasingly a mandate for the business. So how do you start to achieve simplicity in the service desk? Firstly, configure, don’t customise: Look for tools that are easily configured to the needs of your business without having to customise. The sooner you can get a tool deployed, the sooner you can start reaping the benefit and new capabilities can be seamlessly integrated.

Also, when it comes to service management, don’t try to reinvent the wheel. ITIL® is a broadly adopted, recognised and effective industry standard—so use it. Well-designed service desk systems already have taken ITIL theory and implemented it in the software.

With so many services available in the cloud, enterprises can reduce a lot of the infrastructure and application hosting and maintenance costs.
Although the move to a SaaS-based model can help simplify the service desk, it doesn’t necessarily mean that all SaaS offerings will be right for your business. One key consideration is whether it’s really SaaS?

With the increasing hype around the cloud, some vendors have simply packaged their legacy applications as SaaS. But this is simply more of the old applications service provider model that has been proven to be costly in the past.

Instead, you should look for a solution made specifically for SaaS delivery with a single, unified code base that can be configured to efficiently, scalably and securely support multiple clients so the vendor can make one update that customers immediately benefit from.

Other factors to consider include subscription costs, where the data is being stored and whether it is secure and easily accessed.
For many businesses, the move to a SaaS-based service management platform may seem like a compelling opportunity. With cost and efficiency being key business considerations, simpler isn’t just a better way for many organisations—it’s the only way. Ultimately, simplifying the service desk will deliver dividends. The sooner you simplify, the sooner those benefits will start to accrue. Keep it simple: it’s that easy.