Some Ideas For Structuring IT Support For Your Organization

 Take a look around a typical business today and you will probably see computers. They have major roles in many critical tasks. Some of the most important computer data is stored on them and managed by them. When they don’t work, the business itself may stop working. IT support has the mission of fixing computer problems when they occur to keep the business up and running. The next few paragraphs will be looking at ways of providing IT support.

 Outsourcing is a real hot button for IT support. Management has to decide what if any portions of support should be outsourced. A popular structure for support is to break it into levels. It is appropriate to use this level structure to examine outsourcing.  

 IT problems generally start at level 1. These technicians have some knowledge of the technology, but not to a great extent. They follow basic processes related to problem resolution. They may have scripts to guide them through resolution of known problems.  

 Many businesses already have staff that is qualified to do level 1 support. This would be an argument for keeping it in house. In house staff will often be able to provide better response time for hardware issues and others that require hands on work, since they may already be on the premises. On the other hand, large support companies that have major commitments to level 1 support may be able to provide it more effectively than in house employees that may only do it part time.  

 Problems that level 1 people can’t solve are bumped to support level 2. People working level 2 problems must have a better background in working problems and in the specific technology involved. Companies that presently have in house people doing level 2 work may well want to continue with this as long as it is successful at problem resolution. If this is not the case, or if the company is trying to reduce its staff levels, outsourcing might be the way to go.  

 Support at level 3 requires the greatest knowledge of the technology, because it deals with the most complex, difficult problems. If the people who built the systems work for the business, then it usually makes sense for them to do the level 3 support. If not, then the best choice would probably be whatever vendor developed it. If that doesn’t work, then a support specialist organization would seem appropriate.  

 This has been a brief examination of one aspect of a complicated problem. Each company has its own specific situation that should be researched and analyzed before decisions are made. For the higher levels of IT support, knowledge of the technology may be hard to come by. Decisions on how to do IT support are often challenging and may need to be revisited from time to time. 

Related Posts

• No Related Posts.