Key Decisions For Structuring It Support For Your Company

Computers are everywhere in the business of today

. They execute all or parts of key business functions. Much essential data is stored on them. Problems with computers or outages can rapidly create a crisis situation. The primary job of IT support is to keep the business going. Following are some of the IT support options.

The most basic IT support decision that a company must make is how much will be in house and how much will be outsourced. Many companies structure their support into levels. It often makes sense to make the in house vs outsource decision separately by levels. The following is a walkthrough of a typical level scheme and how it might relate to outsourcing.

Level 1 is the initial level of support. Technicians at this level are usually the first line of defense, i. E., they are the first ones to see a problem. They generally are trained to follow problem intake and logging procedures. They sometimes have scripts that they can work to resolve known, straightforward problems.

An argument for doing level 1 in house would be that since extensive experience and training is not required, the company is more likely to have people available qualified to do this. Also, much computer hardware support has to be done hands on. In house people may very well be positioned to provide better response time for hands on work. In favor of outsourcing level 1 is the existence of large support companies that are dedicated to IT support and who may be able to perform even the most basic support tasks more efficiently than in house people.

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.

Level 3 is generally the highest level of support, for problems that are beyond level 2. Doing level 3 support in house would probably make sense for technology that was developed by the company. In other cases, outsourcing either to a support specialist company, or perhaps to a vendor who developed the technology, would be 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 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.

by: Bryan Pilkington

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