Common tools and processes

Outsourcing the Service Desk

The decision to outsource is a strategic issue for senior managers – and is addressed in detail in the Service Strategy and Service Design publications. Many of the guideline s in this section are not unique to the Service Desk and can be applied to any function, support area or service being outsourced (or out-tasked).

Regardless of the reasons for, or the extent of, the outsourcing contract, it is vital that the organization retains responsibility for the activities and services provided by the Service Desk. The organization is ultimately responsible for the outcome s of the decision and must therefore determine what service the outsourcer provides, not the other way round.

If the outsourcing route is chosen, there are some safeguards that are needed to ensure that the outsourced Service Desk works effectively and efficiently with the organization’s other IT teams and departments and that end-to-end Service Management control is maintained (this is particularly important for organizations seeking ISO/IEC 20000 certification as overall management control has to be demonstrated). Some of these safeguards are set out below.

The Service Desk does not have responsibility for all the processes and procedure s that it initiates. For example, a Service Request is received by the Service Desk but the request is fulfilled by the internal IT Operational team.

If the Service Desk is outsourced, care must be taken that the tools are consistent with those still being used in the customer organization. Outsourcing is often seen as an opportunity to replace outdated or inadequate tools, only to find that there are severe integration problem s between the new tool and the legacy tools and processes.

For this reason it is important to ensure that these issues are properly researched and the customer’s requirement s are adequately scoped and specified before the outsourcing contract. Service Desk tools must not only support the outsourced Service Desk, but they must support the customer organization’s processes and business requirements as well.

Ideally the outsourced desk should use the same tools and processes (or, as a minimum, interfacing tools and processes) to allow smooth process flow between the Service Desk and second- and third-line support group s.

In addition, the outsourced Service Desk should have access to:

• All incident record s and information
• Problem Record s and information
• Known Error Data
• Change Schedule
• Sources of internal knowledge (especially technical or application experts)
• SKMS
• CMS
• Alert s from monitoring tools.

It is often a challenge integrating processes and tools in a less mature organization with those in a more mature organization. A common but incorrect assumption is that the maturity of the one organization will somehow result in higher maturity in the other. Active involvement to ensure alignment of processes and tools is essential to a smooth transition and ongoing management of services between the internal and external organizations. In fact, if this is not directly addressed, it could result in the failure of the contract.

It is also often incorrectly assumed that the proof of Service Management quality and maturity in an external outsource partner can be guaranteed by stating requirement s in the procurement process for ‘ ITIL conformance’ and / or ‘ ISO/IEC 20000 certification ’. These statements may indicate that a potential supplier uses the ITIL Framework in its delivery of services to customers, or that they have achieved standard s certification for their internal practice s, but it is equally important to have the enabling technology in place and being used that demonstrates a service provider ’s capability to manage services and interface to internal practices harmoniously. There is no standard of compliance that ensures this and so procurement efforts should include specific queries to satisfy this requirement. More information on outsource provider acquisition can be found in the Service Design publication.

Дата добавления: 2014-12-23