No matter how good the technology or smart the end-user, there will always be a need for IT support. Plug and Play was a big deal in the 90’s and we all know how that turned out! Getting the most out of your remote workforce requires that you provide IT support that can handle a variety of hardware, software, and end-user expectations.
Internal IT is an inefficient way to deliver end-user support. The one ongoing perception is internal IT could always “walk over” to your desk and assist you. Guess what? The last remaining reason to staff internal IT support is now gone. Not to mention it has been proven many times over that desk-side support is more costly than a proper Service Desk solution.
A real Service Desk solution
A mature Service Desk team will be able to provide point-in-time support to end-users, rapidly resolve issues via screen sharing and other tools, and be able to handle more than one support call at a time! It is critical that your users feel taken care of in the work from home environment. It is very frustrating to play phone tag while you are trying to figure out how to get the VPN working back to the home office.
An internal IT support group is ALSO working remotely, and this becomes a difficult model to sustain. Not to mention that most groups were understaffed to begin with and lacked the proper helpdesk tools needed in the first place. A real Service Desk solution ensures your end-user requests are tracked, prioritized, and handled in a way that keeps them up and running no matter where they are.
Mobile Device Management and Security
At the start of the COVID pandemic, many users grabbed all their office gear and took it to their house. Laptops, desktops, monitors, and in some cases the printers! Others started using their personal computers to access corporate VPNs and installing corporate software directly on their machines.
A proper mobile device management and security approach is essential when working remotely. It starts with securing the data in the applications, then the device, and finally the network. Many of the security and management solutions employed by internal IT are based on the corporate NETWORK which is not available when working remotely. Most internal IT groups have this backwards, as the applications were never “left the office” before.
It takes YEARS of experience to build a scalable, consistent, and secure platform to deliver IT support to end-users. Internal IT simply does not have the scale, budget, or depth of experience to deliver the same experience that an outside IT partner can. On top of all that, it’s often about 30% less expensive to utilize a partner. A win-win if there ever was one.