Sunday 23 March 2014

How To Make Good Use Of Your IT Support Department In Your Company

By Jason Whaley


When computers started to be used in the workplace, the IT support was extremely limited. The main task for the support technician was to ensure that regular backups of the systems were made. This technician could usually be found in a very small office, with broken printers and computers littered all over the floor and work surfaces, usually with cables and circuit boards hanging from them.

It was quite common for users to attempt to fix any problems themselves, rather than calling a member of the support team for help. As the technology got more complicated this habit stopped. It is accepted that specialists are required to deal with problems on network servers and associated software.

The complexity of these systems meant that the size of the team supporting them had to increase. As companies grew and the software systems they started to use needed to serve more functions, people with a variety of skills were required. However, as well as maintaining the new equipment, the legacy software still needed looking after.

As companies continue to grow, and multinational businesses evolve, these departments are required 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It is very rare that you can pick up the telephone and talk to your local support engineer, who is sitting in a tiny room in another part of the building. It is now more common to send an e-mail requesting assistance, or raise a ticket on the support page of the company intranet.

It might seem a little bit extreme to have to raise a ticket when you just believe the fault is on your own computer. However, the type of fault that you report will determine who will be tasked to solve the problem. It might be that they can use the information you have given them to prevent other similar incidents. This is where prevention is better than the cure, and a lot of system downtime can be avoided.

On a few occasions, what seems like a basic e-mail failure report might be an early symptom of a much bigger problem. It could be that similar faults have been reported by people in different locations throughout the world, and this would only be noticed if there was somebody to collate all the tickets. With this knowledge, problems can be escalated, and more members of the team allocated to solve them.

The systems that need supporting these days can be extremely complex, and a large number of businesses use external companies, rather than keep the department in-house. These consultancies will then call on freelancers local to the company in question to help rectify the problem. The cost-effectiveness of using this method depends on many different factors, such as the budget and size of the business.

Over the years IT support has changed quite dramatically. Companies have come to realize that without these engineers, business can collapse very quickly. The manpower used in these departments have to be highly skilled and understand, and keep themselves updated, in many different technologies.




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