IT support staff has little idea of the average cost of each call they handle, an industry survey has highlighted.
The great majority of respondents in a European survey, carried out by global help-desk and IT service management software supplier Axios Systems and the Help Desk Institute Europe were unable to provide a figure for the average fully loaded cost per call to the service desk.
Axios Systems` local business partner, NSS, concurs with the findings, with CEO Lynda Odendaal stating the estimates range from a few cents to hundreds of rands per call.
"The main reason seems to be that support staff`s ITSM solutions cannot tell them what the cost per call is. This is a vital core figure yet support staff is generally in the dark about it," said Neil Whyte of Axios Systems. "In many cases they simply do not have the measurement mechanisms incorporated in their service desk tool."
He added that IT management might know the cost as part of their key performance indicators but the information and its significance were possibly not being made available to those whose daily tasks are vital in keeping the cost down.
Financial management for IT services is a key element of successful IT service management, Odendaal says. "Done properly, it can provide the essential management information to ensure that IT services are run efficiently, economically and cost-effectively. Relevant information should be made available to help-desk staff through mechanisms in the tool they use each day."
Axios Systems` core solution, assyst, allows measurement of how long each call takes to resolve during its entire lifecycle, and the equivalent cost of doing so.
Implementing assyst for financial management raises awareness of what services actually cost, helps staff understand cost implications due to lack of service, provides accurate budgeting for providing IT services, enables calculation of total cost of ownership and return on investment, and ensures IT costs are accounted and recovered in a fair manner.
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