Are your strategic IT projects being derailed by support tickets?

It’s a funny thing about long-term strategic projects.

They are often the activities that could drive the greatest positive impact within organisations. But when there’s an immediate issue to deal with, they somehow end up lower down the priority queue.

But what if your team is constantly interrupted by issues arising?

Password resets. Email access. Printer problems. New starters, movers, leavers.

That’s the reality for many IT teams. And it’s a situation that can slow down or completely block progress on important strategic projects.

The hidden cost of continuously dealing with these seemingly minor issues is massive, especially when they prevent your skilled IT professionals from driving the business forward.

The hidden drain on IT teams

According to research from Exclaimer, more than 59% of IT teams spend the majority of their time providing IT support.

That’s time that isn’t being spent on innovation, strategy or future-proofing your infrastructure. With IT talent scarce, and the skills gap is growing, that’s a resource drain most businesses can’t afford.

Paying expensive IT talent to fix issues with headsets or printers is perhaps not the best use of that investment.

Holding on to your best people

Talented IT pros understand their worth, but are you showing them that you understand it too?

Retaining talent is a major challenge in every department, more so in IT roles than many others, with the increasing demand for their immensely sought-after skills and experience.

So working on basic IT fixes is probably not the kind of career your passionate and ambitious team members signed up for when they joined your organisation. Don’t let your expensive and hard-to-find IT talent grow dissatisfied in their role as they jump from fighting one fire to another.

Open all hours?

Business doesn’t stop when the working day ends. If a critical stakeholder has an IT issue out of hours, it still needs resolving for your business to function.

This likely means keeping an on-call rota, adding cost and complexity to the operation of your team. Or alternatively, the CEO is messaging the Head of IT or CTO at the weekend or late at night asking for IT help.

Let’s be honest, neither of these options are optimal, and it’s one of the key areas where a 24/7 IT helpdesk comes into its own.  

A better way?

End user support is essential. It keeps your business running and your people productive. But it doesn’t have to suck up all of your internal resource.

IT leaders are increasingly looking to external options for support, to help with the burden of workforce management.

A modern, outsourced service desk can not only save you IT department money and give you back the time to deliver on strategic priorities, but it also gives your workforce a reliable and predictable service that gets them back on track, first time.

Things to look for in an IT support service desk:

• UK-based, ITIL-aligned support teams that feel like a true extension of your business
• Flexible consumption models that let you scale up or down as needed
• Consistent SLAs and user satisfaction tracking to ensure quality
• 24/7 availability so issues don’t wait until Monday morning

IT as a critical business asset, not a service function

Perhaps the biggest benefit of all is to transition your IT department from one that’s seen as a purely business support function, into one that adds critical value to the business through the delivery of projects that drive revenue, improve employee experience and protect your business from cyber-attacks.

On Demand Service Desk

LIMA’s On Demand Service Desk gives your workforce the support they need while freeing your IT team to drive business value.

If you need somebody to help free your IT team, why not lean on LIMA?

Call us on 0345 345 1110 to discuss how we can help, or drop us an email to arrange a meeting: enquiries@lima.co.uk