Application Support Outsourcing
What do you gain from outsourcing application support?
Cost Reduction
Leadership
Quality
1) Cost Reduction. Application support is an expensive business. Support staff are expensive. The numerous software tools required for support are expensive. Training is expensive. Application support teams often have a high staff turnover which is expensive. Support can account for between 30-70% of the average CIO budget which is expensive. Costs can be variable which can become unexpectedly expensive. Maintaining support staff in your office can be expensive e.g. central London. The “expensive” pattern is clear.
Outsourcing support of applications reduces costs. Managed service providers ensure application support staff, support software, training, management and location are entirely focused to leverage their sole concentration on support activities. Once a fixed monthly fee with a provider has been established, all support costs are known in advance. A sensible, clear and practical Service Level Agreement is the key here.
2) Leadership. Application support staff are under great pressure to perform but often do not receive the leadership they need. Supporting applications is a demanding job. Long hours and constant pressure for individuals requires solid management. How many of your managers have genuinely been trained to gain leadership skills in this area? Are they just technically more skilled than more junior team members? Can they implement total control over production systems, inspire their teams and show leadership when the pressure is really on? Have you sent them on courses to acquire these skills?
The impact here is the level of service you can provide in challenging application environments e.g. multi-tiered applications with numerous upstream and downstream feeds to applications which are mission-critical to their users. Outsourcing providerswho are dedicated to providing technical support services under pressure invest in training that focuses on providing their staff with those skills. The training provided is not just technical but focused on coping with very high workload in complex application environments
3) Quality. Providing quality application support results from having motivated staff and good processes e.g. Support staff that enjoy what they are doing and using processes such as ITIL. Support staff can often become disillusioned with support and are keen to move on to other areas of IT such as development. Keeping staff motivated usually involves providing variety in their roles and a sense of meaning each day. Therefore, it is often beneficial to move support staff into work that improves company systems.
Using application support providers allows you to use staff to develop the company systems and move the organisation forward. Outsourcing application support allows the day-to-day running of the applications to be dealt with by professionals who have chosen support as their profession and are dedicated to maintaining systems to high standards and providing a high quality of service because it is their livelihood and long term career path. This also means support professionals can offer SLA guarantees because of their experience. The result is you receive a higher quality of service and application reliability for your budget.
Processing your request, Please wait....
