It’s true: information technology service level agreements (SLAs) are boring to read and may make your eyes cross as you try to drill into their miniscule details. They are also a crucial part of the contracts you have with your technology service providers.
As your IT infrastructure becomes increasingly complex, the help desk team you need to ensure your employees get timely, efficient technical support grows more critical — and tougher than ever to maintain as an in-house effort.
You’re not alone. Many enterprises now turn to third-party help desk providers.
Four help desk service provider payoffs
With the right help desk services provider, you’ll reduce both your IT operations costs and your hassle quotient. Here’s why
According to the FBI, there has been as much as a 500% increase in the effects of ransomware on networks and IT infrastructure in the past few years1. In my work, I often see firms so involved in the technical aspects of these cybersecurity events, including what tools and widgets they can use to prevent attacks, that they don’t consider what recovery will actually look and feel like if, or more likely when, their organization is targeted.
Just as your clients’ IT infrastructures have become more complex, as have the problems these infrastructures now address, likewise the technical support needed by your clients’ users has also become more complex.
In fact, for a while now IT infrastructures have been moving beyond complicated to address wicked problems that, in turn, trigger new problems and conflicts between people, processes, and technologies.
If life — or your IT infrastructure and the people who use it — were perfect, you’d never need to worry about technical support.
Of course, life and IT infrastructures are far from perfect. But life goes on, and you have to make sure your infrastructure does, too.
Let’s face it: cybersecurity incident response needs all the help it can get.
One study found that 44% of those queried suffered at least twice at the hands of the same attacker, and 77% of those sufferers noted that the attacker had returned with the same or similar tactics, techniques, and procedures.
