Effective marketing of technology can generate demand for the latest technologies among employees. These priorities create inherent conflicts between the end users and the individuals tasked with providing support. As marketers, we are thrilled when our customers support the bleeding edge. As IT support personnel, it terrifies us.
The question of the role of the IT organization in personal support is a difficult one. As a key task, the IT support department must insure that licenses related to propriety software are strictly adhered to. In addition, the IT department wants to be able to resolve 100% of problems in a reasonable amount of time. Standardization of technology can help the IT support department meet each of these goals. However, standardization also can potentially limit the productivity of employees as well as limiting the organizational knowledge of how well a particular technology will work in an organization. For example, a company standardizing on the Vista may not know that within their organization salespeople utilizing a Mac are more satisfied and require less support.
Consider the following scenario:
The Acme company supports all Dell laptops throughout the organization. One senior VP of marketing decides that he needs to order a stylish new red Toshiba tablet that better supports his/her personal brand than the Dell. When it comes in, the laptop can’t be given the standard image used for machines throughout the rest of the organization. As a result, the configuration and support of the machine ends up taking up approximately 10 times what support for a normal machine usually does.
In the same organization a group of ten contractors have been recently hired to fill out the creative end of the marketing department. These users petition the CIO for permission to purchase 10 MacBook Pros. Having worked in the creative field for most of their lives, these individuals feel they can be more productive using Macs, have had bad experiences with Vista, and are able to do most of their own support. Having just heard about the problems with the Dell laptop, the CIO forbids them from purchasing the Macs and, in an official memo to the entire organization, states that all nonstandard technology will not be supported.
The individuals do not relent and with the permission of the VP of Marketing, the individuals purchase 10 MacBook Pros. While the individuals do most of their own support, there is a significant additional challenge to handle issues of hardware failure.
- What is the function of IT desktop support management within an organization? Provide key insights into IT decisions for end users? To set and enforce standards throughout the organization? To support end users at all costs?
- How does the IT manager justify the costs of supporting multiple operating systems? This added complexity is likely to have an added costs.
- What do you do when individual departments have the capability to purchase their own IT? Do you disown unsupported technologies or support only until the support becomes too expensive?
