Service Desk

The Service Desk not only manages incidents, problems, and requests for information, but more widely coordinates user requested Changes, maintenance contracts, software licenses, Service Level Management, Configuration Management, Availability Management, Financial Management for IT Services and IT Continuity Management.

Value
Service Desk provides value to the organization by:
 * acting as a strategic function to identify and lower the cost of ownership for supporting the computing and support infrastructure
 * supporting the integration and management of Change across distributed business, technology and process boundaries
 * reducing costs by the efficient use of resource and technology
 * supporting the optimisation of investments and the management of the businesses support services
 * helping to ensure long term Customer retention and satisfaction
 * assisting in the identification of business opportunities.

Service Desk is a valuable source of information for the business, providing input on:
 * staff resource usage
 * service deficiencies
 * service performance and target achievement
 * Customer training needs
 * associated costs.

Key terms

 * 1) Value. How would we survive without a Service Desk
 * 2) Call Centre (taking as many calls as possible) vs. Help Desk (resolving as many incidents as possible) vs. Service Desk (owns incidents, coordinates service support & delivery activities, provides information to users and to the business)
 * 3) Local vs. Centralized, Virtual, Follow The Sun