Our systems detected an issue with your IP. If you think this is an error please submit your concerns via our contact form.

Infrastructure Operations icon

Define Requirements for Outsourcing the Service Desk

Prepare your RFP for long-term success, not short-term gains.

  • In organizations where technical support is viewed as non-strategic, many see outsourcing as a cost-effective way to provide this support. However, outsourced projects often fall short of their goals in terms of cost savings and the quality of support. 
  • Significant administrative work and up-front costs are required to outsource the service desk, and poor planning often results in project failure and a decrease of end-user satisfaction.
  • A complete turnover of the service desk can result in lost knowledge and control over processes, and organizations without an exit strategy can struggle to bring their service desk back in house and return the confidence of end users.

Our Advice

Critical Insight

  • Outsourcing is easy. Realizing the expected cost, quality, and focus benefits is hard. Successful outsourcing without being directly involved in service desk management is almost impossible.
  • You don’t need to standardize before you outsource, but you still need to conduct your due diligence. If you outsource without thinking about how you want the future to work, you will likely be unsatisfied with the result.
  • If cost is your only driver for outsourcing, understand that it comes at a cost. Customer service quality will likely be less, and your outsourcer may not add on frills such as Continual Improvement. Be careful that your specialists don’t end up spending more time working on incidents and service requests.

Impact and Result

  • First decide if outsourcing is the correct step; there may be more preliminary work to do beforehand.
  • Assess requirements and make necessary adjustments before developing an outsource RFP.
  • Clearly define the project and produce an RFP to provide to vendors.
  • Plan for long-term success, not short-term gain.
  • Prepare to retain some of the higher-level service desk work.

Define Requirements for Outsourcing the Service Desk Research & Tools

1. Define Requirements for Outsourcing the Service Desk Deck – A step-by-step document to walk you through building a strategy for efficient service desk outsourcing.

This storyboard will help you craft a project charter, create an RFP, and outline strategies to build a long-term relationship with the vendor.

2. Service Desk Outsourcing Project Charter Template and Requirements Library – Best-of-breed templates to help you determine processes and build a strategy to outsource them.

These templates will help you determine your service desk requirements and document your proposed service desk outsourcing strategy.

3. Service Desk Outsourcing RFP Template – A structured document to help you outline expectations and communicate requirements to managed service providers.

This template will allow you to create a detailed RFP for your outsourcing agreement, document the statement of work, provide service overview, record exit conditions, and document licensing model and estimated pricing.

4. Service Desk Outsourcing Reference Interview Template and Scoring Tool – Materials to help you conduct efficient briefings and select the best vendor to fulfill your service desk requirements.

Use the Reference Interview Template to outline a list of questions for interviewing current/previous customers of your candidate vendors. These interviews will help you with unbiased vendor scoring. The RFP Vendor Scoring Tool will help you facilitate vendor briefings with your list of questions and score candidate vendors efficiently through quantifying evaluations.


Member Testimonials

After each Info-Tech experience, we ask our members to quantify the real-time savings, monetary impact, and project improvements our research helped them achieve. See our top member experiences for this blueprint and what our clients have to say.

8.0/10


Overall Impact

Client

Experience

Impact

$ Saved

Days Saved

Planned Parenthood Federation of America

Guided Implementation

8/10

N/A

N/A

Very responsive and helpful conversation! Appreciate sharing their expertise and current best practices on RFP template approach. Very knowledgeabl... Read More


Define Requirements for Outsourcing the Service Desk

Prepare your RFP for long-term success, not short-term gains

Define Requirements for Outsourcing the Service Desk

Prepare your RFP for long-term success, not short-term gains

EXECUTIVE BRIEF

Analyst Perspective

Outsource services with your eyes wide open.

Cost reduction has traditionally been an incentive for outsourcing the service desk. This is especially the case for organizations that don't have minimal processes in place and those that need resources and skills to fill gaps.

Although cost reduction is usually the main reason to outsource the service desk, in most cases service desk outsourcing increases the cost in a short run. But without a proper model, you will only outsource your problems rather than solving them. A successful outsourcing strategy follows a comprehensive plan that defines objectives, assigns accountabilities, and sets expectations for service delivery prior to vendor outreach.

For outsourcing the service desk, you should plan ahead, work as a group, define requirements, prepare a strong RFP, and contemplate tension metrics to ensure continual improvement. As you build a project charter to outline your strategy for outsourcing your IT services, ensure you focus on better customer service instead of cost optimization. Ensure that the outsourcer can support your demands, considering your long-term achievement.

Think about outsourcing like a marriage deed. Take into account building a good relationship before beginning the contract, ensure to include expectations in the agreement, and make it possible to exit the agreement if expectations are not satisfied or service improvement is not achieved.

This is a picture of Mahmoud Ramin, PhD, Senior Research Analyst, Infrastructure and Operations, Info-Tech Research Group

Mahmoud Ramin, PhD
Senior Research Analyst
Infrastructure and Operations
Info-Tech Research Group

Executive Summary

Your Challenge

In organizations where technical support is viewed as non-strategic, many see outsourcing as a cost-effective way to provide this support. However, outsourcing projects often fall short of their goals in terms of cost savings and quality of support.

Common Obstacles

Significant administrative work and up-front costs are required to outsource the service desk, and poor planning often results in project failure and the decrease of end-user satisfaction.

A complete turnover of the service desk can result in lost knowledge and control over processes, and organizations without an exit strategy can struggle to bring their service desk back in house and reestablish the confidence of end users.

Info-Tech's Approach

  • First decide if outsourcing is the correct step; there may be more preliminary work to do beforehand.
  • Assess requirements and make necessary adjustments before developing an outsource RFP.
  • Clearly define the project and produce an RFP to provide to vendors.
  • Plan for long-term success, not short-term gains.
  • Prepare to retain some of the higher-level service desk work.

Info-Tech Insight

Outsourcing is easy. Realizing all of the expected cost, quality, and focus benefits is hard. Successful outsourcing without being directly involved in service desk management is almost impossible.

Your challenge

This research is designed to help organizations that need to:

  • Outsource the service desk or portions of service management to improve service delivery.
  • Improve and repatriate existing outsourcing outcomes by becoming more engaged in the management of the function. Regular reviews of performance metrics, staffing, escalation, knowledge base content, and customer satisfaction are critical.
  • Understand the impact that outsourcing would have on the service desk.
  • Understand the potential benefits that outsourcing can bring to the organization.

This image contains a donut chart with the following information: Salaries and Benefits - 68.50%; Technology - 9.30%; Office Space and Facilities Expense - 14.90%; Travel, Training, and Office Supplies - 7.30%

Source: HDI 2017

About 68.5% of the service desk fund is allocated to agent salaries, while only 9.3% of the service desk fund is spent on technology. The high ratio of salaries and expenses over other expense drives organizations to outsource their service desk without taking other considerations into account.

Info-Tech Insight

The outsourcing contract must preserve your control, possession, and ownership of the intellectual property involved in the service desk operation. From the beginning of the process, repatriation should be viewed as a possibility and preserved as a capability.

Your challenge

This research helps organizations who would like to achieve these goals:

  • Determine objectives and requirements to outsource the service desk.
  • Develop a project charter and build an outsourcing strategy to efficiently define processes to reduce risk of failure.
  • Build an outsourcing RFP and conduct interviews to identify the best candidate for service delivery.
  • Build a long-term relationship with an outsourcing vendor, making sure the vendor is able to satisfy all requirements.
  • Include a continual improvement plan in the outsourcing strategy and contain the option upon service delivery dissatisfaction.

New hires require between 10 and 80 hours of training (Forward Bpo Inc., 2019).

A benchmark study by Zendesk from 45,000 companies reveals that timely resolution of issues and 24/7 service are the biggest factors in customer service experience.

This image contains a bar graph with the following data: Timely issue resolution; 24/7 support; Friendly agent; Desired contact method; Not to repeat info; Proactive support; Self-serve; Call back; Rewards & freebies

These factors push many businesses to consider service desk outsourcing to vendors that have capabilities to fulfill such requirements.

Common obstacles

These barriers make this challenge difficult to address for many organizations:

  • In most cases, organizations must perform significant administrative work before they can make a move. Those that fail to properly prepare impede a smooth transition, the success of the vendor, and the ability to repatriate.
  • Successful outsourcing comes from the recognition that an organization is experiencing complete turnover of its service desk staff. These organizations engage the vendor to transition knowledge and process to ensure continuity of quality.
  • IT realizes the most profound hidden costs of outsourcing when the rate of ticket escalation increases, diminishing the capacity of senior technical staff for strategic project work.

Many organizations may not get the value they expect from outsourcing in their first year.

Common Reasons:

  • Overall lack of due diligence in the outsourcing process
  • Unsuitable or unclear service transition plan
  • Poor service provider selection and management

Poor transition planning results in delayed benefits and a poor relationship with your outsourcing service provider. A poor relationship with your service provider results in poor communication and knowledge transfer.

Key components of a successful plan:

  1. Determine goals and identify requirements before developing an RFP.
  2. Finalize your outsourcing project charter and get ready for vendor evaluation.
  3. Assess and select the most appropriate provider; manage the transition and vendor relationship.

Outsource the service desk properly, and you could see a wide range of benefits

Service Desk Outsourcing: Ability to scale up/down; Reduce fixed costs; Refocus IT efforts on core activities; Access to up-to-date technology; Adhere to  ITSM best practices; Increased process optimization; Focus IT efforts on advanced expertise; Reframe to shift-left;

Info-Tech Insight

In your service desk outsourcing strategy, rethink downsizing first-level IT service staff. This can be an opportunity to reassign resources to more valuable roles, such as asset management, development or project backlog. Your current service desk staff are most likely familiar with the current technology, processes, and regulations within IT. Consider the ways to better use your existing resources before reducing headcount.

Info-Tech's Approach

Determine Goals

Conduct activities in the blueprint to pinpoint your current challenges with the service desk and find out objectives to outsource customer service.

Define Requirements

You need to be clear about the processes that will be outsourced. Considering your objectives, we'll help you discover the processes to outsource, to help you achieve your goals.

Develop RFP

Your expectations should be documented in a formal proposal to help vendors provide solid information about how they will satisfy your requirements and what their plan is.

Build Long-Term Relationship

Make sure to plan for continual improvement by setting expectations, tracking the services with proper metrics, and using efficient communication with the provider. Think about the rainy day and include exit conditions for ending the relationship if needed.

Info-Tech's methodology

1. Define the Goal

2. Design an Outsourcing Strategy

3. Develop an RFP and Make a Long-Term Relationship

Phase Steps

1.1 Identify goals and objectives

1.2 Assess outsourcing feasibility

2.1 Identify project stakeholders

2.2 Outline potential risks and constraints

3.1 Prepare service overview and responsibility matrix

3.2 Define approach to vendor relationship management

3.3 Manage the outsource relationship

Phase Outcomes

Service Desk Outsourcing Vision and Goals

Service Desk Processes to Outsource

Outsourcing Roles and Responsibilities

Outsourcing Risks and Constraints

Service Desk Outsourcing Project Charter

Service Desk Outsourcing RFP

Continual Improvement Plan

Exit Strategy

This is an image of the strategy which you will use to build your requirements for outsourcing the service desk.  it includes: 1. Define the Goal; 2. Design an Outsourcing Strategy; 3. Develop RFP and long-term relationship.

Insight summary

Focus on value

Outsourcing is easy. Realizing all of the expected cost, quality, and focus benefits is hard. Successful outsourcing without being directly involved in service desk management is almost impossible.

Define outsourcing requirements

You don't need to standardize before you outsource, but you still need to conduct your due diligence. If you outsource without thinking about how you want the future to work, you will likely be unsatisfied with the result.

Don't focus on cost

If cost is your only driver for outsourcing, understand that there will be other challenges. Customer service quality will likely be less, and your outsourcer may not add on frills such as Continual Improvement. Be careful that your specialists don't end up spending more time working on incidents and service requests.

Emphasize on customer service

A bad outsourcer relationship will result in low business satisfaction with IT overall. The service desk is the face of IT, and if users are dissatisfied with the service desk, then they are much likelier to be dissatisfied with IT overall.

Vendors are not magicians

They have standards in place to help them succeed. Determine ITSM best practices, define your requirements, and adjust process workflows accordingly. Your staff and end users will have a much easier transition once outsourcing proceeds.

Plan ahead to guarantee success

Identify outsourcing goals, plan for service and system integrations, document standard incidents and requests, and track tension metrics to make sure the vendor does the work efficiently. Aim for building a long-term relationship but contemplate potential exit strategy.

Blueprint deliverables

Each step of this blueprint is accompanied by supporting deliverables to help you accomplish your goals:

This is a screenshot from the Service Desk Outsourcing Requirements Database Library

Service Desk Outsourcing Requirements Database Library

Use this library to guide you through processes to outsource

This is a screenshot from the Service Desk Outsourcing RFP Template

Service Desk Outsourcing RFP Template

Use this template to craft a proposal for outsourcing your service desk

This is a screenshot from the Service Desk Outsourcing Reference Interview Template

Service Desk Outsourcing Reference Interview Template

Use this template to verify vendor claims on service delivery with pervious or current customers

This is a screenshot from the Service Desk Outsourcing Vendor Proposal Scoring Tool

Service Desk Outsourcing Vendor Proposal Scoring Tool

Use this tool to evaluate RFP submissions

Key deliverable:

This is a screenshot from the key deliverable, Service Desk Outsourcing Project Charter

Service Desk Outsourcing Project Charter

Document your project scope and outsourcing strategy in this template to organize the project for efficient resource and requirement allocation

Blueprint benefits

IT Benefits

Business Benefits

  • Determine current challenges with the service desk and identify services to outsource.
  • Make the project charter for an efficient outsourcing strategy that will lead to higher satisfaction from IT.
  • Select the best outsource vendor that will satisfy most of the identified requirements.
  • Reduce the risk of project failure with efficient planning.
  • Understand potential feasibility of service desk outsourcing and its possible impact on business satisfaction.
  • Improve end-user satisfaction through a better service delivery.
  • Conduct more efficient resource allocation with outsourcing customer service.
  • Develop a long-term relationship between the enterprise and vendor through a continual improvement plan.

Info-Tech offers various levels of support to best suit your needs

DIY Toolkit

"Our team has already made this critical project a priority, and we have the time and capability, but some guidance along the way would be helpful."

Guided Implementation

"Our team knows that we need to fix a process, but we need assistance to determine where to focus. Some check-ins along the way would help keep us on track."

Workshop

"We need to hit the ground running and get this project kicked off immediately. Our team has the ability to take this over once we get a framework and strategy in place."

Consulting

"Our team does not have the time or the knowledge to take this project on. We need assistance through the entirety of this project."

Diagnostics and consistent frameworks used throughout all four options

Guided Implementation

What does a typical GI on this topic look like?

Phase 1Phase 2Phase 3

Call #1: Scope your specific challenges and objectives

Call #3: Identify project stakeholders, and potential risks and constraints

Call #5: Create a detailed RFP

Call #6: Identify strategy risks.

Call #2: Assess outsourcing feasibility and processes to outsourceCall #4: Create a list of metrics to ensure efficient reporting

Call #7: Prepare for vendor briefing and scoring each vendor

Call #8: Build a communication plan

A Guided Implementation (GI) is series of calls with an Info-Tech analyst to help implement our best practices in your organization.

A typical GI is between 8 to 10 calls over the course of 4 to 6 months.

Phase 1

Define the goal

Define the goal

Design an outsourcing strategy

Develop an RFP and make a long-term relationship

1.1 Identify goals and objectives

1.2 Assess outsourcing feasibility

2.1 Identify project stakeholders

2.2 Outline potential risks and constraints

3.1 Prepare a service overview and responsibility matrix

3.2 Define your approach to vendor relationship management

3.3 Manage the outsource relationship

This phase will walk you through the following activities:

  • Analysis outsourcing objectives
  • Assess outsourcing feasibility
  • Identify services and processes to outsource

This phase involves the following participants:

  • Service Desk Team
  • IT Leadership

Define requirements for outsourcing service desk support

Step 1.1

Identify goals and objectives

Activities

1.1.1 Find out why you want to outsource your service desk

1.1.2 Document the benefits of outsourcing your service desk

1.1.3 Identify your outsourcing vision and goals

1.1.4 Prioritize service desk outsourcing goals to help structure your mission statement

1.1.5 Craft a mission statement that demonstrates your decision to reach your outsourcing objectives

Define the goal

This step requires the following inputs:

  • List of strengths and weaknesses of the service desk
  • Challenges with the service desk

This step involves the following participants:

  • CIO
  • IT Leadership
  • Service Desk Manager
  • IT Managers

Outcomes of this step

  • Service desk outsourcing vision and goals
  • Benefits of outsourcing the service desk
  • Mission statement

What is your rationale to outsource the service desk?

Potential benefits of outsourcing the service desk:

  • Bring in the expertise and knowledge to manage tickets according to best-practice guidelines
  • Reduce the timeline to response and resolution
  • Improve IT productivity
  • Enhance IT services and improve performance
  • Augment relationship between IT and business through service-level improvement
  • Free up the internal team and focus IT on complex projects and higher priority tasks
  • Speed up service desk optimization
  • Improve end-user satisfaction through efficient IT services
  • Reduce impact of incidents through effective incident management
  • Increase service consistency via turnover reduction
  • Expand coverage hour and access points
  • Expand languages to service different geographical areas

1.1.1 Find out why you want to outsource your service desk

1 hour

Service desk is the face of IT. Service desk improvement increases IT efficiency, lowers operation costs, and enhances business satisfaction.

Common challenges that result in deciding to outsource the service desk are:

Participants: IT Director, Service Desk Manager, Service Desk Team

ChallengeExample
Lack of tier 1 supportStartup does not have a dedicated service desk to handle incidents and provide services to end users.
Inefficient ticket handlingMTTR is very high and end users are frustrated with their issues not getting solved quickly. Even if they call service desk, they are put on hold for a long time. Due to these inefficiencies, their daily work is greatly impacted.
Restricted service hoursCompany headquartered in Texas does not have resources to provide 24/7 IT service. When users in the East Asia branch have a laptop issue, they must wait until the next day to get response from IT. This has diminished their satisfaction.
Restricted languagesCompany X is headquartered in New York. An end user not fluent in English from Madrid calls in for support. It takes five minutes for the agent to understand the issue and log a ticket.
Ticket backlogIT is in firefighting mode, very busy with taking care of critical incidents and requests from upper management. Almost no one is committed to the SLA because of their limited availability.

Brainstorm your challenges with the service desk. Why have you decided to outsource your service desk? Use the above table as a sample.

Prepare your RFP for long-term success, not short-term gains.

About Info-Tech

Info-Tech Research Group is the world’s fastest-growing information technology research and advisory company, proudly serving over 30,000 IT professionals.

We produce unbiased and highly relevant research to help CIOs and IT leaders make strategic, timely, and well-informed decisions. We partner closely with IT teams to provide everything they need, from actionable tools to analyst guidance, ensuring they deliver measurable results for their organizations.

MEMBER RATING

8.0/10
Overall Impact

After each Info-Tech experience, we ask our members to quantify the real-time savings, monetary impact, and project improvements our research helped them achieve.

Read what our members are saying

What Is a Blueprint?

A blueprint is designed to be a roadmap, containing a methodology and the tools and templates you need to solve your IT problems.

Each blueprint can be accompanied by a Guided Implementation that provides you access to our world-class analysts to help you get through the project.

Need Extra Help?
Speak With An Analyst

Get the help you need in this 3-phase advisory process. You'll receive 8 touchpoints with our researchers, all included in your membership.

Guided Implementation 1: Define the Goal
  • Call 1: Scope your specific challenges and objectives​
  • Call 2: Assess outsourcing feasibility and processes to outsource ​

Guided Implementation 2: Design an Outsourcing Strategy​
  • Call 1: Identify project stakeholders, and potential risks and constraints​
  • Call 2: Create a list of metrics to ensure efficient reporting​

Guided Implementation 3: Develop an RFP and Make a Long-Term Relationship​
  • Call 1: Create a detailed RFP​
  • Call 2: Identify strategy risks​
  • Call 3: Prepare for vendor briefing and scoring each vendor​
  • Call 4: Build a communication plan ​

Author

Mahmoud Ramin

Contributors

  • Yev Khovrenkov; Enterprise Consultant, Solvera Solutions
  • Kamil Salagan; I&O Manager, Bartek Ingredients
  • Satish Mekerira; VP of IT, Coherus BioSciences
  • Kris Krishan; Head of IT and Business Systems, Waymo
  • Kris Arthur; Infra & Security Director, SEKO Logistics
  • 5 Anonymous Contributors
Visit our Exponential IT Research Center
Over 100 analysts waiting to take your call right now: 1-519-432-3550 x2019