History
Several things are driving the development of the virtualized help desk. According to IDC, key market factors include the proliferation of remote workers in the enterprise, the expansion of the small and medium-sized business (SMB) and small office/home office (SOHO) market and its increasing dependence on IT, and the need for a cost-effective way to support the consumer market. As workforces become more dispersed – 83% of companies say they operate a virtual workplace, in which more than one-quarter of employees work away from their supervisors or workgroups – responding to IT issues can be complex and costly if travel is required.
Today’s economic instability is also putting added pressure on companies to find gainful ways of optimizing current operations to ensure and build their business. In fact, recent Nemertes research found that only 44% of companies are increasing their IT budgets in 2008; and only 28% plan to do so in 2009. This means that organizations across various industries will be looking for ways to optimize IT.
Persistent IT problems that prohibit a company’s productivity are another factor as money is lost from both sides of the balance sheet. This concern is amplified when talking about external support as the stakes are higher for companies to deliver swift, effective, and reliable IT support to its customers.
Read more about this topic: Virtual Help Desk
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“History, as an entirety, could only exist in the eyes of an observer outside it and outside the world. History only exists, in the final analysis, for God.”
—Albert Camus (1913–1960)
“Every generation rewrites the past. In easy times history is more or less of an ornamental art, but in times of danger we are driven to the written record by a pressing need to find answers to the riddles of today.... In times of change and danger when there is a quicksand of fear under men’s reasoning, a sense of continuity with generations gone before can stretch like a lifeline across the scary present and get us past that idiot delusion of the exceptional Now that blocks good thinking.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)
“Let us not underrate the value of a fact; it will one day flower in a truth. It is astonishing how few facts of importance are added in a century to the natural history of any animal. The natural history of man himself is still being gradually written.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)