Cloud Computing for IT Help Desk & Customer Service/Support

Document Feature Needs & Requirements

The #5 Key Point we discuss in the "Winning Strategies for Purchasing IT Help Desk and Customer Service Software or Cloud Computing" webinar is to document your feature needs and requirements.

Documenting feature needs and requirements is the most important step in the process of purchasing a new call tracking system. It is also the most difficult step. It is important to solicit feedback on requirements from all the people that will be using the system. Using this approach, all the stakeholders will be part of the purchase process and feel ownership for the new system. They will be much more inclined to fully embrace and use the new system. There is often organizational inertia that has to be overcome with a new call tracking system. Getting people to do things differently is sometimes hard to change.

Click "Download White Paper" to read more about how to document your feature needs and requirements.

Determine Problems With Current Call Tracking System

The #4 Key Point we discuss in the "Winning Strategies for Purchasing IT Help Desk and Customer Service Software or Cloud Computing" webinar is to determine the problems with your current call tracking system.

Before you begin documenting feature needs and requirements for a new call tracking system, it is important to thoroughly understand why the current system is not working well. We suggest that you play the role of an outside consultant with no agenda. Do not begin with the premise that all your problems will be solved with a new call tracking system. It is more important to understand exactly what is wrong with the current system and determine if it can be fixed.

Click "Download White Paper" to read more about how to determine the problems with your current call tracking system.

Cloud Computing for IT Help Desk & Customer Service/Support

Learn Latest Help Desk & Customer Service Best Practices

The #3 Key Point we discuss in the "Winning Strategies for Purchasing IT Help Desk and Customer Service Software or Cloud Computing" webinar is to learn the latest help desk and customer service best practices.

Before engaging with software vendors, read up on help desk and customer service "best practices" as appropriate, so that that you can ask pointed and direct questions with confidence. For example, you want to be able to speak about First Call Resolution, Service Level Agreement Compliance, Root Cause Analysis and Customer Satisfaction Surveys with authority and competence to prod and poke at vendors. It is important to show vendors that you understand the latest best practices and industry trends, so you can make sure that they have evolved their products.

Click "Download White Paper" to read more about help desk and customer service best practices.

Are Funds Approved and Set Aside?

The #2 Key Point we discuss in the "Winning Strategies for Purchasing IT Help Desk and Customer Service Software or Cloud Computing" webinar is encouraging people to quickly determine if funds are approved and set aside.

It is important before spending a lot of time on the project to meet with your CFO and ask a lot of questions about project funding approval. The only activity you should be doing before discussing funding approval is determining if check signers have any pain points.

Click "Download White Paper" to read more about how to determine if funds are approved and set aside.

Cloud Computing for IT Help Desk & Customer Service/Support

The #1 Key Point we discuss in the "Winning Strategies for Purchasing IT Help Desk and Customer Service Software or Cloud Computing" webinar is to determine if check signers have significant pain.

Initially, your most important responsibility is to determine the pain level throughout your organization that is caused by not having an appropriate IT help desk or customer service call tracking application. Perhaps your company does not have an application, or the application you are using is not providing all the benefits that you desire.

It is critical to understand the pain points from the perspective of senior leaders such the CIO/ IT Director or VP/Director of Customer Service.

There are generally the four main sources of pain points for check signers:

• Lack of granular KPIs/metrics/reporting
• Check signers need to know, "Who Should I Reward, Warn or Terminate?"
• Labor intensiveness is painful
• Large annual support and maintenance fees are painful

Click "Download White Paper" to read more about how to determine if Check Signers have significant pain.

CIOs & IT Directors - Senior IT Leaders Webinar Series

As a CIO/IT Director, are you and your team prepared to engage with IT help desk software or cloud computing vendors to make a new purchase or upgrade?

Do you know the right questions to ask to quickly draw distinctions between vendors and identify strengths/weaknesses?

Would you like a head start on documenting your feature requirements?

At this Webinar, you will learn to:

• Avoid mistakes that even the most experienced CIOs/IT Directors make that cost a lot of time and money
• Negotiate a better license agreement for your company
• Lead the vendor qualification process with expertise and confidence
• Effectively coach your team on how to shortlist the right group of IT help desk vendors for a rigorous vetting process

Attend this Webinar and receive a complimentary series of White Papers with 40 tough questions to ask vendors and a Needs Assessment Excel tool to help document your requirements.

This complimentary and informative Webinar is hosted by Giva, Inc. and CDC Global Services (NASDAQ: CDCS).

Register now by clicking on a session time:

Wed, Mar 30, 2011 11:00 AM - 11:45 AM EDT

Wed, Apr 6, 2011 11:00 AM - 11:45 AM EDT

Wed, Apr 13, 2011 11:00 AM - 11:45 AM EDT

Business Case to Replace FrontRange HEAT

A top 100 law firm was looking to significantly lower costs and increase attorney satisfaction with the IT help desk. Giva assisted the firm in highlighting pain points that check signers were living with because they did not know of a superior solution at a lower cost. Giva assisted this law firm in building a business case to replace FrontRange HEAT. After Giva helped highlight check signer pain, a 30-day production pilot was approved, and thereafter, the firm purchased the cloud-based Giva Service Management Suite™ to replace FrontRange HEAT.

It is critical to understand the pain points from the perspective of check signers such as the Executive Director/COO/ CIO/ IT Director. In over a decade of experience engaging with customers, Giva has found that there must be strong, deep and very significant pain that check signers feel in order to motivate them to sign a check for a new IT help desk application purchase.

Summary of Business Results with Giva

• Check signers can now access to real-time KPIs/Metrics/Reports, Dashboards and "Broadcasts" with an easy-to-use interface
• "Report Guru" is no longer required. Any IT person can access the reports they need.
• Annual cost for Giva is significantly less than FrontRange HEAT
• Eliminated a production server, a test environment, and expensive database licenses
• Significantly reduced ongoing hard dollar and soft labor costs for "care and feeding" of FrontRange HEAT
• Knowledge base and FAQ increased first call resolution and was also exposed to the attorneys/staff for self-help
• Giva access anytime, anywhere in the world with just a web browser. No client software required.
• IT infrastructure changes are now funneled through a formal approval cycle
• IT infrastructure changes are now highly visibility across IT departments
• Attorneys/staff can view "Broadcasts" of major outages
• Outside service vendors are tracked with respond and resolve service level agreements (SLAs)
• Single call tracking system with independent service desks for each service departments: IT, Library, Conflicts, Facilities, Copy Center, etc.
• After 9 months, a knowledge base increased first call resolution from 60% to 82%
• After 12 months, attorney satisfaction increase from 3.1 to 4.3, or approximately a 38% increase.
• After 6 months, since IT change requests now required approval, coordination and documentation, infrastructure outages decreased by 29% without purchasing any new hardware or software

Click "Download White Paper" to read more about how a Top 100 Law Firm replaced FrontRange HEAT with Giva Cloud Computing.

Read about Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) ITIL Change Management in the cloud and how it is changing the software industry. This is a case study of a customer using Giva eChangeManager to lower labor and auditing costs and increase IT infrastructure uptime

Westway Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: WWAY) is a leading provider of bulk liquid storage throughout North America and Europe. Westway operates an extensive global network of 54 operating facilities providing 348 million gallons of storage capacity and produces 1.7 million tons of liquid feed supplements annually. Giva eChangeManager™ was deployed to address the company's need for a change management application easily accessible from anywhere in the world and that was Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) compliant.

Results:

• 70% decrease in labor costs by tracking IT changes with Giva
• 80% decrease in IT auditing costs estimated for next year's public accounting firm audit
• Significantly increased IT infrastructure uptime
• Real-time Trend Reports, Dashboards, Charts, and Metrics, which enable visibility of all global Requests for Change
• An affordable and easy to customize solution that is ITIL and Sarbanes-Oxley (SOXs) compliant
• 100% uptime using Giva's cloud computing Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) eChangeManager

Quotes:

"When comparing all of our IT vendors, Giva's commitment and passion in maintaining its products and providing excellent customer service is "best in class" and clearly distinguished above the rest of our vendors."

Peter Griffiths, IT Director

Read case study on Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) Change Management in the Cloud

Giva's data centers are SAS 70 certified. Is your SaaS IT help desk or customer service vendor?

SAS 70 (the Statement on Auditing Standards No. 70) defines the standards an auditor must employ in order to assess the contracted internal controls of a service organization. Service organizations, such as hosted data centers, insurance claims processors and credit processing companies, provide outsourcing services that affect the operation of the contracting enterprise. The SAS 70 was developed by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) as a simplification of a set of criteria for auditing standards originally defined in 1988.

Under SAS 70, auditor reports are classified as either Type I or Type II. In a Type I report, the auditor evaluates the efforts of a service organization at the time of audit to prevent accounting inconsistencies, errors and misrepresentation. The auditor also evaluates the likelihood that those efforts will produce the desired future results. A Type II report includes the same information as that contained in a Type I report; in addition, the auditor attempts to determine the effectiveness of agreed-on controls since their implementation. Type II reports also incorporate data compiled during a specific time period, usually a minimum of six months.

SAS 70 reports are commissioned at the request of either a service organization (the company) or the user organization (customers). It is in the service organization's best interests to provide consistent service auditor's reports. Positive independent reports build a customer's trust and confidence in the service organization and satisfy any concerns. Furthermore, Type II reports identify any operational areas that need improvement. A lack of current reports, on the other hand, may generate multiple audit requests from the user organization and these audits can be costly for the service organization.

Click for more information on Giva's SAS 70 certified data centers