| 4.1 Support
04. IT Department | |
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| 1. IT Department | | 1. To consider it reasonable for the role of IT support as being part an internal IT department. | | 2. To provide IT support by an internal IT department or may be provided by an external contractor acting as an employee of the internal IT department. | | 3. To note the key factor is that support is provided for the benefit of the customer as if that customer had employed the people providing the support. | | To accept that IT support as part of the IT department cannot have a different brand or product-service. | | 4. To acknowledge that where IT support is provided like an IT department, then all documents authored by IT support become the owned by and copyrighted by the customer. |
| 2. Roles | | 1. To accept that IT support is best provided like an IT department, but because IT support is also a company, that IT support company has many roles. | | 2. To note that like any company, IT support roles (departments) include: | | (1) Marketing:. | | (2) Sales:. | | (3) Personnel:. | | (4) Research and Development:. | | (5) Operations and Delivery:. | | (6) Procurement:. | | (7) Finance:. | | (8) Strategy:. |
| 3. Fund Raising | | 1. To accept that fund raising methods and procedures have seen a dramatic evolutionary shift in the last twenty years. | | 2. To note that fund raising events to entertain rich people who will generously give to a charity have become less profitable as the cost of such events has increased. | | 3. To note a new kind of crowd funding has emerged where a large number of people can each contribute a tiny amount to yield more profit with less cost. | | 4. To acknowledge that the shift from fund raising to crowd funding is based on the technology of networking to a massive group of followers and influencers. | | 5. To identify that the celebrities that drove fund raising are now classified as influencers who are simply people known to a vast network of other people. | | 6. To evolve to less costly events that can be crowd funded by people who do not need to physically attend a place, but can be involved by (cheaper) electronic means. | | 7. To expect that profits will be higher when people do not need spend their precious time to phyically go to a place, when a lot more people can attend an electronic event and when donations may be just a few pounds. | | 8. To build and exploit the new world of followers and influencers. |
| 4. Marketing | | 1. To understand that the IT department has a marketing role. | | 2. To expect the IT department or IT support to continually publicise, communicate and market what they do and how effective they are at doing what they are paid to do. | | 3. To embrace the ability for IT support to be treated as an internal IT department by communicating how productive the customer has become as a result of the new strategic direction. | | 4. To begin with a monthly newsletter to all the people who have been identified as "approved people" to receive IT support. | | 5. To continue with a weekly new sheet with tips and hints to educate the network of followers that are being created. | | 6. To evolve with daily new flashes that are educational, tutorials, how-to videos and information that may be of interest to the network of followers. | | 7. To note that marketing is education - some people are hungry for more edcation so they can beocme more effective, more productive and worth more. | | To pick out those that are hungry and help them become influencers of others as people who are going somewhere. | | 8. To build and exploit the new world of followers and influencers. |
| 5. Sales | | 1. To reduce the role of the sales person with a clever sales cycle and accept that the world has changed to customers with buying cycle. | | 2. To use educational marketing communications to replace sales material so a large network of potential customers are informed as to what is available. | | 3. To embrace all manor of followers as prospects who may never buy, but may influence another follower to become a buyer. | | 4. To use technology to know everything about everbody and in return to give away everything that can possibly be given away - like wikipedia. | | 5. To treat the sales role as a part of marketing - to help the customer to buy, but only those customers that have the right profile. | | To accept that not every company with a need can be helped so only those that match a formal profile will be permitted to buy. | | 6. To thank sales people for being the gatekeeper to keep out unwanted customers. | | To understand that ten good customers cost less than one bad customer - due dilligence is mandated. |
| 6. Personnel | | 1. To understand the each and every person known to IT support must have a personnel profile with many optional records. | | 2. To use technology to minimise the cost of working with a network of people by building historic evidence of all events. | | To accept that some people change their name, most people change their email address and many people change their company from time to time. | | 3. To guess that it is impossible to have any communication with a person who does not have a personnel record as a reult of that communicaiton. | | 4. Augmented Memory: to never forget any business matter with any person. |
| 7. Research and Development | | 1. To understand the a role of IT support is research and development. | | 2. To accept that development does not have to mean programming, but can include the development of policies and procedures. |
| 8. Operations and Delivery | | 1. To understand the a role of IT support is request operations that may include the delivery of hardware and software. | | 2. To charge the Request Fulfilment Manager to manage the first, second and third level support teams with access to the Incident Manager and Problem Manager as needed. | | 2. To accept that a good deal of IT support work is managed by the Access Control Manager when dealing with security and privacy matters. |
| 9. Procurement | | 1. To understand the a role of IT support is to buy product-services in the most efficient way from the least cost suppliers. | | 2. To charge the Supplier Director to direct the purchase of computing devices, software, networks and computer services as reqired. | | 3. To accept the rate of change of any computing device is reducing from 5 years, to 3 years and may reduce to a commodoty handled like a ball point pen. | | 4. To expect a multitude of computing devices from any manufacturer with no strategic constraints. | | 5. To expect a limited number of software licences to provide collaboration and intercommunication of data. |
| 10. Finance | | 1. To understand the a role of IT support is open book accounting of every transaction to ensure that no party is paying too much or risking the business by loosing too much. | | 2. To charge the Finance Director to direct the the accounts to be shared with little reason for any secrecy - the cost of goods and services can be viewed using Google. | | 3. To accept the principal of open book accounting and only keep secret those transactions that for some unknown reason need to be kep secret. | | 4. To expect a that by eliminating all places where a fraud could happen, then the threat of a fraud is dramatically reduced. |
| 11. Strategy | | 1. To understand the a role of IT support is to provide strategic leadership in all IT related matters. | | 2. To unsaid role is to continually align the IT stratgy with the evolving business strategy - to ensure that no gaps can be found. | | 3. To accept the role of Data Protection Officer and to ensure that policies are founded and maiantained to keep the organization legal and compliant with all UK laws. |
| Document Control: | | 1. Document Title: IT Department. | | 2. Reference: 164104. | | 3. Description: IT Department. | | 4. Keywords: IT Department. | | 5. Privacy: Public education service as a benefit to humanity. | | 6. Issued: 13 Feb 2017. | | 7. Edition: 2.2. |
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