How to Reorganize Your San Jose IT Team to Maximize Productivity
The changes in technology present some of the most testing times for a business to withstand. It’s for this reason that adaptability is one of the most vital attributes in the corporate space today. In order to survive, you must be able to change course quickly whenever things go bust.
Of these numerous changes that a business may have to endure, one of the hardest is IT team restructuring. This is because restructuring often transforms a significant chunk of your IT processes. It may include changing IT infrastructure, your personnel, or even outsourcing some tasks to optimize the efficiency of your team. But, how exactly can you reorganize your IT team? Read on to find out.
What Is Organizational Restructuring?
Restructuring refers to the act of changing the business model of an organization to transform it for the better. The cause of such a change can be either internal or external. Such a significant change can have different implications for a business. In most cases, it can either result in upsizing or downsizing employees, changes in staffing requirements, etc. This is because restructuring can take place for many reasons, including changing business environments, new methods of operations, new technologies, among other reasons.
How Can You Restructure Your Organization?
This is an interesting question, given that there are different paths depending on what your goals are. There are different types of restructuring in the corporate world – some are process-focused, some are political with power silos, and others are cost-saving streamlining.
One of the most effective types of restructuring is those that focus on improving customer satisfaction. One way of actualizing this kind of restructuring is by taking an ITIL heavy approach and focusing on first contact resolve rates.
You can accomplish this in two ways:
1. Tooling
When using tooling to improve your customer satisfaction, you can invest in remote control and auditing software. This will allow you to know everything about the supported equipment and let first contact get immediately and quickly onto the machine that has an issue and address it.
You can also invest in service support software that combines the CMDB (equipment database) and incident management ticketing with robust reporting. Doing this will enable you to see exactly how you are performing on first contact for issues that were actually resolvable immediately. For instance, your service desk performance shouldn’t include first contact resolve for a machine that has died or a request for new equipment. These processes take time and approvals.
Generally, taking the above steps will ensure that your tooling now supports your goal of improving customer satisfaction.
2. Service Desk Expertise
After streamlining your tooling, now you’ll need the expertise to complement it. This involves bringing in two teams of experts. The first team of experts may focus on operating the service desk. Within the first month of the restructuring, you could enable call takers to transfer the call to the expert and shadow them on the solve. Increasing general knowledge and updating the knowledge database in the tooling will ensure that the fix and steps can be followed again.
By enabling call takers to report any issues, you’ll be able to dig in to see any weak points and strengthen them over time. The upfront changes will ensure that your second-line group of IT experts can focus on more upgrades and bigger incidents. It also makes your service desk team much more well-rounded and far more valuable to their next opportunity, internal or external. Your employee satisfaction rates will also increase.
Why Doesn’t Every Organization Use This Approach to Transform Their Organization?
The first question that may have popped into your mind is, why don’t all organizations use this approach if it is that effective? The simple answer is that it is an expensive approach. Tooling experts, second-line people taking calls, salary increases across the board for improving skill sets and making KPI (key performance indicators) numbers consistently.
The ITIL principles used in the reorganization process above remain to be one of the most effective reorganizations in a long line of them, despite being expensive. Even so, given that it will positively impact your business, you should view your IT as a partner for success, not just as a cost factor.
What Is the Best Way for Restructuring Your Organization for Maximum Productivity?
The best way to restructure an IT organization for maximum productivity is to implement tools that measure your productivity and provide you with proper KPI metrics that enable you to make suitable management decisions. Many IT organizations utilize PSA metrics to help generate these KPI metrics.
Once you have this in place, you can make modifications to your workflows, thereby maximizing productivity. That said, it’s crucial that you have proper metrics to fine-tune these changes to increase productivity.
In some instances, these changes may be company-wide or on an individual basis. Nonetheless, the best way to implement this strategy is to ensure that all the affected parties are involved in these decisions from the start for better buy-in and adoption.
Bottom Line
With cybersecurity threats prevalent, remote work, and other factors, many organizations are considering reorganization of their IT departments. There are three main components to the IT organization: Cybersecurity, Development/Product, and Operational.
An IT executive should oversee all these components and drive success for their organization. For this to come to fruition, the proper resources must be in place. Instead of attempting to hire in-house resources, you should know when it makes sense to outsource.
Consider hiring a cybersecurity analyst internally while outsourcing your help desk and infrastructure support to a managed service provider. It is critical to have accountability in each of these components. As the nature of work evolves, your technology is a living, breathing creature that needs proactive care. Establish a process to address this.
Choose V&C Solutions as Your San Jose IT Team
Are you looking to revamp your IT processes to maximize the productivity of your business? V&C Solutions can help. We offer a wide range of IT services, including Managed IT services, Co-Managed IT, Cybersecurity, Cloud Services, and work-from-home solutions. Contact us to learn more about our services.
Thanks to Guy Baroan from Baroan Technologies in New Jersey for their help with this article.
