Business Value of Application Support

Following five dimensions helps to build values of application support:

• Strategy: The strategy helps to improve value over time at an acceptable cost. The strategy should be made for business alignment and achieve support objective. Strategy is restructuring or add-on in existing process to utilize all type of resources in right way that helps to make more outcome / profit in minimum cost and risk.
• Governance: Governance defines standard rules for support structure that needs to follow in every industry. Thus, governance helps to build structures of standard procedures that measure performance and achieve compliance.
• Organization: Organize support in terms of resource, cost and time. Resource, cost and time are interrelated to each other, so basic need is to make available right resource at the right cost for application support, which helps to consistently do error free service delivery in time.
• Process: Set up standard processes as per standard rules set up by governance resulting in efficient and effective application management that will help to manage resource, time and cost simultaneously without affecting any attribute.
• Technology: To streamline process needs to use advance application management support tools, which includes workflow for support process that helps to create transparency in system to get right information at right time to the right person.

Based on above dimensions we can achieve following:

Alignment: Above dimensions, help to align support operations, with business and IT goals that ultimately delivers sustained value.
Thus, proper organized services can deliver quality, cost- effective services that meet following business requirements:
1. Consistently improved service
2. Dramatic improvement in the quality of delivering services and performed the work

Organization Goal: Above dimensions, helps to achieve critical success factors, which can be one of the goals of the organization. For example, consider the goal of a particular organization is to define the standard support process. To define standard process, an organization needs to follow standard rules as per governance while defining process that also helps to increase the value of organization.

Risk Mitigation: Above dimensions, helps to reduce the risks after implementation such as application performance, functional issues or user rejection. A dimension framework will evaluate progress against the required standards for effective support and will give you the option to address gaps and mitigate risks. Contingency plans can be useful to manage the level of risk during and after the service implementation (for example, service outage, service disruption)

Cost Optimization: Above dimensions, helps for optimal balance of cost and risk for effective design of the support operation. Strategies and resource organization are helping to reduce the risks of the support operation that automatically reduce cost.

User Satisfaction: The main goal of proper support is to resolve user issues and achieve user satisfaction. Thus, the system should enhance based on user needs. For example, Dimensions define effective design of the support operation, which address user issues and take proper action on it properly that ultimately achieves user satisfaction.

Service Reporting: Service reporting organizes status and performance data into informational reports that are understood and useful to the IT organization and the business users (for example, service scorecard, service dashboard, SLA reports).

Five dimensions are pillar of application support that will help to accomplish goals of company as well as provide best quality of service to user.

About the author:

Deepak Borole is a consultant in Systems Plus Pvt. Ltd. Within Systems Plus, he actively contributes to the areas of Technology and Information Security. He can be contacted at deepak.borole@spluspl.com

References: Deloitte application support site (http://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/global/Documents/Technology/dttl_technology_applicationsupport.pdf)