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EXECUTIVE
VIEWPOINTS
Q: There is evidence Seat Management will lead agencies to better technology quicker. What are some of the enhancements agencies that employ Seat can look forward to? Weipert: “The budget constraints faced by most federal agencies make it difficult to upgrade existing infrastructure and replace equipment. Seat Management provides a mechanism to upgrade the most neglected users immediately to the current technology without any capital outlay. The ‘seat price’ includes the use of the desktop and peripheral equipment and the services that are needed to support the user of that equipment and technology refreshment of the equipment at a pre-set rate.” Gantzler: “Seat Management ensures a high degree of consistency in configurations through asset management. This allows the agency’s leadership to think strategically about IT. Broad, far-reaching enhancements such as security improvements, thin clients using web-based communications, and upgrades through push technology are examples of what an agency can look forward to.” Opsahl: “The structure of the SM contracts gives the provider an incentive to continuously upgrade the customer’s IT infrastructure to support the rapid changes in desktop technology. The contracts encourage early rollout of new software and hardware. Enhancements can include interoperability, security, end-user productivity and new technologies such as e-commerce and wireless computing.” Leatham: “There are several that occur right away. First, the desktop environment is unified into a much smaller number of tested user configurations and tech refresh will tend to standardize hardware over the refresh cycle. Second, servers are almost always consolidated into a smaller number of larger, robust, fault tolerant machines. Finally, failure points and bottlenecks in the infrastructure are discovered and eliminated. All of these changes happen as a normal consequence of well-written and enforced service level agreements (SLA’s) and all work together to provide a much more stable IT environment for the user.” Q: A federal budgeting process that often isolates IT seems to be at cross-purposes with how Seat ROI is measured. Can this obstacle be hurdled? Weipert: “The federal budgeting process does not realize certain support elements that are key aspects of Seat Management ROI. An example is that of employees categorized to perform non-IT functions that are actually performing IT support functions on a full time basis. ‘Shadow’ support is another example-your peer answers your questions thus impacting their time on the job. The financial hurdle is the recognition of the cost associated with this labor and the recognition of the productivity enhancements that result in cost savings overall.” Gantzler: “A Total Cost of Ownership analysis is important to put this into perspective. It will expose an agency’s “soft costs” as they relate to IT, and permit the agency to compare its total IT costs to the cost of a Seat approach. Because the Seat approach is a long-term arrangement, the long-term savings will be evident due to asset management and standardization of the seat configurations.” Opsahl: “We believe that the SM approach will ultimately be reflected in the federal budgeting process and that this is only a temporary issue. As more agencies adopt SM as their business model, total cost of ownership will be better understood and the real cost savings of SM will become evident.” Leatham: “That is certainly the promise of Seat Management. By moving to fixed price per Seat and including as many of the IT components as possible into the Seat contract, an agency really can see what IT is costing them. But only if they do not fragment the support by mixing and matching Seat concepts with traditional methods. In the later case, much less precision is possible.” Q: Better Training and Help Desk seem to be critical elements of Seat. But will these services ever be properly valued by organizations? Weipert: “Help Desk calls will actually increase if an operation is performing well. The ‘No-Help’ Help Desk is gone and the user community actually uses the Help Desk to solve problems. Conversely, if the users are trained in the applications, then this reduces the calls to the Help Desk overall. The intent is to improve the productivity of users and increase the level of service delivered to an agency – through training and effective Help Desk support.” Gantzler: “Here is where agencies that have already taken the plunge into Seat can provide a vital service. Their lessons learned can help to highlight the importance of early training and of the Help Desk implementation. Agencies planning to move to a Seat approach can benefit from these lessons learned as they plan their procurements. As we all know, as soon as budgets get cut, training dollars are cut. However, Seat Management provides a fixed price per month for each desktop support and the savvy vendor will build some training into the Seat price.” Opsahl: “Seat is a big cultural change for most organizations. The Outreach Program of the Seat vendor is perhaps its most critical element. An Outreach program that focuses on well-trained staff and a responsive Help Desk can facilitate the move to Seat through its empowment of the end-user.” Leatham: “I think many organizations moving to Seat see a dramatic improvement right away and are delighted by the change. Much depends on the sophistication of the Help Desk operation. When Help Desks have integrated access to asset management information and can user remote control tools, then a much higher level of service is possible. In these cases, the Help Desk can often close the ticket on the phone without a user visit, dramatically increasing overall customer confidence and satisfaction.” |
