COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. – November 30, 2004 — HDI (Company
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Studies) , the world's largest membership association for IT service and support professionals and the premier certification body for the industry, today released the findings of the HDI 2004 Practices Survey. The study, designed to provide high-level guidance to support center managers, identifies performance, technology and service trends for support center operations. Its comprehensive data covers demographics; support center performance, tools and technologies; service level agreements; outsourcing; resolution, response and cost statistics and measurement; and many other issues.
New in 2004 is additional analysis by industry sector, including: education, healthcare/pharmaceutical, computer (hardware/software), financial (banking, insurance, securities), government (public sector), and outsourcers. HDI also broke out small, large, internal and external support organizations on some questions. For the first time, HDI has made this segmented data available on its website to members interested in further evaluating the sub-group statistics.
Overall, the industry trend this year seems to be toward empowering the customer, with an increasing number of organizations allowing direct customer input and reporting, and allowing customers to directly review the status of their requests. Self-diagnostic tool usage is also increasing at a significant rate. The role of the support professional continues to expand, with the average number of incidents/problems for 2004 up by 27%, primarily due to changes/upgrades, conversations and installations; growth in the number of customers and more responsibilities for the support organization. With regard to outsourcing, HDI continued to find a lot of churn (companies outsourcing their support operations, then bringing them back in-house), but overall, HDI found that more companies are outsourcing some or all of their support centers than in 2003.
Key Findings:
· Median number of full-time equivalent support organization employees (FTEs) rose from 10 FTEs to 12 FTEs
· Average number of applications supported by participants was 55
· An increasing number of support centers are providing 24 x 7 support, up to 35.5% in 2004 from 22 % in 2003
· 49.3% of centers have service level agreements (SLAs) with customers and 35% have SLAs with vendors
· The majority of internal customer support centers charge for support on a fixed base, with 27% burying the cost in an overall IT allocation, which is a significant decrease from 2003 (38%)
· The majority of external customer support centers charge based on a fixed fee service contract (47.3%, compared to 37.2% in 2003)
· Median cost per incidents reported via phone, email and self-service are $20, $16 and $5, respectively (2003: $23, $15 and $5)
· Median call abandon rate remains 4%
· 42% indicated that response time to incidents reported via email exceeds one hour
· Help desk/customer support “soft skills” once again rated as more important than technical skills
· Those who hold or plan to become ITIL (IT Infrastructure Library)-certified jumped from 17.8% in 2003 to 27.4% in 2004
· The top five most used vendor problem tracking systems (by number of sites) are (in order):
o Remedy ARS
o FrontRange Solutions’ HEAT
o Peregrine
o Remedy Magic
o Homegrown systems
Each year we conduct this survey we ask our responders what other information they would like to see. Based on this feedback, HDI now provides data segmented by industry and center size. We hope that the valuable data provided by this survey will help support center managers and vendors to plan and implement their projects,” said Ron Muns, founder and CEO, HDI. The HDI Annual Practices Survey is one of the most important ways HDI supports the IT service and support industry.”
Participants in this online survey included HDI membership (79%) and other service and support professionals visiting HDI’s website, with a total of 795 companies completing the survey. Respondents represent a broad spectrum of support organizations, with roughly 40% supporting more than 5,000 people, 28% supporting 1,500 to 5,000 and 32% supporting fewer than 1,500.
The survey represents the most comprehensive examination of the service and support industry available, and is designed to provide high-level guidance for support managers so they can compare practices, tools and metrics with other organizations. This information may also help them justify the acquisition of emerging technologies. For vendors, the data can also be very useful in product planning.
HDI has provided a discussion forum for the study at www.thinkhdi.com/community. Members and non-members are very welcome to participate.
Pricing and Availability
The HDI 2004 Practices Survey is available via the HDI eStore (http://www.thinkhdiestore.com), or by calling (800) 248-5667. HDI Member Price: $69.99; Non-Member Price: $124.99. Media and analysts who would like a complimentary copy of this report should contact Jen McClure, Albrycht McClure & Partners (A.M.P.) Communications at (510) 868-8152 x200 or via email at jenm@ampcomm.com.
About HDI
HDI is the world’s largest membership association for IT service and support professionals and the premier certification body for the industry. Founded in 1989, HDI's mission is to lead and promote the IT service and support industry by empowering its members through access to timely and valuable industry information, including reports and publications; encouraging member collaboration through events and online forums; and establishing internationally recognized, standards-based industry certification and training programs. In addition to membership, certification, and training, HDI produces the highest-rated industry event, the HDI Annual Conference and Expo, for service and technical support professionals. HDI is member-focused, and remains vendor-neutral in its efforts to facilitate open, independent networking and information sharing within the association network. HDI has more than 7,500 members worldwide, (including 90% of the Fortune 500), and more than 50 active U.S. chapters. For more information, visit http://www.thinkhdi.com.
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