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Managing the budgets of corporate companies can be a bit tricky. If you get a quote from a traditional service desk provider that includes the price or total cost of ownership (TCO) of a service desk solution, it is certainly not the entire cost. Implementing a project always entails hidden costs. Just like its definition, hidden costs are costs that are hard to notice. You won't be able to foresee those expenses, either. This figure includes budget inefficiencies associated with implementation, training, and delivery.

The truth is that regardless of the importance of implementing cost-effective software, most companies struggle with finding the right platform to meet their requirements without straining their budget. Although the support and service team manager supervises the service desk operations, he or she cannot fall back on old bad habits without serious significance. They are likely to repeat the same mistake if they don't address their most complex challenges and implement an intelligent service desk solution.

The cost of maintaining a traditional service desk

Several organizations today use old traditional service desks regardless of the emergence of ground-breaking technology trends and digital innovations in this space. Now the question is why do they still use an outdated service system? Is it worth clinging to older technologies in a modern company?

Even in 2021, various government offices, banks, and other financial organizations are primarily reliant on traditional service desks. Why? There is evidence that most businesses and organizations, who keep their traditional systems, do so for good reasons. Traditional service desks are pretty effective and enable business continuity. In addition, most of the traditional desk users believe that managing such service desk solutions is much less expensive than upgrading to a modern service desk.

They couldn’t be more wrong. In reality, maintenance costs make up only a very small percentage of total costs. A thorough analysis of the expenses of maintaining traditional service systems versus upgrading the systems reveals that the former is significantly more costly.

This article will discuss the hidden costs of traditional service desks and the challenges that an organization faces. By realizing these challenges, the service desk can get on a focused improvement program to enhance efficiency, reduce costs and boost employee productivity and satisfaction.

Read More: Tips and tricks to boost the employee experience and engagement in post COVID-19

What is legacy service software, and what are the challenges?

Traditional or legacy service desk software is old-fashioned computing software that is still in practice. While the software still fits the requirements, it was initially designed for; it doesn't enable further developments. The legacy system can only do what it does now for the organization. In the future, you will not connect older legacy systems with newer ones due to their older technology.

Many challenges can arise from legacy systems, including high maintenance costs, data silos that limit integration between systems, non-compliance with laws, and reduced security. As a result, the negative consequences of maintaining the legacy system outweigh the positive effects.

If your company still uses a traditional system, it is evident that your technical manager will encounter various challenges with traditional service desks. Such as:

The challenge of scaling legacy software solutions

Traditional service desks were not created to be scalable enough to meet the demands of today's fast-paced organizations. In addition, purchasers and administrators face difficulties struggling against more modern intelligent solutions when systems can't accept new users or needed resources effectively.

• An extremely high TCO
  
  It's not only the sticker price that determines the total cost of ownership (TCO) for service desk solutions. This figure increases every time an installation, training, or delivery is ineffective. Although a budget-friendly solution is crucial, many organizations cannot locate service desk software that offers the features and functionality they need without driving up their expenses.
  
  
• Limited Flexibility
  
  Service desk experts should always rise and deliver, regardless of what service desk offerings are. As long as service management operations are not flexible enough to follow ITIL best practices or meet changing user expectations, they cannot meet all of those demands.
  
  
• Long installation and upgrade processes
  
  An industry like service management, built on providing fast and agile services, can suffer enormously from innovating instantly. As a result, when updating and implementing a new system becomes a costly, time-consuming endeavor, not only does your company struggle internally, but employees and clients can become frequently dissatisfied either with a lack of updates or with services that aren't available.
  
  
• Data is locked up in silos.
  
  Legacy systems create data silos. Some traditional systems weren't intended for integration, and legacy software is often built on frameworks that cannot integrate with more modern systems. Every legacy system acts as its data silo. A legacy system also isolates the data it contains, preventing its users from integrating their data with that of other departments.
  
  
• Weak security
  
  Data breaches are costly for companies, and these traditional systems are more vulnerable to hackers than newer ones. By definition, legacy systems have outdated data security measures, such as hard-coded passwords. The system didn't have that problem when it was built, but it does now.
  
  
• Compliance is challenging
  
  Today's organizations must adhere to strict sets of compliance regulations. A legacy system may not be able to keep pace with these evolving regulations. Companies must know what customer data they have, where it is, and access it to comply with regulations such as GDPR. Customers require well-regulated records, which are challenging to manage in traditional, siloed methods.
  
  

What do you overpay for your traditional service desk?

It may appear that you're saving money by not updating your software, but in the long run, it costs more. As per the reports of Nextgov, the outdated service desks are expensive, as the cost of operating and maintaining traditional legacy systems in the United States, ten of the government's legacy systems cost about USD 337 million a year. Every year, maintaining legacy systems can cost a company up to 15%-20% of its annual budget. Because of the risks and costs associated with maintaining outdated software, modernizing your traditional service desk software or installing modern service desk software will be better.

Support, maintenance, and installation of traditional service desk software have cost companies large sums of money in the past. As per the statistics of Financial Times, the banking sectors and insurance firms dedicate up to 70% of their IT budgets to maintaining their traditional systems. Thus, companies need to estimate the financial risk factor of maintaining legacy systems compared to updating modern software solutions. Traditional service desk solutions have several direct and indirect costs. Major direct costs include:

• High-quality technical support
  
  
• Continual management resources
  
  
• Special licensing requirements
  
  

The hidden costs of maintaining traditional service desk systems

The use and maintenance of legacy systems often result in a notable drop in performance and ROI. However, there are also various hidden costs linked with poor performance. There are costs associated with various aspects of business, including data security, customer experience, employee experience, skill performance, employee performance, and business productivity. Even though these costs are hidden initially, they can prevent or even interrupt the entire business's functioning.

1.  Managing the IT department's workload

2. Database maintenance or upgrades

3. Data Security

4. Periodic downtimes

5. Unsatisfactory end-user experiences

6. Missed business opportunities

1. Managing the IT Department’s workload
   
   The IT department can be heavily overwhelmed by managing and working on outdated traditional service desk solutions. The team cannot focus on mission-oriented projects because the system contains bugs. Ultimately, this could result in a decrease in employee satisfaction and performance.
   
   
2. Database maintenance or upgrades
   
   Every business operation is based on data. Unfortunately, traditional service desk software often lacks a centralized data processing feature. Moreover, even those with data processing systems have a disordered framework. Therefore, most organizations have to pay a considerable amount of money upgrading legacy systems. The difficulty of converting existing databases into competitive advantages makes them challenging to exploit. In addition, it can result in substantial data loss or damage to your brand's reputation beyond recovery if not configured correctly.
   
   
3. Data Security
   
   Traditional or legacy service desk solutions don't provide a secure or reliable solution, which is essential for modern businesses managing users' confidential information. Furthermore, many of these systems have serious flaws that can lead to data breaches or total data loss.
   
   
4. Periodic downtimes
   
   In traditional systems, downtime may occur periodically, causing businesses to suffer or creating financial damages. You may not generate or boost ROI to the expected level if your organization runs legacy accounting software during work hours.
   
   
5. Unsatisfactory end-user experiences
   
   Many companies have been impacted by low-performing legacy systems, resulting in unhappy end-users and a decreased flow of funds. An effective end-user experience is essential to any organization's success in today's competitive market, so using legacy or traditional service desk solutions will hurt your business.
   
   
6. Missed business opportunities
   
   In addition to boosting your company's ROI, modern service desk solutions include characteristics that streamline processes, augment data flow, examine data, and even increase productivity. Advanced software development trends emphasize more reliable integration and interconnectivity between parts of the system and deeper process automation. If you do not take advantage of them, you will lose many resources that you could have saved or utilized.
   
   

How can you reduce the hidden costs?

To survive in the 21st century, it is essential for companies to finally let go of operational inefficiency, slow processes, low satisfaction ratings, and huge costs. If you want to remain competitive in today's business world, it is time to move away from traditional service desk solutions and switch to modern service desk solutions.

A Modern Service Desk is the solution

Considering all the disadvantages of the traditional service desk, a modern alternative was designed to automate employee support and enhance it. An artificial intelligence-powered employee service desk offers a centralized solution for employees seeking immediate assistance.  An effective employee service desk acts as a well-designed platform for handling service requests and resolving issues for users at a large level. It gives high-value service support in real-time for a wide range of ITSM activities.

Modern service desk solutions are developed as completely customizable single-platform solutions that facilitate unlimited scalability as the company expands in the future. If you are looking to implement a modern service desk for your workforces, you must ensure that the platform you choose will satisfy all their requirements.

Five must-have features of an automated service desk

Despite the lack of a universal checklist for what should be in an employee service desk, here are the most important aspects to look for in an automated service desk:

1. Conversational AI:
   
   A modern employee service desk is built on conversational AI. AI-powered chatbots or virtual assistants (VA) help your employees resolve their problems and follow their requirements. Virtual assistants replace support agents' roles. In a modern employee service desk, employees can log in quickly and communicate with the smart chatbots to gain instant responses to their queries.
   
   
2. Analytics Provisions
   
   With an AI-powered modern service desk, you can keep track of all employee issues and relevant details. Modern employee service desks utilize the information collected during employee communication to make future interactions more effective.
   
   
3. Invisible Ticketing System
   
   One of the most significant benefits of owning a modern service desk is that it eliminates the manual ticketing system. The virtual assistants will handle all planning processes, creating, maintaining and closing support and request tickets. As a result, your HR ticketing agents can focus on their core responsibilities instead of dealing with support and request tickets.
   
   Suppose a virtual assistant cannot resolve an issue raised by the employee. The assistant will automatically create a ticket on the employee's behalf and forward it to the appropriate expert. Considering the issue, the expert develops the best possible solution and communicates it to your employee through the virtual assistant.
   
   
4. Automated Knowledge Management
   
   Employee service desks are constantly based on enterprise knowledge. In traditional service desks, this vital knowledge was overlooked and unused since it was mismanaged. However, modern service desks automate the process of managing enterprise knowledge for delivering streamlined employee support.
   
   The virtual assistant finds the best possible answer to any question that your employee asks and comes up with a tailored solution just for that employee. As a result, your enterprise knowledge is utilized to its fullest potential according to each employee's personal needs.
   
   
5. Integrated Incident Management
   
   A modern employee service desk considers instances like internet connectivity issues, laptop crashes, software bugs, etc. that can occur to your employees. In such incidents, an automated service desk provides efficient solutions to solve the issue as quickly as possible. When using automated incident management, employees do not have to wait for the right agents to respond to a request.
   
   

Business Benefits of A Modern Service Desk

1. Align IT and entire business processes
   
   A service desk facilitates communication and collaboration between IT and other departments by helping you create, assign, track, and resolve tickets.
   
   
   
   
2. Better asset management
   
   Having a central service desk helps your company arrange and manage all its hardware, software, and contracts, making information access, asset valuation, configuration, maintenance with ease.
   
   
3. Boost operational performance
   
   Automated service desks systematize IT processes based on ITSM best practices and policies, helping better IT-related strategy planning and tracking.
   
   
4. Create data-driven decisions
   
   Using service desks, groups can gather and store information about products, issues, and performance results, providing better-informed IT decisions.
   
   
5. Cost-effective Solution
   
   The modern service desk can help businesses save money on technology by managing IT budgets precisely where they are needed.
   
   
6. Timely Responsiveness
   
   A modern service desk platform gathers historical data about an organization's technology and rules to reduce downtime, facilitating early detection, early warning against, and prevention of potential glitches and malfunctions.
   
   
7. Change management across standards
   
   A modern service desk helps to schedule change processes, specify transitional tasks, and automate information so that employees will be aware of what to do and when.
   
   
8. Enhance employee productivity and satisfaction
   
   A modern service desk helps automate mundane and repetitive work and facilitates self-service for users, making service desk employees more productive and more satisfied.
   
   

Conclusion

Maintaining traditional service desks comes with far too many overhead costs, which can harm an organization's reputation and stunt its growth. Furthermore, they can ruin a company in the event of data loss or software malfunctions. Choosing to modernize your existing service desk strategy may cost too much and may result in various limitations.

Thus Rezolve.ai suggests you implement a new AI-powered modern service desk. It can quickly reduce the high maintenance cost by half and boost productivity. today, the service desk has come a long way from the traditional way of waiting for employees or end-users to complain to the new way of fixing the problem instantly by going to them. As the modern world keeps boosting expectations, these automated service desks support companies in meeting those expectations of their employees and clients.

How Rezolve.ai can help

Being an automated service desk solution Rezolve.ai helps you reduce costs, enhance employee experience, increase your organizational capability and boost business ROI.