Page 114 - ITIL® Foundation 3.15

Service Desk Organizational Structures
ITIL® recognizes four different ways in which you can organize the management of your service desk. They are Local, Central, Virtual, and Follow-the-sun.
Type
Description
Reasoning
Local
Service Desk physically located in close proximity with the users being served
Language, Culture or Political reasoning
Time zones
Specialized users
Specialized services requiring special knowledge
VIP or critical users
Central
Service Desk staff centrally located with users dispersed. Interaction is performed via remote phone, internet, chat, or remote desktop support
Often more cost effective as resources can be consolidated and minimum acceptable resources used. Fewer overall staff may deal with a higher volume of calls. Often results in higher concentration of skill levels and greater service desk personnel satisfaction.
Virtual
Service Desk looks like central model, but staff are dispersed in various locations (often working from home). Contact is made with users via same tools as used in central model, but calls are re-distributed via technology to individual SD analyst locations.
Gives the impression of a single centralized service desk while minimizing cost by allowing multiple managerial options regarding outsourcing, ‘home working’, secondary support group, off-shoring or any combination to allow support volumes to be addressed.
Follow-the- Sun
Two or more service desk centralized locations are defined where handoff of control over individual tickets is passed between each of the centralized locations. Each location operates during daylight hours during their time zone.
7 am - 3 pm Eastern time from location in Atlanta GA ------------------------------------------
3 pm - 11 pm Eastern time from location in Southeast Asia ------------------------------------------
11 pm - 7 am Eastern time from location in Europe
Corporate requirement of 24 hour coverage for services being supported. Relatively low cost as this option requires no overtime. Cost are generally able to be pre-planned.
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