Certification - June 2008 - (Page 37)

level help-desk job, get certification or two and move up in the organization to bigger and better roles. Check CertScope to read 188 articles and link to 167 Web sites on “help desk.” However, movement toward offshoring of IT support presents new opportunities for IT pros to work for U.S. companies that specialize in providing help-desk services to corporations. In several different target markets, such as health care, it is possible to build a business that performs IT support and help-desk functions. But the company would have to provide top-notch support and unprecedented customer service at a competitive price. accomplishing. Surveys on customer-service satisfaction must be in place to ensure the proper results. Language barriers have been a classic problem with outsourcing to companies outside the U.S. Time differences also have come into play when dealing with support technicians in other time zones across the world. Several companies have outsourced to Mexico to try and balance out these time issues. “Companies aren’t considering only the cheapest places, but are looking at location for other reasons, like being closer to customer bases,” said Lee Duran of BDO Seidman in a recent Information Week interview. There are some cases in which outsourcing has gone bad. Revelex Corp., which offers an Internet platform of technology tools to the real estate industry, had problems finding enough workers in south Florida to support its 50 percent a year growth as it approached 12,000 clients. It decided to try outsourcing and found it difficult to work with the time constraints and culture of the time difference. It eventually brought the operation back to Boca Raton. So what does all this mean for the average IT guy? A lot of IT folks got their start on a help desk; it was either a good or bad experience that you may have enjoyed or may just want to forget about. Where does this leave the entry-level guy trying to get a job out of a trade school or college? Where are we going to start and work up from? We can’t start in the middle, missing the help-desk experience that every seasoned IT pro has under his or her belt. It was a rite of passage for most of us: Get an entry- Getting It Right One example of a company built around this newfound demand for outsourced IT support is Perot Systems. Perot Systems provides IT services to health care facilities that want to save money by outsourcing to a U.S.-based company. It signed a contract with Jewish Hospital and St. Mary’s Health Care System Inc. to take over the IT services that were formerly provided in-house. This affected 110 workers, who became employees of Scientists have determined that we only use 10% of our brains. Make the most of it. There’s only one way to prepare for your next certification exam and that’s with Self Test. It’s the only tool you’ll need to improve your IT IQ. Self Test Software helps you figure out what you know and gives you the answers to what you don’t. Hey, you’re already smart. We help you be smarter. w w w. s e l f t e s t s o f t w a re . c o m · 1 - 8 0 0 - 2 4 4 - 7 3 3 0 © 2006 Kaplan IT, Inc. All rights reserved. SELF TEST SOFTWARE® Kaplan IT, Inc. All rights reserved. be smarter http://www.CertMag.com http://www.selftestsoftware.com http://www.selftestsoftware.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Certification - June 2008

Certification - June 2008 Editor's Letter Contents Data Stream Tech Careers Academic Connection Dear Techie Virtual Village Online Degrees: Are They Right for You? Inside Certification New Opportunities and Challenges: Are Application Developers Ready? Interface Where Have All the Help Desks Gone? Ad Index Endtag

Certification - June 2008

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