As time passes by, Information Technology continues to become more important for organizations of all sizes; facilitating growth and expansion locally and all throughout the world. IT allows for employee and staff productivity - in or remotely while out of the office - to increase at an all time rate. Unfortunately, as businesses embrace IT for its plentiful pros, it also draws concerns that can cause a number of issues that, if let unattended, can hinder the efficiency of an organization. Living in the "break-fix" model has left small to medium sized businesses (SMBs) undermanned and large corporations discouraged at the sight of their IT staff having to spend their time putting out fires, instead of performing the daily tasks that their job requires.

Gartner, a technology research and analysis group based in Stamford, Connecticut, has found that the majority of IT departments spend more than 80% of their time reacting to problems that arise in a day-to-day basis, while putting their key duties on hold. The reason for this is that most of the previously mentioned IT issues are caused by human error - as projected by Yankee Group. In an effort to excel among the thriving competition, several managed service providers (MSPs) have aimed to out-task these recurring problems, allowing the end user to concentrate on the heart of their business. At the same time, MSPs must keep in mind that the service desk function they apply must also be effective and lucrative.

Businesses are faced with other options such as Network/System Management platforms (NMS); however, these do not necessarily fit the bill. NMS software solutions require significant and constant manual effort - without automation, problem resolution is time consuming and costly. NSM platforms such as HP's OpenView and IBM's NetView have made their services too difficult to deploy for large corporations, and overly expensive for the majority of SMBs out there. At the same time, legacy applications such as Siebel and SAP also make full deployment too complex. At the end of the day, traditional NSM platforms have not been successful at addressing the issues that haunt all-size organizations.

Searching for ways to develop IT operations that are more efficient, reliable and cost effective continues to become essential for the vitality of both SMBs and large corporations. In today's fast paced world, improving a business' operating efficiencies is critical if the business wants to position itself higher than the rising competition. For a number of organizations, the only way to achieve this goal is to strengthen their in-house IT resources and skills by utilizing the right software and training tactics. On the other hand, some organizations might find it closer to their business model to out-source the service desk to an expert provider, focusing their energy on completing the company's core objectives.