Service desk solution ensures value throughout the financial journey.

By Hanlie Preller and Andile Qwabe, Futuresense

With IT departments running lean and internal staff already stretched thin, supporting a complex EPM application can become overwhelming for users and in-house IT teams. EPM applications can make the lives for finance teams immeasurably easier, but they can also bring with them complexity, requiring specialised skills in order to ensure the company derives the maximum benefit from the system.

A service desk solution can help bridge the gap, providing support as well as a way to detect, analyse, and resolve critical incidents that could impact the operations of an organisation. A service desk plays a crucial role in safeguarding against potential issues and ensuring smooth business operations, enabling companies to harness the innovations their EPM implementations promise, improving productivity and efficiency.

A service desk can mean many things to a company, ranging from tickets to resolve simple problems, to aligning IT and business processes – and everything in between. Some businesses use the term help desk instead of service desk, while others argue that the difference between a help desk and a service desk is that a service desk is an evolution of a help desk, reflecting a focus on serving end-users in a fast, personalised way.

At Futuresense, we believe that it doesn’t matter what you call your support team but the quality of support they provide. Our service desk solution was designed to ensure that customers can not only get the most out of their EPM implementation, but that they can continue to gain value throughout their financial journey.

A personalised relationship

A personalised, long-term relationship is at the heart of an effective service desk solution. If the support team doesn’t have an in-depth understanding of the EPM application and of the company’s needs, they can’t offer any more than the type of superficial assistance that leads to as many frustrations as it solves.

The adage that the only constant in life is change is especially relevant to EPM implementations. EPM finance teams are constantly having to adapt to new business pressures, and their EPM solutions have to be able to adjust accordingly. A service desk should therefore do more than just log a ticket when something isn’t working. With a partnership in place, service desk support should be able to help users figure out how they can make their EPM system work for them – especially if they are trying to do something they haven’t done before in their financial journey.

Of course, sometimes the only assistance a user needs is something relatively simple, so the service desk should also be able to provide an immediate response for those kinds of queries. When users have to find a ladder to reach support, it takes time away from their vital tasks, so waiting for days for a response from a service desk is not only unacceptable, it has a direct negative impact on the performance of the business.

The Futuresense EPM support services model has been designed to ensure that the appropriate and suitable level of support is always available, ensuring that customers gain ongoing value from their EPM investments. Providing access to support specialists who can provide prompt answers and transfer knowledge to help users become more self-sufficient, the Futuresense support desk offers a single point of contact to ensure the peace of mind that comes with having someone you know and trust is always there ready to answer your call.