Information Technology Services will maintain its staff and
improve its services amidst budget cuts and layoffs within Saint
Louis University.

In November, ITS began to consider the possibility of
outsourcing its call center, desktop support and operations
functions to an outside company. After months of reviewing various
proposals from its own staff and external vendors, ITS decided to
maintain these services internally.

The approved proposal, designed by ITS staff, plans to provide
more focused customer and support services.

Call center hours of service will be expanded to include
evenings, limited weekends and walk-in service. The extended hours
have not yet been determined.

Hardware and software will be installed to establish an
effective “lights-out” function for system operations. These will
monitor the environment and equipment operations automatically,
even when there are no human operators present. ITS currently has
people physically present round the clock to supervise these
functions.

ITS will improve the desktop support function by developing
standards on what types of hardware and software services it can
provide. It may limit support of equipment past warranty period, as
well as software with newer versions available.

Service-level agreements will also be established between ITS
and its customers to ensure that services will be provided in a
timely and efficient manner.

These changes are set to occur over the next six months, with a
progress evaluation to be conducted annually.

The decision not to outsource to an external company will
ultimately reduce costs for the University while improving the
quality of services, according to ITS Vice President Ellen
Watson.

Instead of outsourcing, ITS will continue to train its staff to
perform these functions.

Implementing the lights-out function will incur one-time,
up-front costs, but it will be less compared to the ongoing costs
of retaining personnel from an outside company.

“We are going to leverage technology not just in the operations
area, but in the support area as well,” Watson said.

“This gives the staff more time to do things that they are
trained and effective in doing.”

Currently, no employees within the department will lose their
jobs.

“At the present time, I don’t anticipate that current ITS staff
in these areas will be laid off,” Watson said.

“However, position responsibilities may change, reporting
relationships may change, and expectations will change. And I can’t
predict what the future might bring.”