Redesign of the IS/ICT help desk at a Spanish public university

Abstract

Faculty, administrative staff and students constantly demand more IS/ICT services in higher education institutions. Specifically, they demand high-quality user support from the university's help desk. Good service means, first of all, having enough people to provide the service. Responding to the dilemma of not being able to deliver these services with internal resources, many institutions have opted for outsourcing. But outsourcing has not always provided the best results to organizations. This article provides a description of the actions carried out at a Spanish public university in which public management was improved at the same time that limitations to human resource increases were overcome. This was done by applying an internal market approach as a sourcing strategy instead of classic strategies such as outsourcing or insourcing. Direct participation of the authors in the implementation process gives this article a very practical point of view.