The reason for business is to make money, and once engaged in the process, the usual trajectory for successful companies is expansion and growth. Today, it is hard to imagine being able to function in the market place without the use of information technology. For any company that is using computers, the need for desktop management is absolute.
The first and probably most used interconnecting use is the ubiquitous office electronic mail system. As soon as it is set up, it becomes extremely popular, and for good reason, it offers the fastest and surest communication method. And the fact that it can also eliminate a few meetings probably helps explain the popularity.
The advent of an internal electronic mail system alone can increase productivity dramatically, allowing employees to contact one another regardless of the time of day or geographic separation. A single mass email has the greatest probability of getting to a group of employees in the fastest possible way than any other. Once transmitted, each employee has the exact same information waiting to be retrieved at their convenience. Once initiated, email usually becomes almost a habit, with employees checking for information on a very regular basis.
Having a team of professionals dedicated to the job of nurturing the information systems network really can increase the productivity of employees and the company overall, boosting the bottom line despite the cost if installation and upkeep. The notion of dedicating a team to this process smells a little like inflated bureaucracy, but this increase in personnel has a demonstrable positive effect on profit. The business and employees benefit from the ability to stay in touch with and service clients and accounts from anywhere without traveling, and when they do have to travel, they remain in contact with the home office for support and direction. The gain from the technology, however, can be lost without qualified personnel dedicated to keeping it running smoothly. Most of us have computers at home, so a relative skill level in dealing with hardware and software is a common enough ability, but so too is the realization that sometimes these supposedly self installing programs do not exactly pan out. The software makers do their best, but there are simply too many possible installation configurations for them to anticipate all of them, and sometimes they cause conflicts. The time it takes to correct these conflicts can cost a lot of man hours, and if they occur at the wrong time, they could cost much more.
This method of maintaining the information system also helps preserve the integrity of this process, which is often sabotaged by well meaning and hard working employees who mean well. Invariably employees have experimented with a wide variety of programs on their home systems, and often grow quite fond of specific capabilities. In the attempt to either use the same productivity in the office or the desire to share their favorite program, they introduce these favorite programs to the work system.
One of the most insidious of ways company information systems networks become infected or otherwise disabled come from industrious employees themselves. Hard driving team members are tempted to take work home with them, where they use their home computers to add quality and value to the work, then they bring it back to the office. Unless they are unusually careful at home, there will likely come a time when the desktop management team will have to untangle the system from some malicious program that piggybacked in with some legitimate work via thumb drive.
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