When IT professionals differentiate between the help desk and the service desk, they often distinguish that the service desk deals with the organizational strategy, while the help desk takes a tactical approach to handling tickets for incident management or meets the requirements. A service desk analyzes the general strategic needs of a company and does not only focus on solving short-term problems.
Like Helpdesk and Service Desk, many people mistakenly use tactics and strategies interchangeably. Strategy refers to long-term, high-level planning that can include complex procedures, activities, and decision-making processes that guide tactical decisions. Tactics relate to concrete short-term plans to achieve a strategic goal. Businesses need high-level strategic thinkers who can lead the organization toward a specific end goal, but they also need skilled tacticians who can develop effective methods that drive the organization's strategic goals.
A company's help desk services can handle simple service requests, such as: For example, changing an email password, setting up a new account, or repairing a server. This is a low-level tactical execution that supports strategic goals such as "Ensuring that users can access their email", "Ensuring that users can access their accounts", or "Minimizing server downtime".
While a help desk responds to these requirements, a service desk defines the company's strategic goals for IT and implements new service offerings with the goal of continuously improving IT functions in the company. An ITIL-compatible service desk carries out the following core ITIL processes:
Service strategy: Assess current service offerings, change them and introduce new ones that benefit the company.
Service design: When they are presented, new services are sought and if they can continuously meet the commercial requirements.
Service transition - Ensures minimal disruption when a service is deployed or removed.
Service operations - Continuous monitoring of service delivery.
Continuous service improvement: Analysis of opportunities to improve IT processes and functions.