Conway says IBM has such a system in place, in cooperation with its service partners. IT groups also have to deal with the problem of coordinating the schedules of the internal staff who need to be there when an outside technician arrives for repairs, Avon's Cyran says. That's our problem and not theirs, but we do have to go by their schedules. When the problem is a matter of internal scheduling, a next-day repair will likely be considered a success. Yet users confirm there is comfort in having an outside partner available for same-day desktop service.
Analysts say that smaller companies seemingly see the most value in outside same-day service.
Most midsize companies, on the other hand, will have at least a small staff of service technicians standing by anyway, and these technicians can probably be expected to handle same-day repairs. But maintaining an internal service staff and parts inventory that can provide same-day desktop repairs becomes more difficult in some respects as companies grow beyond 500 employees, particularly for companies with multiple locations and remote offices. Ultimately, the most compelling argument in favor of the growth in same-day desktop contracts may be falling prices. Such prices are making same-day desktop service increasingly easy to justify. Service expenditure projections from Gartner Group's survey help put the same-day trend in clearer focus.