But this perspective misses a key point. Existing procedures, often developed and refined to a high level of efficiency, must be changed in order to adapt work in a way that matches the new systems. While it's not unreasonable to insist that departmental managers see the big picture, greasing the skids a little with some centrally funded desktop hardware may help shape a more positive perspective. An efficiently administered centralized helpdesk is one component of the support equation, but it's seldom enough. If not, they will almost surely waste lots of time figuring things out on their own or turning to equally frustrated colleagues for assistance.
New systems require new support structures, and the closer they are to the end user, the better.
Ideally, the departmental staff are part of a virtual team that leverages the combined efforts of central IT and departmental computing and network administrators. Most organizations recognize the importance of a firewall, but the tendency is to oversimplify the problem. And while the knee-jerk reaction of security administrators may be to prohibit the attachment of modems to staff computers, this policy often ignores a real need for remote access to business applications. The implementation of a secure remote-access facility using VPN technology may be a viable solution, but implementing such a system is often quite complex. Please send your own ideas and observations my way.