'Balanced Outsourcing' model adopted by RTA

This model will help equipoise the execution of operations efficiently and effectively as well as ensure that higher levels of customer satisfaction are met.

Ahmed Hashim Bahrozyan, IT Director, RTA, stated that "Today, it is necessary to exceed customer expectations especially in the Government sector and we thus have to make the best use of the resources at our disposal productively which may also include outsourcing."

"At RTA, the ITD provides a variety of services to RTA users, i.e. the internal customers. These include providing hardware and software, as well as technical support. Currently the increase in demand for support services has led the ITD to strategically outsource the Service Desk, with comprehensive Managed Support Services to one of its IT Partners, Wipro Ltd. This is one of the unprecedented initiatives at the level of Dubai Government Departments, "he added.

Wipro has set up a Near-Shore Global Service Management Center at Dubai Internet City (DIC).

According to the agreement, Wipro will be responsible for receiving users' requests (calls & emails) for IT services round the clock, and assigning a qualified support engineer for each request. The outsourcing agreement is based on service levels and hence all calls have to be tracked till closure based on the committed service levels.

Ahmed Bahrozyan said that "This outsourcing model with Wipro is the first major initiative by a government organization in Dubai. This strategic alliance will help the RTA benefit from process based service delivery as global standards are met thus enhancing customer satisfaction as well as building business relations."

Mr. Indranil Guha, Manager, IT Infrastructure Management said: "RTA's day-to-day IT Infrastructure Operations, IT Service-Desk and End-User-Support functions, which are completely outsourced to WIPRO, is based on underlying ITIL frame-work. We are now finalizing our internal processes to ensure correct degree of monitoring and control functions so that we get it right the first time and every time. Every staff's job targets are being carefully articulated to, on one hand align with our strategic goals, while successfully implement the monitoring, control and QA functions on the other."

"Wipro is very excited to be partner with RTA as an anchored client. This is a visionary initiative and we are working very closely with the RTA to make this successful. We have a very strong global Managed Services business and are using our Dubai Internet City based Near-Shore delivery model to provide services to RTA." said Raman Sapra, Head of Business Operations, Gulf Region, Wipro Ltd.

Providing the best customer service is an objective to any business unit that has a direct interaction with customers. The IT Service Management Section is responsible for managing the relationship with Wipro and monitoring the performance of the Service Desk. Although Wipro has been recently introduced to RTA, Esam Khamis Al Falasi, Manager of IT Service Management Section, believes that "by interacting with RTA users, Wipro has understood RTA's work culture and environment, and is in the process of enhancing the IT service levels."

The entire gamut of providing solutions would not be possible without a robust system for monitoring and managing the backend infrastructure which includes servers, networks & databases. RTA has also outsourced round the clock monitoring and management services to Wipro on a Service Level Agreement (SLA) model to ensure that the performance levels are maximized.