With the increasing proliferation of social networking and the acceleration towards cloud computing, Merlin sees an enormous opportunity to use social collaboration techniques to transform the way in which we deliver Helpdesk Outsourcing.

By ‘virtually’ combining the knowledge and skills of the support staff through a social networking platform, matching a user problem with the person most likely to be able to resolve it, we are able to effectively eliminate much of the wastage of a traditional ‘single point of contact’ help desk outsourcing environment and deliver substantial savings.

Following some 3 years of research and thought leadership, Merlin has verified this concept with feedback from its customer advisory board and has commenced an internal pilot project.

The business opportunity for Merlin is to:

• Provide consulting services to help companies navigate how they might be able to take advantage of this concept.
• Provide the social networking technology platform on an ASP basis.
• Provide the outsourced facilitation/moderation of the social platform.
• Be a Helpdesk Outsourcing specialist for the social media and cloud computing market.
• Create a social media marketplace to deliver common support services.

To our knowledge and based on our research, we believe that Social Media will become the standard way that Helpdesks are delivered within the next 5 years. By being thought leaders and innovators in this field we not only further differentiate ourselves but we can protect our business as this new concept gets traction and generates significant opportunity for growth.

Merlin has been in business for 20 years and has demonstrated its passion, determination and ability in building a solid and well respected international business. Our customers’ best say what sets us apart from our competitors:
“Merlin adds far greater value to my business through their innovative thinking than any of their much larger competitors do” – Richard du Plessis, Head of Production Services, DHL.

Merlin has a long history of thought leadership and innovation:

• 1991: One of the first IT service only companies in the UK.
• 1995: One of the first 7 x 24, multi-lingual help desk Outsourcing companies
• 1999: The first company to deliver IT Help Desks and self-service through the internet for which Merlin still has a worldwide patent

Innovation remains at the heart of our business strategy. The social collaboration concept we have developed is unique and will, in our opinion, become the next ‘de-facto standard’ for Helpdesk Outsourcing and support. We have already rolled out this concept internally and formally launched this project to our customers in December 2011.