Unit 12: P5, P6, D2

This is a link to all the videos and recordings:



https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B7XQNoEkjWMDNm03VGJwRXFxazg&usp=sharing

M2 - Advantages and Disadvantages of Outsourcing

What is outsourcing?:

Outsourcing is where a company pays another company to help or do work for them. In many cases, the outsourced work could be done by the company itself, but there are often financial benefits in outsourcing the work. The most common jobs for outsourcing are, call centres and E-mail services. These types of jobs are normally handled by companies that specialise in those jobs.

Advantages of outsourcing:

Well first of all, outsourcing work to another country will save the company a considerable amount of money. The reason for this is that in the UK, the minimum wage is £6.31. In other countries such as India, it is much lower; therefore the company can then pay the workers less.

Also, outsourcing works will also give skilled people in other countries jobs that may be scarce where they are.

Another advantage for outsourcing work overseas is that things like health care and benefits don't apply because they are outside the UK, which means more money in the company’s pockets.

If the company is looking to expand its business, outsourcing is a cheap way to start in other countries.

Outsourcing is not only overseas; you can outsource work within the country you are working in. You are paying other companies to work for you. The reasons for this would be that it's either cheaper, or the company you are outsourcing to, are professional at the work they do, or they are perfect for the job.

Outsourcing work also gives the company time to do other work that is of a higher priority, reducing the stress on the company and the allowing them to meet the deadline for a project or work.

Disadvantages of outsourcing:

When work is outsourced to other countries it can cause many problems, for example, many call centres are often Indian, which can cause a language barrier between both the customer and the person working for the call centre. Also, in a different country, they may have different terminology, so if you're trying to fix a fault on your PC, but the keyboard layout is different, you will find it hard to keep up with what they're saying.

Another problem with outsourcing overseas is the time zone constraints, for example, if you give work to say a company in the USA, from the UK, there is a 9 or so hour difference, so the communication between the two companies will be small.

Due to companies outsourcing, this is causing redundancies within the company because they are getting people who will work for less to do the job. Although it's good that it saves the company money its also bad because it means that more and more people are becoming unemployed and claiming benefits.

If a company outsources work to another company, there can also be a delay. I there company who the work has been outsourced to has higher prioritised work of their own, then it may take them longer to get the work done for the company. This means the set deadline to meet may not be met resulting in many things, including: wasted time (people will have nothing to do until they have received the work from the outsourced company), money could be lost (if they're selling an item, they may lose out on buyers), and customer dissatisfaction (they will lose out on potential customer, therefore relationships with the customers will be ruined because the company told them when it would be ready, but it has been delayed by a few weeks or even months.

M1 - Importance of Keeping Fault Logs

M1 expands on P1 and requires the learner to show they understand the reasons for keeping accurate records of faults and their solutions.

Having a fault log is incredibly important for users as it shows how the fault occurred, where it occurred, and what is it. You can access the details of the fault by clicking on the error icon next to it. If you wish to solve the problem yourself, you can search on Google and you may find the answer, otherwise you can acquire an IT technician to help you solve this.

If you have a fault, you can refer back to your fault log to see if it has happened before. If your PC does have a fault or an error, you can simply look back to your fault log and quickly find out how to solve the problem efficiently. Otherwise you'll be trying to think back to how you solved it the previous time, wasting your time, and even then, you may not remember how to solve it.   

In the fault log there are three types of error icon that can appear:

Yellow sign - The yellow sign is a warning. Anything that the computer thinks may becoming prone to errors, it will have a yellow warning sign next to it, these don't cause any harm to your PC but it lets you know that it's there.

Red sign - The Red sign means that there is an error. If you click on it, it will show you what is wrong with the program, software or whatever it may be. This allows you to take the necessary actions in order to solve the problem.

Information sign - The information sign is nothing to worry about. This means that there is nothing wrong with the system and everything is running smoothly.

 Without a fault log, you would have no idea if there were any fault on your PC and you would probably end up spending plenty of money trying to fix your computer

Being accurate when inserting data into your fault log is incredibly important because it allows you to know exactly what the fault is the next time it occurs and how you can deal with is efficiently and quickly. If the fault is recorded down but there is hardly any detail, it may become confusing if you are trying to solve the next time, or if someone else reads your log, it should be fairly to understand.

Example of a fault log:

IT Technicians Name:                John

Time & Date:                                11:08 - 15/01/2014

Time take to fix:                          5 mins

Description of fault:                 Keyboard not working

Actions taken to fix:                 Checked the peripheral ports to see if the cable was connected. If not                                                                           connect the cable. if still doesn't work, buy a new keyboard.

Problem Solved:                        Yes

P1 - Tools & Techniques Used for Technical Support

For P1, learners are expected to explain the tools (such as software diagnostic tools) and techniques (such as questioning) that enable the IT support technician to identify faults. Reference to sources of advice and guidance could be usefully incorporated here.

Tools:

Troubleshooting is often used to repair or help you with repairing a program or process. If the application has not been resolved, it will bring up a list of different steps you can perform in order to fix the problem. 

Defrag is a tool that is commonly used to clean up your hard drive. Sometimes when data is stored onto your hard drive, bits get lost and this means that it takes longer for your PC to find it. Defrag basically puts everything back in order so that you’re PC can find it quickly and efficiently.

Disk Clean-up is used to create more space on your hard drive. It basically finds files that are of no use to you anymore and deletes them, giving you a little more space for other documents.

Anti-Virus a very important tool that every PC should have. The Anti-Virus is used to prevent malicious software from getting into your PC and causing havoc. Programs like, AVG, and Norton are popular choices for preventing viruses. 

Software and Hardware Diagnostics is used to identify problems with both Software and Hardware within your PC. It tests the software for potential faults that may occur and tells you how you can prevent or fix the problem before it happens.

Monitoring tools are used for monitoring what happens on a PC(s). The most common monitoring tool are Parental Controls, used to control what the children can look at online and download. Schools and many companies also have monitoring tools to keep students and employees in check.

VNC (Virtual Network Computing) allows the owner of the PC to remotely access the PC from another. From this they can see what the non-admin is doing and also control the mouse. This is commonly used in IT support so that problems can be fixed without the technician coming down to sort out the problem. 

Multimeter is used to check the voltage, current, and resistance of an electrical appliance, for example, a PC.

A Toolkit is very handy when working for Technical Support because if hardware needs to be looked at or replaced, a toolkit has all the tools needed to open up the PC.

Ethernet cable testing is used to see of the Ethernet cable is capable of carrying a signal, to and from the PC.

Control Panel .e.g. install/uninstall is basically what is says on the tin. It allows the user to install and uninstall any program of their choice, with relative ease.

Task manager allows you to see what applications are running on your PC. From here you can end the process.

Techniques:

Questions - IT technicians will ask questions to the customer to help them have more of an idea of the problem in hand. They may either ask face to face or on the telephone, depending on where they are. Asking questions are a useful technique because without this, it will take the technician longer to find what the problem is and then solve it.

Fault Log - A fault log is used to take note of all problems that have occurred and it describes them in detail. This allows the technician to keep track of previous faults and if the fault happens again, they can solve it easily by looking at what they did to solve it before.

A fault log is usually on a PC, but IT technicians may have a paperback version for backup or ease of use.

Monitoring - This is used in companies and it allows the technician to have control over the user’s computer and solve the problem that way, e.g. VNC, RDP (Remote Desktop Protocol). This way is effective if its software based problem as the technician doesn't have to go to the computer personally and waste time.

Solution Database - A solution database is what it says on the tin. When a fault occurs that has happened before, you can access the database and find out what you have to do in order to solve the problem. When a new problem is solved, it will be added to the database for future reference.  

Future Trends:

Technology is improving and expanding every day. People want to make technology faster, more efficient, all-in-all, better. The reason for this is the demand from the public; people want better phones, better cameras, etc. 

Things like X-rays, heart monitors, etc., need to be updated every few months, so that doctors and nurses can find problems with patients faster, and more efficiently, with could potentially be the difference between life and death in some cases.

The Google Glass is a new product that allows you access the internet, speak to friends on family and Skype, and more, from simply looking. The Google Glass, is essentially a pair of glasses that has a small transparent display in it, so whilst you are walking down the road, you can play, whilst still seeing at the same time. It's not play though; Google Glass can be used for on-the-go conference meetings. This allows meeting to take place anywhere in the world, without physically having to be in the same room.



Another technology that is rapidly getting more popular is the Cloud. The Cloud is basically an online system for storing data. This allows people, or even company's, to back-up their work or systems online. If work is lost on their own PC, then can simply go onto the cloud and access your work anywhere in the world, on demand.

As technology grows, there are more jobs becoming available for people, and in this day in age, jobs are fairly hard to come by. Customers are finding it easier to purchase products online due to the online customer services become better and more efficient. Many company's now are implementing video talk with customers, this allows you to physically speak to someone whilst you show them what's wrong with your product.