There have been many discussions
on what is a Service Level Agreement (SLA) or what is an Operational Level
Agreement (OLA). And by the way how does
that differ from an Underpinning Contract?
We can agonize over how to measure and what to measure and who, what,
where, and how we should manage our internal and external reviews. Capturing the appropriate knowledge and
building in a system for iterative activities and improvement are always a
challenge. Each of these could provoke a
lengthy discussion on their own merit.
In this segment I would like to address the thought of who cares! In other words, what is the real business
value for implementing Service Level Management (SLM)?
Why do I care about SLM?
At the root of it all, the true
value of SLM is that it is a vital organ in the systemic approach to integrate the business with IT. Using SLM to strengthen the relationships
between the two provide an opportunity for gleaning benefit from your
effort. For many service providers SLM
can mean survival for future.
In this competitive market
service providers must be able to respond to questions such as:
·
What services do you provide and how much is it
costing you to provision them?
·
Compared to competitor, what value for money can
you provision?
·
How much of your IT spend is spent on projects vs.
operations or to keep the lights on?
If you are not able to answer
these questions, you are not alone and not being able to do so may be a symptom. A symptom that you are not implementing SLM
or perhaps that the scope and targets for existing SLAs are not appropriate to
achieve the outcomes you had hoped for.
Many SLAs are based on applications or targets that we internally create
instead of on the service. Even if the
service provider is meeting that SLA is there any evidence that they can
quantify or demonstrate the value of services to their customer? How many business executives view IT as awesome
or even competent? How many customers
view IT as partners? It is very
difficult for IT Service providers to demonstrate value to the business or
their customers and Service Level Management when done correctly can help us to
do that.
How to use SLM for Business Value
·
Know your services and your customers
In order to demonstrate
real value from SLM the focus must start with the customer and their view of
the service. How can you be a “Service
Provider” if you have not identified and documented your services or the
service you provide your customer? How
can you have an SLA if you cannot agree what the service is? The Service Level Manger must be enabled to
work with the Business Relationship manager or account rep to keep a pulse on
vital information, needs, and perspective of the customer. It is all about relationships!
·
Create and measure services end-to-end to demonstrate
real value to business and customers
Negotiate and
Agree what your service is, quantify the service level requirements with the
customer view in mind and ensure that the Service Level agreement is backed up
with operational level agreements and underpinning contracts for the
applications, servers, network and other components that support that service.
·
Become an asset to the business and trusted
advisor to the customer
When you are able to appropriately measure and demonstrate value, creditability increases. By sustaining the relationship through iterative SLM activities the service provider can raise the bar. When you can validate a decrease in costs that affect the bottom line and increases in customer satisfaction, the business value from SLM can make you the service provider of choice.
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