As a client organisation the primary reason for you to manage Service Level Agreements is to ensure that you get value from the sourcing agreements and from your service providers.  This means that you will see significant  improvements in deal performance when you measure SLAs.

Measuring Service Level Agreements will reduce the costs you are paying to service providers – how? An effective Service Level Management tool will ensure that you make the most of service penalty clauses, ensure you are not being over provisioned and negotiate better deals in the future.

This series of posts will continue on Managing and Monitoring Service Level Agreements so please do stay connected to learn more about why you should measure Service Level Agreements.

Please just hit the link to access the SLA Template Word Document

Modern enterprises increasingly rely on internal and external partners to deliver services core to their success.  These partners may be outsource providers, Shared Services Centres or Global Business Services Organisations.  Delivery failure or Unrealistic Expectations can ultimately lead to failure of the company itself.  For this reason reporting on the quality of service delivered by business partners is critical – whether these are IT services, business process services or any other specialised service.  The content of specific services is usually captured in a Service Level Agreement (SLA).  The right approach will help organisations to ensure executives have the information they need to assess the effectiveness of their partner relationships. We believe that the right approach demands the use of intuitive SLA Management tools which can be deployed Rapidly, Incrementally and at Low Cost.

Key Features of Next Generation SLA Management Tools

Key Benefits of a Web based SLA Management tool

Here is some background on how we try to approach it at ServiceFrame;

My Services

This screen presents users with a view on all the services being provided.  Internal and external services can be added.  This allows companies to view performance from a service (as well as provider) perspective.

 

My Reports

This screen contains a number of default reports.  All reports are extracted in Excel.  At ServiceFrame™ we recognise that reports are an invaluable tool to communicate information.  for this reason we have built a reporting engine which allows us to customise all reports to our clients needs.My Service Reporting

The Service Reporting screen is where actual performance information is inputted. note: this step may be automated for some SLAs if appropriate.

 

•ServiceFrame™ requires service providers to input quantitative data – percentage indicators will be calculated by ServiceFrame™ where appropriate.

•where metrics are red then an explanation will be required – this explanation is then visible on all the ‘My SLAs’ dashboard and reports.

•If appropriate metrics may be delegated from this screen. this may be necessary where a metric has been assigned to the wrong person.  Note: responsibility for inputting metrics will only be transferred when the other party has accepted.

 

 

 

 

 

Reporting on SLAs

 

 

 

 

For  More Information:  Talk to your Sourcing Advisor or Contact us at info@serviceframe.com

Central Visibility of Performance against all SLAs

The screenshot below is from ServiceFrame™.  You can see that this firm have inputted two Service Level Agreements.  You can also see the services within the SLAS – as well as specific metrics.

 

•Where metrics are outside the agreed performance then they appear red.

 

•Where information on metrics have not been inputted on time, the service provider employee responsible is displayed.

 

  

Central Visibility of all SLAs

 For more information contact your Sourcing Advisor or us at info@serviceframe.com

Try something a bit more sophisiticated than spreadsheets to measure SLAs effectively and efficiently!

The process of creating SLAs can itself be difficult and is the subject of much discussion elsewhere on my blog.  The SLA Measurement process is really the ongoing management of the SLAs.      My advice is to ensure that you put an effective process in place to ensure that SLA are measured on an ongoing basis.  The point here is to ensure that you understand what activities need to be undertaken every month to get the information you need to report against the SLAs and to send that information to the relevant stakeholders.  In many cases you will go for months without any real demand for the SLA reports – but just remember – when you need SLA reports you will need them for the previous six months or a year.  Dont fall into the trap of assuming that just because no one is asking for SLA reports that you don’t need them. 

Most organisations nowadays are trying to move away from SLA spreadsheets and manual processes.  The level of effort involved in such an approach really is unnecessary – the impact is that valuable people spend time pulling together reports rather than analysing them.   The clever folks out there are moving to next gen SLA management tools.  Try to find something that you can use for all your SLAs and that can also be accessed by third parties. 

Happy Measuring!

This is a topic which is close to my heart so I have written in more detail on it at Will multisourcing drive adoption of client side SLA and Performance Management tools?  do have a look :>)

There are some sample MIFID SLA templates available.  In general the standard required is that which common sense would dictate when you are creating SLAs for Shared Services or outsourcing.  I suppose the real area of interest is that SLAs should be in place between group companies.  Whilst some of the provisions or the interpretation thereof might seem zealous, the truth is that the European Regulators are taking action to ensure good governance and risk management is in place in all aspects of sourcing in Financial Services.  Given recent history you have to feel that maybe this is a good thing.

Recent activities by the Regulators would suggest that active management of Service Level Agreements is required for MiFID SLAs.  It is not enough to write them and put them in your drawer or filing cabinet.  Think about how you will demonstrate to the Regulator that you are actively managing them….this my require an audit trail around the service level management process in place in your organisation.  Historically this has been difficult to establish – traditional SLA Management tools have been difficult to deploy and expensive.  However there are next generation SLA management tools which can be deployed quickly and easily – with the set up experience much more akin to setting up a spreadsheet than installing a ’system’ – thankfully the user experience is much better than spreadsheets!

Please do have a look.  We now have

There has been a huge level of interest over the past few weeks since we launched the site – lots of calls on whether it really can be such a simple and straightforward way to manage an SLA!!!  The Shared Service Templates help but the SLA Management tool will make sure your life stays easy on an ongoing basis.

As always – if you cannot find what you are looking for at the site then please just let us know!

Take a look at a low cost SLA Management tool which you can deploy rapidly…particularly if you want to start deploying all your SLAs in one place and you really do need a clear SLA dashboard and clear track record on all your SLAs.

SLA Management Dashboard

Try an online SLA Management tool which you can get cheaply and can deploy quickly.  Get one where you can store all your SLAs in one place.  Get one that will give you an effective traffic light dashboard showing which of your SLA metrics are red, which are amber and which are green.

Most organisations think they cant build a business case to use an SLA Management tool.  You are right – most are expensive and pretty bulky.  Try ServiceFrame  – its low cost, it can be deployed quickly and frankly it will give you the spreadsheet SLA report and the SLA dashboard with the mimimum effort on your side.

The main SLA templates included to date are;

There will be more SLA Templates and I will keep you informed!