Service Level Agreements

Overview

The survival of a business depends on the successful delivery of service in three key areas:

1. by its business units
2. by its external suppliers
3. as a supplier to its customers

A good programme of Service Level Agreements establishes the structure and processes to ensure the success of a business.  However, the majority of Service Level Agreements are doomed to failure through poor construction and management.

This Short Course will examine the process required for a successful Service Level Agreement and enable you to practice writing a Service Level Agreement relevant to your business.

It combines a mixture of theory (background information and case studies), and practice (participant involvement and discussion). The emphasis is on a structured discussion throughout using examples relevant to your own business.

Topics Covered

The Short Course involves the following sessions:
An introduction to service level agreements
• How to recognise an SLA and the variety of forms they take
• Understanding the differentiation between SLAs and other terms and conditions
• Common uses and forms of service level agreements
• Purpose of SLAs considered from different perspectives – purchaser, provider, in-house business units
• The growth of partnering arrangements versus traditional penalties based agreements
• Common problems associated with SLAs
• Why SLAs are fashionable
When to use service level agreements
• Identifying whether to apply an SLA solution
• Identifying when an SLAs is inappropriate
• Determining the right form of SLA for the circumstances
• The cost-benefit determination on whether to introduce an SLA
• An introduction to the total cost of ownership principles
Identifying the key elements of an effective SLA
• The importance of identifying your organisation’s objectives and understanding those of your service provider
• The relationship between objectives, measures, targets, and incentives & disincentives
• The debate on the use of penalties, liquidated damages, or retaining a right to sue for general damages in SLAs
• Carrot or stick approach – determining the correct tone of relationship to encourage performance
How to choose the most appropriate measures
In identifying the most effective measures you need to ensure that you have the right team, the measures align with your business strategy, you understand the processes involved and how technology will be used. This session considers these factors and -
• The use of “smart” measures
• What can be learnt from a balanced scorecard approach?
Process Mapping
Process mapping aids with the development of effective SLAs by highlighting the current process and the desired process and the steps that are critical, or are causing bottlenecks that require improvement by implementing performance measures relevant to those steps. This session includes:
• The steps involved in process mapping
• The additional benefits that accrue
• An exercise of process mapping on processes relevant to you
Planning for SLAs
This session walks you through each of the steps necessary to develop an effective SLA using an example relevant to your business. The session culminates in your application of the knowledge gained to date in developing and discussing the key components to your own developed SLAs.
Effective service level management and contractor and service level management
The key to the success of your SLA is effective, close and constant management and communication between the client and the service provider. The following session explores the issues at the heart of a successful relationship.
• Ensuring an effective working relationship
• The importance of designated key people at client and provider ends who are committed to ensuring effective, open communication and who have the end result in mind
SLA reviews
• Understanding the difference between reviews of SLA targets and reviews of SLAs
• Scheduling and conducting reviews of your SLAs and the performance of service provider
• How to conduct the review
• Common performance issues and how to deal with them
• Benchmarking performance
• Understanding how SLAs can go bad and fail to deliver as per expectations
When good contracts go bad – Terminating SLAs
Knowing when and how to terminate an SLA is essential. This session explores the process and key considerations when you are considering termination.
• Understanding your rights to terminate an SLA
• Applying the contractual processes for termination

The contract
• Documenting effective SLAs
• Key issues to consider when negotiating & documenting the SLA
• Typical SLA documentation

Who should attend

This Short Course is suitable for:
• All business managers who are responsible for purchasing and managing external services
• All business managers who are responsible to deliver services to internal customers
• All sales executives who are responsible for gaining and improving relationships with customers