Service level management

Service level management

Service level management plays essential roles in any organization as it helps in building a strong relationship between the stakeholders and the customers. Consequently, it ensures that the operational level agreements and foundational contracts are prepared well to ensure the achievement of the company’s service level targets. The system also enables quick recognition of the required improvements through monitoring, regular service reviews, and reports on the levels of service. Notably, it sets apart all the business-based targets and focuses on the service levels. Therefore, for organizations to ensure the highest standards of service delivery and customer relationship, they need to implement the knowledge of stakeholders, service level agreements (SLA), warranties and measurement of effectiveness, and the key performance indicators.

Stakeholders

These are individuals who have interests in an organization; they can either affect or be affected by the operations of the company. They can be classified as either internal or external. Internal stakeholders warrant continued operations of an organization and may include employees, departments, divisions, and subsidiary companies (Ogbeifun, Mbohwa, & Pretorius, 2016). On the other, external are those that affect the relationships with internal stakeholders and comprises of business partners, customers, suppliers, government, social groups, competitors, and media. Stakeholders are essential in every organization as they play vital roles in ensuring their success. Therefore, to ensure efficient and effective service level management, organizations must engage these people and uphold good relationships with them. heir interests must be fulfilled and hence, each of them must be respected, understood, and incorporated in the plans of the company. Consequently, managers of organizations must carry out stakeholder analysis so as to understand the most important of them. For instance, primary stakeholders such as employees, shareholders, customers, and suppliers must be identified since they are main determinants of the continued existence of the company. Understanding stakeholders will ensure achievement of goals because it will help the management to easily anticipate problems and to gain adequate support from the most influential stakeholders in the organization.

Elements of service level agreements (SLA)

SLA is an official negotiated contract which helps an organization to clarify its responsibilities, facilitate its communication, and identify its responsibilities between two parties, its customers and the service providers. In most cases companies with similar businesses and consumers, succinct SLA is normally acquired for certain goods so as to enhance a seamless operation and necessary support. In essence, SLA is a management document which plays a vital role in facilitating communication as well as ensuring reduction of conflicts that may arise between the organizations.

Ogbeifun (2018), reiterated that a well-organized SLA is made up six key fundamentals. Firstly, the agreement overview which contains important details such as parties involved the date, and general statement concerning the product. Secondly, is the goals and objective, where the purpose of the agreement and the ability to acquire mutual agreement is drawn. Thirdly, the stakeholders and defines the parties making an agreement. The fourth element is the periodic review and constitutes both the effective and expiry dates and the parameters involved in the contract. The fifth is the service agreement and is the main section of SLA. The key aspects included in the section include the scope, customer requirements, service provider requirements, and the assumptions of the service. The last section is service management and it deals with the availability of service and the requests by ensuring clear communication through telephone support, responding to requests on time, and remote assistance.

Measurements of effectiveness (MOE)

MOE encompasses measures that are designed by an organization to help them to accomplish and attain their desired results and objectives. MOE corresponds to the mission objectives of a company and therefore, helps to quantify its results. The outcomes obtained by the firm can be expressed in probabilities that an organization is performing as required. Notably, MOE comprises of Measures of Suitability (MOS) and Measures of Performance (MOP). MOS involves the measurement of the ability of an element to be supported in an organization so as to attain its intended purpose. For instance, operational availability, reliability, structure, and maintainability support of certain products in a company. On the other hand, MOP measures specifically quantifiable performance features of a company. For example, performance can be expressed in terms of range, payload, speed, frequency, and time-on-station. Evidently, MOS and MOP are designed such that they are closely related to the attainment of a specific measure of effectiveness. To enhance service level management, MOE should also be simple to state, testable, complete, states any dependency of time and environmental conditions, and easy to measure.

Key performance indicators (KPIs)

For any business to grow, performance measurement system must be put in place to keep track on its progress. KPIs are critical systems of measuring performance and target-setting in every organization. Consequently, when utilized well, they become the most influential tools that enhance a growth of a company (Pilorget & Schell, 2018). This is because the system will ensure provision of vital information on the current development as well as enabling the starting point for coordination of the company’s future targets and ways of implementation of growth strategies. In this regard, it is essential for the organizations to utilize KPIs so as to determine the fundamental points when setting the targets of the business. It is essential for the companies to focus on the key main areas that affect the overall business success. The key features of KPI may include direct capture of key business drivers and quantification. When selecting KPIs certain criteria must be considered. These may include close linkage to the organization’s top-level goals, should be quantifiable (can reduce measurement in to a number), and should be relating to the aspects of business environment that an organization have control on them such as interest rates. Therefore, it is evident that KPI incorporates essential information on the calculations, definitions, and sources for a particular measure and sets out timetables for monthly data submission in the organization.