Service Level Agreements

SLA's are the basis of each Customer Service Delivery. In general the Service Manager or the Service Sales responsibilities are accountable to negotiate and agree a SLA. To fulfill a SLA often the Service couldn't provided by only the ICT Service Organization and other external or internal other Business Units need to provide their services.

Please see below the relationships between the different parties and each path is a seperate contract.


 

There are two categories of SLA possible:

  • Service based SLA - for only one Service like LAN/WAN or Field Service
this SLA is appropriate for all customers and is generally straithforward. Difficulties may arise when a customer request different Service Levels as defined for the SLA. This can lead in multi-class SLA like 2hrs/4hrs/NBD Field Service, or Bronze/Silver/Gold SLA for LAN/WAN

  • Customer based SLA - for only one Customer
this SLA will be signed only for one Customer group to be used in different locations or countries

In most cases one SLA is sufficient to cover the Service and the Customer itself, but in case there are more than one Service probably sold to the customer a Multi-Level SLA could realize advantages.

  • Corporate Level - covering all the generic Service Management issues appropriate to every customer throughout the otganization. These issues are likely to be less volatile, so updates are less frequently required
  • Customer Level - covering all Service Management issues relevant to the particular customer group or business unit, regardless of the service beeing used
  • Service Level - covering all Service Management issues relevant to the specific service, in relation to a specific customer group (one for each service covered by the SLA)

Content of a SLA

See the following items which has to be defined in each SLA as a minimum requirement:

  1. Signature parties
  2. Duration of the Service
  3. Service description
  4. Scope of the agreement
  5. Service hours
  6. Service availability
  7. Reliability
  8. Customer support
  9. Contact points and escalation
  10. Service performance
  11. Maintenance windows
  12. Minimum Functionality
  13. Change Management
  14. Service Continuity
  15. Security and Data Protection
  16. Roles and Responsibilities
  17. Commercial (Charging and Payment)
  18. Penalties and Rewards
  19. Service reporting and reviewing
  20. Glossary
  21. Amendments (if needed)

Content of an OLA

See the following items which has to be defined in each OLA as a minimum requirement:

  1. Signature parties
  2. Duration of the Service
  3. Details of previous amendments
  4. Support Service description
  5. Scope of the agreement
  6. Service hours
  7. Service targets
  8. Contact points and escalation
  9. Service Desk and Incident response time and responsibilities
  10. Problem response times and responsibilities
  11. Change Management
  12. Release Management
  13. Configuration Management
  14. Information Security and Data Protection
  15. Availability Management
  16. Service Continuity Management
  17. Capacity Management
  18. Service Level Management
  19. Supplier Management
  20. Provision of Information
  21. Glossary
  22. Amendments (if needed)

If you need to implement a SLA Framework or you have to negotiate SLA's with your customer and no competent resource available - ask ICT-Service-Solution we will consult you or providing On-site resources.

  • SLA framework and template
  • Service Manager are able to negotiate SLA/OLA/underpinning contracts