Formulating Service Level Agreements Through Request Metrics

Globalization, along with wider and new range ofThe assessment of whether the relationship is
products, has resulted to an increasingly intenseworking or not is heavily dependent on the
competition. In order for businesses to keep upspecific details of the SLA agreement itself. The
with competitors, they have to have access toagreement must be detailed enough to make it
specialist skills to reduce cost of production,easier for both parties to decide if parties are
maintain applications, and many others. It is nomeeting their obligations set forth in the SLA.
wonder that along with these developmentsIdeally, the SLA should define targets and
come the mushrooming of support serviceobligations of both parties, the limits of the
providers offering various services to companies.services, including task delegation issues and
Their support metrics must be adaptive to clients'quality of services the client expects from the
needs, but they can simply request metrics fromservice provider.
clients to formulate a scorecard that fits the bill.Since the metrics that the SLA establishes is a
Prominent among outsourcing service supportjoint effort between contracting parties, this
providers are call centers, which handle customerprotects the service provider from arbitrary
support service, application developers,decisions of the client that may make the
maintenance experts, and helpdesk consultanciesrelationship unworkable or may prove
to relieve companies of certain jobs and allowdisadvantageous to the service provider.
them to focus on the essentials of theirWhen a service provider is committed to an
operations.existing SLA, it is obvious that the measures
Outsourcing companies, like other organizations,contained in SLA become its scorecards, at least
make use of scorecards to ensure a kind offor the duration of the agreement. Of course,
management that will bring in more clients whilewhen a provider has a few clients, then it
satisfying the needs of its own people. When itoperates under several scorecards. Such
comes to establishing effective scorecards orconditions demand that service providers develop
metrics, service support providers are in a moreflexible yet highly responsive management
complex situation than others, as they have toscorecards, especially those concerned with
set up scorecards that are flexible enough tohuman resources development.
accommodate the demands of a client. Thus, theirService providers, however, have the benefit of
metrics, for example, for personnel performancebeing able to learn from working under different
and development must match the demands andconditions. This must make the formulation of
needs of the market.SLAs that fits its own dynamics relatively simple.
In most instances, an outsourcing agreementAll they have to do is request metrics that a
between a service support provider and a clientpotential client prefers, and work from there.
would last years. Early on, the service providerOverall, however, it will not do to just keep on
and client would agree on terms and conditionsperforming the LSA-based scorecards, as sooner
that will govern the contract. This is veryor later, stagnation sets in. What service providers
important to the healthy working relationshipneed is a scorecard able to adapt to changing
between the two parties. This agreement, knownbusiness conditions; thus, it must always be
as the Service Level Agreement (SLA),focused on human resources development. After
establishes the scorecards by which theall, companies that engage in outsourcing expect a
relationship is measured as to whether it ishigh level of performance from service providers.
working or not.