Follow your SLAs with minimum deviations using BSC

With the increasing trend of receiving services from outsiders by paying them for their work, companies are required to make sure that the eventual stuff they are getting matches their own pre-set quality standards

With the increasing trend of receiving services from outsiders by paying them for their work, companies are required to make sure that the eventual stuff they are getting matches their own pre-set quality standards. From this one draws that if there can be a document to help in attaining this aim, it will be of help for sure. This is where a ‘service level agreement’ comes into existence.

This bunch of papers have in them all the desired output benchmarks, be it something related to serviceability or responsibility or performance or availability or any other aspect that is deemed to play a part in functioning of the business, howsoever small it is. By structuring this agreement carefully and in a way that is of use to all the parties involved in the issue, one can be assured of minimizing the likeliness of ‘not meeting expectations’ in later times. This in a way is the sure shot route for reaching where you wish to go. In case any deviations occur in following it in any manner, the policies can be brought forward for correction of conduct. Thus, it serves as a binding on the involved parties for keeping themselves adhered to the pre- stated guidelines for coming out with approved outcomes.

These are meticulously laid out provisions that need to be taken care of in case rejection is not desired. The involved parties carve out it with such an approach that none of the involved entities is at loss and that potential is extracted to fullest. The concept has entered other pictures such as that of ‘outsourcing’, where justified explanations can be furnished regarding the acts that were involved in the job. Also, at times for avoiding hurdles in future scenarios, ‘employee-employer’ relationships are also stamped with such agreements. These will have the related content to help in making it as long-term as possible.

However, ensuring that all the enclosed clauses are followed to maximum extent another strategy is to be implemented. This answer can be in terms of BSC (Balanced Scorecard) that is used for collecting metrics for moving on a specific path. The parameters are assigned values as ‘target’ and ‘actual’ ones to ease out the job of knowing ‘where do I stand’ and ‘where do I need to go’. These indicators can be ‘transparency level’, ‘aspects covered’, ‘fully documented SLAs’ and ‘SLAs with assigned manager’ for having knowledge about structure of the service level agreement. Usage perspective can be attained with metrics such as ‘accountability index’, ‘functional aptness’, ‘customer satisfaction’ and ‘improvement level attained’. Coming to quality, assessment is possible with KPIs like ‘unmatched agreements proportion’, ‘re-negotiation ratio’, ‘modification level’ and ‘fraction of on-time SLA reviews’. The ‘delivery perspective’ can be achieved by depending on indicators like ‘cost: benefits ratio’, ‘poor deli

We share best "how-to" ideas:

Subscribe to Balanced Scorecard ideas newsletter provided for free by authors of Strategy2Act. You will have 1-2 emails every week with balanced scorecard ideas and tips.   Email:

Browse syndicated headlines for Business niche, the best practices of using metrics, scorecards or KPI in measuring business.

ver

y proportion’, ‘drop in breaches instances’, ‘backlog size’ and ‘pre-set standards meeting index’.