Service Management for Dummies®

Chapter 24. Service Provider

In This Chapter

• CIBER, Inc.

Service providers are in the business of managing other companies' IT operations. By providing technology-based services to multiple customers, they offer economies of scale and skill. Rather than bearing the costs of IT specialists and infrastructure on their own, customers can turn over part or all of their IT operations to service providers that offer a pool of highly specialized technical talent, resources, capabilities, and processes. By spreading these investments out over many customers, service providers can offer reduced IT costs and higher-quality services.

Before turning over any part of IT operations to a service provider, however, a customer must have confidence that the provider will satisfy the company's unique business, technological, and governance requirements. To do this cost-effectively for a broad range of customers, service providers need an accountable, responsive organization, as well as the tools and processes that enable them to deliver flexible, streamlined services.

In this chapter, we profile CIBER, Inc., an international system integration consultancy and outsourcing company. By definition, the company must provide service management capabilities to its clients to ensure that customer expectations are being met. An important part of this service is delivering on service-level agreement (SLA) commitments. The company is evolving its SLAs from technically focused to business focused as the trend becomes ...