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Developing, Managing and Implementing Service Level Agreements
Service Level Agreement (SLA) manages performance tracking information and provides feedback on your service agreement in an organization. SLA can quantify the level of service you receive, from outsourcing and service contracts with outside vendors and suppliers, and to determine if resources are available when you need them and when an outage occurs.
Learn and adopt the gain sharing concept which is increasingly important for innovations and which in turn leads to more productivity, efficiency and cost cutting measures. Service Level Management (SLM) collects SLA performance information to track service guarantees; as it is vital to detect a failure of a service guarantee, to reduce the economic impact. It is important for the parties to an outsourcing and SLA to agree on the desired service level and measure and monitor the real results effectively. A solid SLA sets expectations for both parties.
Learn and adopt the gain sharing concept which is increasingly important for innovations and which in turn leads to more productivity, efficiency and cost cutting measures. Service Level Management (SLM) collects SLA performance information to track service guarantees; as it is vital to detect a failure of a service guarantee, to reduce the economic impact. It is important for the parties to an outsourcing and SLA to agree on the desired service level and measure and monitor the real results effectively. A solid SLA sets expectations for both parties.
Objective
- Understand the contractual basis of SLA
- Learn to measure your SLA avoiding doctrine of penalties in liquidated damages
- Learn to negotiate SLA using Harvard Negotiation project
- Structure to get a good solid SLA
- Understand the risks in SLA
- Understand the legal implications and remedies
- Adapt to typical outsourcing agreement provisions to your needs
Outline
1. Why do we need Service Level Agreements (SLA)?
2. Obligations of SLA
3. The SLA document
4. Communication Strategies in Service Level Management (SLM)
5. Managing the Parties
6. Services, Service Levels & Key Performance Indicators
7. Specific measurement issues in typical outsourcing activities
8. Clauses in Service Levels Agreements
- objectives and features of SLA
- negotiating the SLA
- what SLA should cover?
- services and parameters of service defined
- service performance level
- measurements, benchmarks and targets utilised
- monitoring and tracking
- reporting analysed results
- regular reviews by both provider and recipient
- problem management
- resolution of disputes and default
- fees and expenses
- customer duties and responsibilities
- duty of care and hours of work
- variations of requirements, amendments to SLA
2. Obligations of SLA
- realistic expectations
- allocation of proper resources to deliver required work
- define key services offerings
- performance goals and measurements
- constraints
- maintenance schedules
- addendums e.g. contact list or critical record outputs
3. The SLA document
- description of services
- service monitoring
- charging for services
4. Communication Strategies in Service Level Management (SLM)
- communication tools and techniques
- meetings
- training sessions
- publications
- personal contact
- presentations
- intranet - avoiding conflicts and problems
5. Managing the Parties
- managing customers / recipient / client
- managing vendor / supplier / provider
- managing staff / personnel
- case-study
6. Services, Service Levels & Key Performance Indicators
- Defining the specific services
- Principles in Drafting service requirements
- What to measure? How to measure?
- Usage of historical data
- Measurements in the absence of data
- Service Credits, Charges, penalties
- Escalator clauses
- Bonuses
7. Specific measurement issues in typical outsourcing activities
- Catering, vending and hospitality services
- Distribution
- IT infrastructure
- Telecommunications
- Call centres
8. Clauses in Service Levels Agreements
- Analysis of sample contract clauses
Who should attend
Managers, contract managers, procurement and finance professionals and corporate function in service level agreements, business account executives and IT professionals and anyone who wants to have an in-depth understanding of how SLA works.
Profile of Catherine Tay
Catherine Tay has over 35 years of lecturing experience as an Associate Professor lecturing business law at the National University of Singapore (NUS) Department of Strategy and Policy, NUS Business School. She is an Advocate and Solicitor of the Supreme Court of Singapore. She is also a barrister-at-law (of Lincoln’s Inn, United Kingdom). She is an author of more than 8 law books, including her best-seller book title called "Contract Law - A layman Guide".
She studied law at Queen Mary College, University of London and graduated with a Bachelor of Laws with Honours and with a Master of Laws, in which she specialised in Company, Shipping, Insurance and Marine Insurance Laws.
She has facilitated seminars and in-house training courses for many business law topics such as tenancy agreements, contract administration management, procurement contracts, legal and practical aspects of tender management, Service Level Agreements and Outsourcing contracts, oil and gas contract management, insurance contracts, Intellectual Property Laws and PDPA data privacy laws. She is an examiner on law subjects for a number of professional bodies and universities in Singapore and overseas. She has lectured at the NUS Extension in professional and business management law courses.
She was an adjunct lecturer at NUS Institute of System Science, in IT outsourcing contracts for over 20 years. She is the Honourable Legal Advisor for Singapore Optometric Association, as well as for the Singapore Institute of Engineering Technologists.
