Product Description

Most suppliers lose around 16% of their customers each year. The reason? Poor service - whether perceived or real.

Any technology-based support service, whether in-house, contracted or outsourced, stands to be accused of being insensitive to the requirements of its customers (or users). Equally, customers of a support service may have unrealistic expectations of what can be reasonably provided.

Service Level Agreements (SLAs) can overcome these gulfs. A Service Level Agreement can create harmony between parties and can prevent disputes between customers and suppliers. It can justify investment and identify the ?right? quality of service. It can mean the difference between business success and failure.

SLAs are potentially a strategic tool to align all support services (particularly IT) directly to business mission achievement. In the past, few organizations used them in this way. Armed with this book and the companion SLA FRAMEWORK, more and more businesses are now succeeding.

Where are SLAs going? Increasingly business-focused. Increasingly measured in real-time. Simple documents that cover complex service infrastructures. Providing a competitive edge. Embracing penalties.

The brave, who commit to tight SLAs and perform against them will win the commercial spoils. This book provides the knowledge and tools based on fifteen years of intensive development to ensure your enterprise is among the winners.

This book is the completely revised 3rd Edition of Andrew Hiles' 2000 work, The Complete Guide to IT Service Level Agreements: Matching Service Quality to Business Needs.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1101160 in Books
• Published on: 2002-03-13
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 278 pages

About the Author
Andrew Hiles was the founding chairperson of EURIM, the working group supporting the UK all-party Parliamentary Working Party on European IT legislation. He is founder and Chairman of Survive, the international user group for business continuity planning, and was a founding Director of the Business Continuity Institute, the international body for certification of business continuity professionals. He is a founder Director of Kingswell, international consultants. Having commenced his management career with the Royal Air Force, he pioneered IT systems before leaving to take up a position within the Finance Department of London Transport. Subsequently in their Central Productivity Unit he was a Senior Projects Manager and later became responsible for the business re-engineering function, implementing new services and major technical projects. He left to take up a position with the UK Post Office as their first Business Systems Consultant responsible for major projects. Andrew then joined the UK Atomic Energy Authority at the Harwell Laboratories where he managed the supercomputing, mainframe and other bureau and outsourcing services. Andrew is a pragmatic consultant and trainer in the areas of Business Continuity Planning and Service Management

Andrew left Harwell to set up Kingswell, an international training and consulting company specializing in service management, customer ? supplier relationships and enterprise risk management.

He has helped hi-tech, financial, transport and government bodies to develop and enhance Service Management, Customer Support and Service Desk functions and has supported both customers and suppliers in Service Level Agreements, Market Testing and Outsourcing.

Andrew is an international speaker on service management and has featured on conference programs in the USA, Southern Africa, Europe, the Middle East and the Pacific Rim. He has presented workshops and seminars on these topics for Frost & Sullivan (Europe), IIR/ IFF (Europe and Middle East), AIC (South Africa), CEL (Hong Kong), UPOM (Middle East) and other companies having also lectured at Ashridge, Cranfield, GEC Dunchurch and Henley Management Colleges in the UK. He has broadcast on TV, radio and Internet webinars.

He has over 300 published articles on service management and is author of two other books on Service Level Agreements.

Andrew is a Fellow of the Business Continuity Institute, a Member of the British Computer Society and a Freeman of the City of London.

Customer Reviews

Good service so far
Firts order made on September was not succeeded, however, after the inquiry, it was so quick to send the book to my office. Now I could get it and appreciate such a kind of serivce like Japan Amazon.

I didn't believe the "bad press"
and I bought the book anyway. Needless to say, it was all too true. I returned the book and am waiting on my refund.

* Nothing new in here! Even the small(!) section with examples!
* Typos
* Huge margins, the book could have been much less thick (should have been much less thick)
* Totally outrageous cost!!

Practical Advice for Real Problems
A few years ago I took on the role of CIO for a UK based organisation. Perhaps we were not the biggest IT operation in the world but we were supporting over 200 applications, had a Help Desk serving over 1,200 users and we had a number of significant enhancement and new development projects in train. We also had serious problems with user expectations, internal morale and the perceived quality of service delivery. Needless to say, SLA's were non-existant. Over a short period of time and in a very effective manner the author of this book helped us to establish meaningful and effective SLA's across our operation.

This book, which encapsulates much of what Andrew helped us with, is one that I have subsequently used to get across the basics and the practicalities of SLA development and use to others.

I have found the book practical, accessible, succinct and clear. Andrew has managed to distill what many see as an extremely complex subject to its essence of applied common sense. Of course, if common sense were truly common we wouldn't need the likes of this book to realise it.

Thoroughly recommended as both an introduction to the topic and a handy reference guide.