Establishing and Managing SLAs and Service Contracts

Establishing and Managing Service Level Agreements will enable you to negotiate, plan, and implement effective service level agreements which promote successful contractor and partner relationships, reduce costs and improve business performance.

Course Overview

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This course can also be delivered in-house and tailored to meet the specific needs of your organisation. Click here for more information.

Negotiate, plan and implement effective service level agreements which promote successful contractor and partner relationships, reduce costs and improve business performance.

THIS COURSE WILL ENABLE YOU TO:

Identify specific areas where SLAs are critical to ensure continuity and stability in your organisation
Develop, write and implement SLAs which ensure value for money
Ensure your formal agreements promote service excellence
Fully understand the ownership and cost implications
Understand how to communicate, document and review needs
Establish service boundaries appropriate for your organisation
Effectively measure and manage performance
Determine appropriate penalties and escalation procedures to deal with underperformance

WHO SHOULD ATTEND

Managers involved in the outsourcing or contracting out process
Commercial directors and managers, legal advisors and purchasing or operational staff who liaise with purchasers or providers
Procurement and service managers
Financial and risk managers
Those responsible for managing supplier/client relationships
Managers involved in the provision of internal and shared services for your organisation

Booking Information

To have a customised version of this course delivered In-House please call Tom Gooderham on +44 (0)20 7017 7195.

This course will be held on the above listed dates in central London. For more information about venue please click here.

Programme Details

UNDERSTANDING THE BUSINESS IMPLICATIONS OF THE NATURE OF THE PURCHASER/ PROVIDER RELATIONSHIP

identifying the advantages and disadvantages of outsourcing vs in-house provision
what are the differences between service level agreements, service agreements and contracts?
understanding different types of SLAs and their uses and limitations
KPIs and benchmarking
global practices on SLAs
Is an SLA appropriate for your specific circumstances?

AVOIDING THE COMMON PITFALLS IN IMPLEMENTING SLAS

analysing your business case and feasibility study in the light of the 4 SLA traps
the effect on cost and risk of inadequate SLAs
market analysis and benchmarking your costs
avoiding inherent weaknesses in your SLAs
the 6 golden rules for making SLAs work

THE SECRETS OF SUCCESS: DEFINITIONS AND AGREEMENTS

Establishing the ground rules
Applying a dual path approach: matching customers' expectations to providers' offerings at an early stage
defining the 6 key elements of an SLA document
differentiating between needs and wants
defining service quality: core vs enhanced services
agreeing response times and throughputs
agreeing problem resolution procedures
agreeing service metrics

ENSURING MANAGEMENT COMMITMENT AND BUY-IN FROM ALL STAKEHOLDERS IN YOUR ORGANISATION

identifying your key stakeholders
what are the essential human resource issues?
Ensuring early involvement of stakeholders
Managing expectations to achieve realistic win-win objectives
Avoiding critical legal problems: redundancy and employee benefits

TENDERING, CONTRACTOR/ PARTNER SELECTION AND THE NEGOTIATION PROCESS

Understanding the legal aspects of the tendering process
Preparing scopes of work and specifications
Tenders: how to elicit the best from the market
Establishing selection critieria
Evaluating tenders: what to look out for
Identifying the right person/ organisation to do the job

ENSURING A SMOOTH TRANSITION PERIOD

Identifying critical issues
Who needs to be on your transition team?
What makes a successful transition plan?
Effectively handling sensitive human resource issues

ESTABLISHING EFFECTIVE CONTRACTUAL TERMS

Identifying critical issues
Drafting key clauses
Differences in legal commitments of your SLAs and contracts
Expressing technical requirements in SLAs
Incorporating service levels into the contract
Building a mutual interactive relationship between supplier and customer

STRUCTURING YOUR SLA FOR WORLD CLASS SERVICE DELIVERY

Factoring in penalities/ credits/ rebates
Advantages and risks of rewards/ bonus incentive schemes
Nominating target levels and incorporating into your agreement
Invoicing and terms of payment
Designing your tracking and performance mechanisms to optimise your pricing strategies
Ensuring your contracts can respond flexibly to external and internal changes
Evaluating risk factors

AVOIDING COMMON PITFALLS IN EVALUATING AND MANAGING PERFORMANCE

How to ensure you are effectively monitoring performance
Assessing underperformance
Avoiding common areas of grievance
Negotiating resolutions to problems
dentifying other remedial actions you can take
Analysing legal conditions affecting parties who have entered into an agreement
What can you do in the case of non-co-operation?
What course of action to take in case of breach of contract
If all else fails: what protection do you have?

EVALUATING SECOND ROUND OPTIONS

Contract review and feedback
Evaluating second round options
Successfully handling retendering
Preparing an exit management plan

EVALUATING THE PROS AND CONS OF TRADITIONAL, CO-OPERATIVE, PARTNERING AND ALLIANCE CONTRACTS

identifying and overcoming common risks and obstacles
facilitating partnering/ alliance workshops

Your Personal Action Plan

Course Leader

This course will be led by John Garside , who has extensive hands-on experience in commercial and contract management roles as well as general management. For the past 16 years he has been involved in management consultancy and training including the provision of senior level management and commercial courses for multinational companies.