Jorge Manuel de Oliveira Vicente Tese de Mestrado em Engenharia ...

eing delivered is in order. It also may be seen as a way to add more value to the service and,
ultimately, derive more revenue.
Furthermore, SLAs will need to be renegotiated as volume grows. Growth will also lead to
improvements in the infrastructure and the ability to raise service levels. New services will be
created, and SLM will expand into other areas of the business and other areas of the
infrastructure. Services may be outsourced, or brought in-house.
Finally, the unstated sixth step of the SLM process is “Repeat.” The process must be
regularly scrutinized for relevance, accuracy, etc. The manager or executive responsible for
providing the service covered by the SLM process must always be examining both the process
and the service, looking for ways to improve both.
2.2.5. Costs and Benefits
What value can SLM bring to the enterprise? This is a critical question, not only because it
justifies the decision to invest in SLM, but also because it asks enterprises to evaluate the
effectiveness of SLM technologies and processes after they have been deployed. A truly
effective SLM initiative will not only deliver a quick return on investment (ROI) on the initial
technology and resource investment, but will continue to produce cost savings, improved
productivity, and greater customer satisfaction throughout its lifetime [2].
When weighing the value of SLM to your organization, it is important to consider:
• The direct and indirect costs
• The tangible and intangible benefits
• The real and perceived risks
In general, the costs of SLM can be broken into two categories:
• IT costs
• Business unit/user costs
IT Costs
While an effective SLM initiative will involve both IT and business groups, it is IT that
generally bears the brunt of the resource costs associated with SLM implementation. It is IT that
will be called upon not only to help establish and maintain service levels, but to provide the
instrumentation required to measure and monitor them.
There are several categories of direct IT costs in SLM:
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