Investing in a Service Catalogue
2 Dec 2020A service catalogue is core to every service management implementation, yet I’m surprised by how many organisations I work with don’t have one. Those that do usually show me either an on-line, self-service ‘request catalogue’ (note here that a well-known tool vendor muddied the waters somewhat by calling this the service catalogue) or, what is best called an ‘application portfolio.’ Additionally, they are usually out-of-date, inaccurate and worst of all, just not used.
The following discussion relates to the importance, and uses of describing business services in the service catalogue. Whilst there are benefits to the provider organisation in understanding and mapping the technical services, it is more usual (and helpful) to understand the business services first.
What is the Service Catalogue?
So, what is the service catalogue and why should you develop a good one sooner rather than later? Well the clue, as they say, is in the name – it is a single source of consistent, structured information regarding all the services that a provider offers. There will be different views available of the service catalogue, each relevant for a specific target audience, be they existing customers, potential customers, suppliers, or internal stakeholders. As you’re sharing service details with customers, a little marketing sparkle may be required to make this a more accessible document.
We need to be clear at this point – applications (from your application portfolio) are not the same as services; they form part of the service (or services), along with the rest of the infrastructure, processes, and organisational structures (internal and external) that deliver a customer outcome. Similarly, requests are not the same as the business services that you expect to see in a service catalogue. The request catalogue is one view of the service catalogue, providing details of service requests for new and existing services. I’m not suggesting that the application portfolio and request catalogue aren’t important aspects of the service organisation, more that you are not showing a complete, structured catalogue.
Demonstrate Value
The key reason the service catalogue is so valuable in a service provider organisation is that it articulates to your customers the outcomes (and thereby value) that you deliver. ‘Here are the valuable outcomes that I provide (or can provide) to you’! That’s fundamental. Imagine going to book a flight and engaging the airline to ask about what services it can offer and being given a vague answer like ‘oh, you know… flights to other airports.’ The conversation could continue with sketchy details of some kind of schedule, seats potentially being available when you need them and vagueness about the cost of the flight. Next!
A good service catalogue should provide clear details to your customers about what services you provide (or can provide) along with support details, service hours, expected performance and what outcomes you will enable for the customer’s investment. If you are supplying externally, there needs to be clarity around costs and different levels of performance and support available (if offered). If you can offer that sort of detail and transparency as an internal provider, you’ll bring a tear of joy to the CIO (and hopefully the CEO and CFO too).
Marketing & Service Portfolio
Armed with this knowledge of service value, the service catalogue is a great marketing tool for the Business Relationship Managers, which not only demonstrates what you currently deliver, but gives you the opportunity to cross-sell other services that may enable your customers further.
The service catalogue also helps you understand which customers are consuming what services, and which services are popular (and those that are not). Review of the service catalogue will bring a clear picture of any overlap of services (where the same outcome is being provided by different services) and the possibility to consolidate services, thereby reducing the costs of delivery and support. Similarly, by having a clear understanding of your services and customer needs, you are better able to identify gaps in the market and opportunities for new services.
Service Performance
But that’s not all. If you aren’t clear about what your services are, then how can you demonstrate service performance? Many organisations I work in have SLAs for their service performance, but a little digging quickly demonstrates that the performance of the ‘service’ is being measured at the level of an individual component (maybe a server or network link) or that there are no actual services defined. This does not make for a good customer experience!
If incidents, changes, problems, events and other service activities aren’t mapped to a service, then how can you evidence availability, capacity, security or other performance metrics? If you can only correlate to configuration items (‘components’ of the service), then you aren’t reporting a true picture of service availability and performance. Similarly, if a customer complains about not meeting service targets, it becomes difficult to validate the complaint.
Furthermore, a good catalogue can help other service management processes use the knowledge of the service catalogue to understand impact on customers. For example, it can increase empathy and possibly urgency when a service support agent appreciates which groups of affected customers and users aren’t able to undertake what specific business processes, due to an incident.
Finally, if you can correlate those incidents (or any other service event) to an actual service, that will help identify improvement opportunities. Maybe the service is unstable? Maybe an opportunity for user training? Maybe an issue with a development team or supplier? Knowledge is power, as they say, and this information can help you validate investment decisions moving forwards.
Service Catalogue Management
The final part of the service catalogue journey is ensuring that the catalogue is kept accurate, consistent, complete and appropriate for the relevant audience. This is the role of the service catalogue management process and associated practice – an often overlooked area of service provision. It doesn’t have to be (and shouldn’t be) an arduous activity to manage your catalogue – a little bit, but often usually does the trick. I find once the process is established, and the catalogue is under change control, delegating validation of the service’s details to the service owners is the easiest option to ensure accuracy.
Summary
The service catalogue is fundamental to the service provider organisation. It defines the value to your customers of the services you offer, or are able to offer. A good catalogue can be used as a marketing tool, whether that’s to customers to expand the range of services you offer to them, or to the CFO to demonstrate the need for further investment.
The catalogue can help focus the provider organisation on customer outcomes and defines the services against which the performance of the provider organisation should be measured, in order to reflect a realistic customer experience. Finally, by correlating service events to services, it assists the provider organisation to identify improvements to the services which will benefit them, and their customers.
