3. Understand the four dimensions of service management 3.1 Describe the four dimensions of service management:

Question 1

a) Organizations and people

Answer 1

o Formal organizational structures
o Culture
o Required staffing and competencies
o Roles and responsibilities

Question 2

b) Information and technology

Answer 2

o Information and knowledge
o Technologies
o Relationships between the components
o For many services, information management is the primary means of enabling customer value.
o The challenges of information management, such as those presented by security and regulatory compliance requirements, as also a focus of this dimension.
o Organizational culture and the nature of the organization’s business will also have an impact on which technologies it chooses to use.

Question 3

c) Partners and suppliers

Answer 3

o Service provider/service consumer relationships
o Organization’s partner and supplier strategy
o Factors that influence supplier strategies
o Service integration and management
o Service partnerships
▪ Share common goals and risks
▪ Collaborate to achieve desired outcomes
o Goods and service supply
▪ Formal contracts
▪ Clear separation of responsibilities
o Every organization and every service depend on some extent on services provided by other organizations.
o Service integration and management
▪ Involves the use of a specially established integrator to ensure that service relationships are properly coordinated
▪ May be kept within the organization or can be delegated to a trusted partner
o An organization’s strategy when it comes to using partners and suppliers should be based on its goal, culture and business environment.

Question 4

d) Value streams and processes

Answer 4

o Value streams and processes define the activities, workflows, controls and procedures needed to achieve agreed objectives.
▪ Activities the organization undertakes
▪ How activities are organized
▪ How value creation is ensured for all stakeholders efficiently and effectively
o A value stream is a series of steps an organization undertakes to create and deliver products and services to service consumers. It combines the organization’s value chain activities.
o Value stream optimization may include process automation or adoption of emerging technologies and ways of work to gain efficiencies or enhance user experience
o A process is a set of interrelated or interacting activities that transforms inputs into outputs. Processes are designed to accomplish a specific objective.
o A well-defined process can improve productivity within and across organizations.
o Value streams and processes for products and services:
▪ What is the generic delivery model for the service, and how does the service work?
▪ What are the value streams involved in delivering the agreed outputs of the service?
▪ Who, or what, performs the required service actions?