Service Strategy 2 of 2: The Processes

For the Foundation Exam there are 3 processes under Service Strategy. they are Service Portfolio Management, Demand management and Financial Management.

1) Service Portfolio Management:


A Service Portfolio is an expression of the provider’s service strategy. It shows the commitments and investments made by a service provider across all customers and market spaces. Remember: The Portfolio is a place where the information related to ALL the Services are present and is viewable by the "Internal" Organization; not for Customers. The desired outcome form the Service Portfolio information is the capability to govern, prioritize and manage the investment in the Services, throughout the Lifecycle, to maximize value & to minimize the costs and risks.

Managing the information under the Service Portfolio is the Service Portfolio Management.

It has 3 parts: Service Pipeline (the planned, but not yet deployable Services), Service Catalog (Current Services  for the Customers to place an order) and the Retired Services (No longer available, but the information is vital "Lessons Learned").

It has 4 steps: Define, Analyze, Approve and Charter

Points to remember:

  • Understand the differences between Service Portfolio and Service Catalog.
  • The portfolio is helpful to take Investment decisions based on the Risks and Rewards
  • The Service Portfolio is the single integrated source of information on the status, interfaces and dependencies of each service used by activities in Each and Every phase of the Service Lifecycle.  


2) Demand Management

To influence the demand for resources by understanding the demands being made by the customers assets on the Service Provider's assets  and  how they will change over time.

Demand management is activities based and uses the Pattern of Business Activities (PBA) and the user profile information to create plans to influence the utilization of the resources

 Points to remember:
  • Various ways of influencing customer's demands include differential charging, penalties, incentives etc.
  • Before creation of new capacities, consider all options to "Manage" with the existing capacity 
  • Avoiding the creation of excess capacities is the key to reduce the costs for the Service provider. 

3) Financial Management

To provide the Financial quantification of  the value of IT Services, through-out the Lifecycle of the Services, including the underlying assets involved in the provisioning of those services, operational forecasting and determine the charging mechanism (optional) to the customer.  

 Points to remember:
  • Financial management provides the valuation of Services. 
  • Costs involve: Capex and Opex, Direct and Indirect, Fixed and Variable 
  • The ABC of Financial management are Accounting, Budgeting and Charging

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