Service offering and relationship
Service offering
Service providers provide service in the form of service offerings. The service offering is a combination of services that are presented by a service provider. A formal description of one or more services, designed to address the needs of a target consumer group is service offering. A service offering may include goods, access to resources, and service actions.
Example: A co-location provider leased its racks and servers to the consumer. The consumer could use the power, cooling, storage, computing, and networking resources (Access to resources) in those spaces. In addition, there are some devices installed on the consumer’s side to provide high availability (Goods). It also provides installation, configuration, and support actions to the consumer (Service Actions).
Goods are materials that will be transferred to the consumer and the consumer will be responsible for them.
Access to resources – The resources are owned by the service providers, not by the consumer. They are granted to the consumer through a contract or SLA. The consumer doesn’t own these resources and the terms of use are defined in an agreement between consumer and service provider.
Service actions are sets of activities performed by the service provider to address consumers’ needs.
Service relationship model
Cooperation between a service provider and a service consumer to make value. Service relationships include three concepts: service provision, service consumption, and service relationship management.
Service provision
They are activities performed by an organization -at the provider’s side- to provide services. These activities including:
- Managing provider’s resources
- Provide assurance for accessing the resources
- Provide actions based on service agreements
- Service level management and continual improvement.
- Supplying of goods.
Service consumption
They are activities performed by an organization -at the consumer’s side- to consume services. Service consumption activities including:
- Managing consumer’s resources to consume the service.
- Requesting service actions and taking advantage of the resources.
- Service consumption may also include the achievement of goods
Service relationship management
Joint activities performed by a service provider and a service consumer to ensure continual value co-creation based on agreed and available service offerings.