Align IT Services Metrics With Relationship Goals

There are almost as many ways to measure service providers as there are service providers themselves. But more is not necessarily better when measuring service partners — as the more that you measure often means the less that you can measure well. Forrester advises clients to focus on those things that are most important and revealing rather than try to measure everything. Most service buyers embrace a multilevel strategy for measurement encompassing service-level agreement (SLA) performance and periodic scorecarding, with an associated focus on high customer satisfaction and higher-level goals such as innovation and business value delivered. Sourcing and vendor management (SVM) professionals should augment the basic approach with metrics focusing on the health of the overall relationship, including economic alignment between both parties, and let their measurement strategies inform their vendor segmentation approach. This report is designed to help you align IT services metrics with relationship goals.