How To Create A Realistic Global SLA For Managed Network Services

Sourcing and vendor management (SVM) professionals at large multinational companies (MNCs) want to ensure that global service-level agreements (SLAs) for managed network services are as strong as possible. However, mature SVM organizations will need to balance the desire for highest-possible SLAs against achieving realistic and variable SLA thresholds and metrics for the different types of sites and connections under management. Best practices observed during our work with MNC clients include thoroughly analyzing overall and site-specific network performance needs along with building cost comparisons for a standard versus custom SLA. It also is important to establish what's possible to actually measure and report when asking for nonstandard metrics.