Market Overview: Service-Level Management Tools For Outsourcing Governance

The advent of new service delivery models and the rise of multisourcing have complicated an already difficult task for clients — monitoring vendor performance and ensuring that contractual obligations are met. As a result, sourcing and vendor management (SVM) professionals are showing a renewed interest in specialized tools for outsourcing governance to improve manual processes and reduce costs from inconsistent tracking and calculation errors. There is a small but growing subset of service-level management (SLM) technologies that provide greater visibility and control over the performance and cost of externally provided services. In this report we provide an overview of SLM functionality and profile the key players whose tool offerings target outsourcing deal management. We explain why it makes sense for outsourcing clients to leverage these tools, and we identify the most important capabilities to consider in selecting them.