Reference no: EM133056517

Part A. Research Component: IT Service Level Agreement

An effective way to communicate the IS/IT requirements for this major strategic shift is to specify a Service Level Agreement (SLA) for IT Service Management (ITSM). ITSM refers to the entirety of activities - directed by policies, processes, and procedures - that are performed by an organization to plan, design, deliver, operate, and control IT services for customers. Note that, depending on Enterprise X's critical mission, being a product supplier, or a service provider, the customers may be other organizations in the enterprise, or customers of the enterprise. ITSM is thus concerned with the implementation of IT services that meet customers' needs, and it is performed by the IT service provider through people, processes, and IT.

The cornerstone of ITSM is the Service-Level Agreement (SLA). An SLA is defined as an official commitment that prevails between a service provider and the customer/user. Aspects of the service - quality, availability, responsibilities - are agreed between the service provider and the service user. The most common component of SLA is that the services should be provided to the customer as agreed upon in the contract.