Purpose of the Service Level Agreement
IRB stands for the Investment Review Board and aims to monitor and scrutinize the capital planning and the investment control process in accordance with the office of management, associated departments, and budget along with governing other requirements and standards. To ensure the business continuation of Under Milkwood in the current industry fashion, Investment Review Board – IRB plays an important role to verify and approve the project by evaluating its cost-effectiveness and appropriateness (Hundt 2020). This is to mention that in the business infrastructure of Under Milkwood the Investment Review Board (IRB) is the highest-level Information Technology investment review board recognized to ensure the obtainment of the best project to support the business operations. Based on this determination it can be stated that the Investment Review Board (IRB) of Under Milkwood is aiming to achieve the IT Department’s mission and business requirements.
- The Chief Financial Officer.
- The Chief Information Officer.
- The Director of Budget.
- The Deputy Secretary.
- The Assistant Secretary for Management.
- The Chief Operating Officer of Federal Student Aid.
- Chief Executive of Under Milkwood.
- Review and evaluate the proposals and sanctions from the Chief Information Officer concerning the funds for all information systems, assortments, and properties.
- Review and evaluate the other suggestions and sanctions related to information system funds as resolute by the Board.
- Screen and evaluate enduring information system funds in contradiction of their predictable schedule, costs, and benefits, and ensure action to continue, alter, or dismiss them.
- Endorse procedures for selection, monitoring, and assessment of information resource funds.
- Offer IT strategic preparation leadership and implement the Department’s vision for IT portfolio management.
- Recommend CIO with all other applicable laws, rules, and regulations regarding information resources management.
- Business Goal and Vision.
- Business Financial Data.
- Sales and revenue data.
This Investment Review Board Report is developed to present a well-structured document to introduce Service Level Agreement- SLA between the internal departments, Suppliers, and External Customers to ensure that Under Milkwood is supporting its operations management department effectively to run smoothly. As per the findings from the analysis, it is determined that Under Milkwood is experiencing significant challenges with their existing work infrastructure as during the increasing workload it is essential to handle the resources carefully to support the continuation of the business.
To eliminate any unrealistic and clumsy expectations this SLA is aiming to introduce a Service Level Agreement- SLA between the Suppliers, internal departments and External Customers.
Successful implementation of the Service Level Agreement- SLA between the Suppliers, internal departments and External Customers, Under Milkwood will be able to work under a transparent and structured demand and delivery infrastructure that will primarily follow the concept of more with less. This will also help to eliminate under usage or misuse of resources to support the service continuation of the business in the current fashion.
Under Milkwood Pvt ltd is a large computer gaming company that has approximately 100 computer games either on the market or under maintenance. In addition to this, there are 30 other games as well that are supported by Under Milkwood Pvt ltd as well the company has 400 people and Thomas Dylan is the CEO. To eliminate any unrealistic and clumsy expectations received in the Under Milkwood Pvt ltd working process this SLA is aiming to introduce a Service Level Agreement- SLA between the internal Suppliers, departments and External Customers.
A Service Level Agreement stands for a part of an agreement that defines precisely what facilities a provision provider will deliver and the obligatory level or normal for those facilities. It is proposed that this SLA will be generally part of an outsourcing or managed services agreement, or can be used in facilities management agreements and other agreements for the provision of services.
The purpose of this SLA is to ensure that Under Milkwood Pvt ltd is offering computer games and no other computing services. In addition to this, service level management is developed to ensure that all operational services and their performance are measured and executed in a consistent and professional manner. Furthermore, it can be stated that this Service Level Agreement (SLA) labels the service level pointers and the compulsory service levels appropriate to the on-line alteration facilities and will arrange an essential part of the Agreement signed by the Office of the Investment Review Board (IRB) of Under Milkwood and the Contractor, complementing its divisions and conditions.
Impact of Service Level Agreement on Business Operations
Followed by a detailed analysis of the purpose and reason behind the project selection in the below section the impact of the selected project on the BTOPP – Business, Technology, Operations, Processes and People associated with the Under Milkwood Pvt Ltd., organization are listed: –
According to research frequently the enterprises use Service Level Agreement (SLA) as the part of their operation however the organizations fail to handle these agreements due to the adoption of inappropriate tool and strategies (Bandara et al., 2018). Furthermore, it can be added that inappropriate management of the Service Level Agreement (SLA) could lead time consumptions, incompleteness as well as labour intensive situation. Followed by a detailed analysis of the impact of a Service Level Agreement on the business it can be stated that integration of an appropriate Service Level Agreement ensures a business strengthens the relationship with their customers, allow the business to increase its service network, Service Level Agreement is capable of removing communication barriers within the business or outside the business. Furthermore, it can be stated that the implementation of a Service Level Agreement offers a long-term benefit to the business in terms of consumer retention. While discussing these benefits it is identified that for any business consumer business relationship is the most important thing that needs to be addressed with an appropriate strategy which is successfully done by the Service Level Agreement. Considering these aspects, it can be stated that implementation of a Service Level Agreement within the operational management department of the company, will ensure effective integration between tasks as well as the delivery of committed services to the internal employees, suppliers as well as external consumers. Followed by a detailed analysis it is identified that the business is currently experiencing inappropriate usage of their resources which needs to be addressed with appropriate strategies as this is leading to several challenges to continue the business services. Focusing on this aspect it can be stated that implementation of a Service Level Agreement considers the usage of resources to ensure that there is maximum utilization of resources to obtain benefits from the concept “more with less” to empower the organization to deal with scalable consumer number.
According to the research, it is determined that a Service Level Agreement ensures the expectations between the service providers and the consumers alongside describing the products or services that need to be delivered (MENBERU 2021). Furthermore, it can be stated that this contract aims to reduce end-user problems alongside increasing the effectiveness of the process that is being monitored and approved. From this aspect, it can be stated that the incorporation of the Service Level Agreement within the business infrastructure Under Milkwood empowers the business to collect relevant information related to the consumers, suppliers as well as other business associates that will be used as input to run technology. This is to mention that the organization has a huge dependency on technology for its decision-making. Hence it is important to ensure that there is enough relevant data input present to support the technology decision-making process. From this aspect, it can be stated that the integration of the Service Level Agreement within the business infrastructure Under Milkwood, will assist the business to obtain relevant information from their associates that will also support the technology integrated within the business infrastructure to make a better decision as well as in easy handling of orders and queries.
Limitations of Service Level Agreement
Operation management stands for the administration of business practices and processes to generate the highest level of efficiency possible within an organization. The operation management concept is comprehensively concerned with the conversion of Labour and material into goods and services as efficiently as possible to ensure the maximization of organizational profits. Focusing on this aspect it can be stated that integration of the Service Level Agreement within the business infrastructure under milkwood will empower the operation management department of the organization to enhance their capability to manage operations in the form of service efficiency, maximum usage of resources as well as by eliminating the complexity and non-transparency in business practices. In addition to this, it can be also stated that with the successful integration of the Service Level Agreement within the business infrastructure the company will indicate to the business operation management department about the accountable jobs that are expected from the unit of the business. Hence it can be stated that this will have a significant impact on the operations of this organization by offering continuous monitoring and supervision of resource utilization and effective management of processes.
A business process stands for the collection of interrelated activities that find their end in the delivery of a specific product or service to a client. From this aspect, it can be stated that within a business effective management of their processes are very important to ensure that their products are being delivered within the time following the given instructions by the client. Alongside this, it can be stated that the purpose of a Service Level Agreement is to ensure transparent documentation between the client and service provider regarding the expectation in terms of time, quality, and quantity. Hence it would be effective to apply the Service Level Agreement concept between the consumer and the company to ensure that the customers are aware of the services they are expecting. This will ensure effective management of the business process to deliver a specific product or service to the consumers within the committed time and quality, the business needs to restructure its processes to ensure that they are eliminating any kind of latency and complexity from their operational unit to address their commitments present in the Service Level Agreement.
According to the study, an SLA is one such tool that is also helpful in the HR field with the means by which they can bring faster reply rates and better case transparency to their staff along with the conspicuousness they are essential to repeatedly advance HR facilities, an SLA helps meet the prospect’s employees nowadays partake of their office technology (Tan et al., 2021). From this aspect, it can be stated that to ensure effective utilization of HR assets within the business infrastructure of Under Milkwood adoption of SLA can be considered one of the non-negotiable solutions as this offers transparent contracting of expectations between the employer and employees that will help in obtaining better contribution from the employees and better support from the employer.
In the following table risks associated with the Under Milkwood Pvt Ltd., are listed alongside the associated mitigation strategy. This risk register consists of the presentation of likelihood, impact, risk rating and responsible practitioner.
Sl. No. |
Risk |
Description |
Impact |
Likelihood |
Mitigation |
Responsible Practitioner |
1. |
Uncertainty |
This is to mention that due to uncertainty in weather condition and resource availability the advantages of SLA can get shifted into disadvantages that may lead to violation of SLA. This is one of the major limitations that could lead to penalty charges. |
Moderate |
Likely |
Development of exception clause. |
SLA manager. |
2. |
Emergency Management |
The rigidness of the SLA can cause the significant damage to the business in case of any emergency situation arise. |
Moderate |
Likely |
Development of exception clause. |
SLA manager. |
In the following table the risk register, risk rating and its associated definition are mentioned: –
Likelihood |
Impact |
||||
Insignificant |
Minor |
Moderate |
Major |
Severe |
|
Almost Certain |
Medium |
High |
Extreme |
Extreme |
Extreme |
Likely |
Medium |
Medium |
High |
Extreme |
Extreme |
Possible |
Low |
Medium |
Medium |
High |
Extreme |
Unlikely |
Low |
Low |
Medium |
Medium |
High |
Rare |
Low |
Low |
Low |
Medium |
Medium |
Descriptor |
Level |
Definition |
Insignificant |
1 |
No damage |
Minor |
2 |
Damage requiring first aid |
Moderate |
3 |
Damage needs higher attention |
Major |
4 |
Damage needs immediate attention |
Severe |
5 |
Loss |
Descriptor |
Level |
Definition |
Rare |
1 |
May occur infrequently. |
Unlikely |
2 |
May occur infrequently or more that rate cases. |
Possible |
3 |
May occur multiple times. |
Likely |
4 |
May occur several times. |
Almost Certain |
5 |
Prone to occur frequently. |
In the following section the benefits that can be obtained by the proposed business project implementation: –
- Improves customer service. This is to mention that the implementation of a Service Level Agreement offers a long-term benefit to the business in terms of consumer retention. For any business consumer business relationship is the most important thing that needs to be addressed with an appropriate strategy which can be successfully done by the Service Level Agreement (Zhou et al., 2019).
- Facilitates communication. Implementation of the recommended SLA will help to establish an effective communication channel between the consumer, supplier and internal employees.
- In addition to this the implementation of SLA will help Under Milkwood to have Negotiated and mutually accepted capability.
- In addition to this the implementation of SLA will help Under Milkwood to define procedures.
This is to inform you that the annual operational cost is estimated as $ 1000, and the one-time development cost is $5000. In the following section the cost required to implement the proposed change is mentioned: –
Project Cost-Benefit Analysis |
||||||||
Analysis Variables: |
||||||||
Discount Rate Used |
5.00% |
|||||||
Annual Benefits |
$ 4,000.00 |
|||||||
Annual Operational Costs |
$ 1,000.00 |
|||||||
One-Time Development Cost (including hardware, software and security solution cost) |
$ 6,000.00 |
|||||||
Year of Project |
||||||||
0 |
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
TOTALS |
||
Economic Benefit |
$0.00 |
$ 4,000.00 |
$ 4,000.00 |
$ 4,000.00 |
$ 4,000.00 |
$ 4,000.00 |
||
Discount Rate |
1.0000 |
0.9524 |
0.9070 |
0.8638 |
0.8227 |
0.7835 |
||
PV of Benefits |
$0.00 |
$3,809.52 |
$3,628.12 |
$3,455.35 |
$3,290.81 |
$3,134.10 |
||
NPV of all BENEFITS |
$0.00 |
$ 3,809.52 |
$ 7,437.64 |
$ 10,892.99 |
$ 14,183.80 |
$ 17,317.91 |
$ 17,317.91 |
|
One-Time COSTS |
$ (6,000.00) |
|||||||
Recurring Costs |
$0.00 |
$ (1,000.00) |
$ (1,000.00) |
$ (1,000.00) |
$ (1,000.00) |
$ (1,000.00) |
||
Discount Rate |
1.0000 |
0.9524 |
0.9070 |
0.8638 |
0.8227 |
0.7835 |
||
PV of Recurring Costs |
$0.00 |
$ (952.38) |
$ (907.03) |
$ (863.84) |
$ (822.70) |
$ (783.53) |
||
NPV of all COSTS |
$ (6,000.00) |
$ (6,952.38) |
$ (7,859.41) |
$ (8,723.25) |
$ (9,545.95) |
$ (10,329.48) |
$ (10,329.48) |
|
Overall NPV |
$ 6,988.43 |
|||||||
Overall ROI |
||||||||
0.6766 |
The following section consists of a list of recommendations to ensure that Under Milkwood obtain better benefit from the proposed project: –
- Development of baseline for the SLA.
- Track Feedback to ensure continuous improvement.
- Breakup large complex SLAs to ensure easy adoption.
- Define clear performance goals including the task priorities.
- Ensure 24/7 availability of the SLA.
References:
Bandara, W., Abbott, C., Mathiesen, P., Meyers, L. and Nagra, M., 2018. Developing enterprise-wide business process management capability: a teaching case from the financial sector. Journal of Information Technology Teaching Cases, 8(2), pp.192-208.
Hundt, D., 2020. The changing role of the FIRB and the politics of foreign investment in Australia. Australian Journal of Political Science, 55(3), pp.328-343.
Menberu, F., 2021. Assessment On Benefits And Challenges Of Outsourcing Practices–The Case Of International Community School Of Addis Ababa (Doctoral Dissertation, St. Mary’s University).
Tan, W., Zhu, H., Tan, J., Zhao, Y., Xu, L.D. and Guo, K., 2021. A novel service level agreement model using blockchain and smart contract for cloud manufacturing in industry 4.0. Enterprise Information Systems, pp.1-26.
Zhou, H., Ouyang, X., Ren, Z., Su, J., de Laat, C. and Zhao, Z., 2019, April. A blockchain based witness model for trustworthy cloud service level agreement enforcement. In IEEE INFOCOM 2019-IEEE Conference on Computer Communications (pp. 1567-1575). IEEE.