Service Conceptualization through Discontinuation

Service Portfolio Management’s goal is to manage the services and the terms under which those services are provided to users, from the point of conceptualization through retirement. It includes the entire portfolio of services from active (Service Catalog Items) services through the various life cycle stages of incumbent and retired services.

LiveTime Service Manager is ‘Service Portfolio Management Capable’ from the moment of installation. In order to commence the activities associated with Portfolio Management, a team simply needs to be configured and assigned to the appropriate service category in the CMDB. This  allows Service Portfolio Management roles and responsibilities to be delegated to individuals which can be overseen using the built in support for approvals.

Service Levels and Service Costing

The cost of providing and supporting a service, are often determining factors during the decision making process of developing new services for users. As services are defined there are both infrastructure costs and ongoing costs to consider. These include the financial overhead of providing support and meeting SLA requirements.

LiveTime’s Type definition of a service, contains a web 2.0 calculator allowing organizations to estimate the support costs and Break Even Points (B.E.P) for a service during the conceptualization and proposal phases. These figures are used as a point of reference, allowing service organizations to compare actual revenue numbers based on usage once a service is ‘live’.

Discontinued Services

As part of providing ongoing service improvement, Service Portfolio Managers require access to discontinued services either for comparison against current live services or for auditing purposes. This information is readily accessible, as discontinued services are retained in the portfolio view of the CMDB for any future analysis needs which may arise.