Service Portfolio Management

Service Portfolio Management is the process of collection of services to meet customer requirements and describe it in terms of value to the business.The main task of the Service portfolio management process is to provide a set of tools / applications / Services. It helps for assessing and approval of new or changed services and to manage the IT services throughout their lifecycles.

Service Portfolio Management contributes to the service development life cycle by achieving the following goals:

• Maintain the documentation of each service operation
• Set standard activities and procedures for new services, service delivery
• Making continuous improvement of services by reviewing at regular interval

The service portfolio maintains three categories of services, defined by lifecycle phase:

• Services in Pipeline: Services that are planned or in development,but not yet available to the consumers
• Service in Catalog: Services that are currently released and deployed or ready for the consumers
• Retired Services: Services that are no longer active

Service portfolio management includes sub processes as below:

Define:

Define the problem or business scenario and gather information / details to solve the defined problem.

Analysis:

In this process, analyse the impact of the new services or change in existing services, long term business goal, market value, demand, technical feasibility, capability and financial availability. It helps to develop or set up the service which meets with the requirement.

Approve:

Management checks the Service proposal by reviewing the impact, objective, benefits, business value, risk etc. If Service proposal is beneficial, management gives approval to initiate or incorporate the design of new service or change in existing service.

Endowment:

After approval, communicate the decision to respective team to allocate resources, planning,design, budget, etc. for the new service or change in service.

Advantages or Value add to my Business:

• It helps to get an insight to choose a best service which is aligned with your business goal
• Improves the performance of the business as right Services are created and provided at the right time for right cost
• It helps to diversify business by providing information about current market trends
• It helps in cost reduction by providing information of upcoming services, duplicate services, inefficient services, unnecessary or unused services where we can take decision for service creation, improvement, delivery or retirement

Conclusion:
Service Portfolio Management helps to quickly find out the service as per requirement and business-based decisions regarding services.

About Author:

Deepak Borole is a consultant in Systems Plus Pvt. Ltd. Within Systems Plus, he actively contributes to the areas of Technology and Information Security. He can be contacted at: deepak.borole@spluspl.com