Creating a Service Catalogue can be a lot of work - is it worth it?
As any Service Management practitioner will know, the act of creating a Service Catalogue is a lot of work, but is it worth the effort?
Well let’s look at some possible problematic scenarios that can occur without a Service Catalogue in place...
Poor Customer Experience: this is the biggest problem of all. Without a Service Catalogue there is no ability to set expectations relating to each Service provided by the Service Provider.
Misaligned Expectations: closely tied to poor customer experience, a fully defined Service Catalogue will provide a point of reference to what to expect from a given service. When there is no Service Catalogue, well now it’s anyone’s guess. All stakeholders could have a different idea of what to expect from a given service. How can that work realistically?
Request Prioritisation Misalignment: this is another in the misaligned expectations and poor customer experience categories. When stakeholders make requests against a service it is useful to set an expectation when particular aspects of the request will be fulfilled. An obvious example of this is setting the delivery date of goods with a consumer. A consumer may have wildly different expectations of a delivery date that the supply chain cannot fulfil.
Let’s say a consumer has an expectation that everything is on a next day delivery. The Service Catalogue and the associated business rules linked to requests will define these timings and expectations. From this information the consumer can be informed about realistic delivery dates ahead of order confirmation. This gives the consumer choice during the request/ordering process to match goods and delivery times against their needs and desires.
Supply Chain / Fulfilment: Whilst the Service Catalogue does not define the entire service design and supply chain, it does provide a ‘header’ or entry point that all stakeholders within the supply chain can reference. This is important as it provides clarity to all participants in the service supply chain on what they are contributing to or in other words, what customer or consumer expectations and value they are being tasked with fulfilling.
Broken Relationships: this is a common problem resulting from a lack of Service Catalogue. We use the term Broken Relationships to refer to broken relationships between different stakeholders and also related data. Relationship Management (e.g. BRM) is difficult enough without having poorly set expectations between different stakeholders. We use the term ‘nailing jelly to the wall’ to refer to the types of conversations where no one can agree on the subject let alone the specific matter at hand. A clear definition of the Service within a universally available Service Catalogue can help resolve such ‘jelly nailing’ conflicts. The relationships with other data includes links to the CMDB (configuration management database), finances, suppliers and many others.
There are many more problematic scenarios resulting from a lack of Service Catalogue but needless to say, it is a vital component for any provision of service(s).
Let's face it, Service Catalogue is nothing new, it's been around for as long I can remember. Yet time and time again, we meet clients with nothing in place and all of the problems and scenarios called out in this article causing them a huge amount of pain.
However, do not underestimate the time and effort it takes to create a Service Catalogue from scratch. It can be an arduous task, especially on a global scale with multiple stakeholders in different countries and cultures. There are many aspects to be considered ranging from stakeholder views, to catalogue interfaces, as well as collating all the myriad of data sources associated to the service(s).
Most of all, make sure the Service Catalogue is designed with all stakeholder perspectives in mind. The perspective of a senior executive within an organisation working out of Singapore might be very different from a knowledge worker working out of The Netherlands, which could be very different again to a supply chain stakeholder working on fulfilment from a local country supplier within a globally operating company. Seek agreement at the outset of Service Catalogue creation on what stakeholders are being considered within the Service Catalogue, and remember, like all aspects of Service Management, Service Catalogue is subject to Continual Improvement... always.
So is it 'worth it', yes! in fact, it's not really a choice, it's an essential ingredient for any Service dept, IT or otherwise!
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