{"id":6914,"date":"2017-03-28T19:21:00","date_gmt":"2017-03-28T19:21:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/multiacademstg.wpengine.com\/20000academy\/?p=6914"},"modified":"2024-12-12T16:38:53","modified_gmt":"2024-12-12T16:38:53","slug":"iso-20000-customer-portfolio-a-perfect-overview-of-all-it-services-provided","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/advisera.com\/20000academy\/blog\/2017\/03\/28\/iso-20000-customer-portfolio-a-perfect-overview-of-all-it-services-provided\/","title":{"rendered":"ISO 20000 Customer Portfolio \u2013 A perfect overview of all IT services provided"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>For some of you it may sound strange, but in my experience, many people in IT Service Management (ITSM), while implementing <a href=\"https:\/\/advisera.com\/20000academy\/what-is-iso-20000\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">ISO 20000<\/a>, have issues with the Business Relationship Management (BRM) process. BRM is certainly not one of the operational processes, and that\u2019s usually the source of the problems. ISO 20000 implementation and, later, operation of the SMS (Service Management System) is usually handled by someone from IT. BRM is a customer-, as well as a business-related process.<\/p>\n<p>On the other side, the business environment is becoming more complex. So are the customers and related services. But, that doesn\u2019t provide an excuse for the IT service provider. Quite the contrary: it provides new requirements \u2013 to manage the efficiency of customer relationships in the quickly changing business world.<\/p>\n<h2>What is it all about?<\/h2>\n<p>ISO 20000, in clause 7.1, sets requirements for the BRM process. BRM should manage relationships with customers, with customer satisfaction being the primary goal. There are a few elements that are needed to ensure this:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Responsible person<\/strong> \u2013 that\u2019s the Business Relationship Manager. His job is to maintain business relationships with the customers (contrary to the Service Level Manager, who takes care of operational issues related to the services). Maybe you are familiar with the Key Account Manager role. That\u2019s basically the Business Relationship Manager.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Communication<\/strong> \u2013 that\u2019s the Business Relationship Manager\u2019s main \u201ctool.\u201d That\u2019s also how he gets an understanding of the (customer\u2019s) business environment and respective needs and expectations. In such a way, the IT service provider is in a position to respond to customer requirements.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Services<\/strong> \u2013 that includes having an overview of the services, its users, interested parties, and performance. Performance should be reviewed together with the customer, but that\u2019s the moment when the relationship with the Service Level Manager gains importance (he knows the performance parameters of the services).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>So, to excel in the above-mentioned elements of service management, the Business Relationship Manager has to have an excellent overview of all services in place, relevant customer data, responsible people on both sides (his own as well as the customer\u2019s), as well as whatever is needed to help him manage the customer\u2019s existing and (maybe even more importantly) future needs. The Customer Portfolio, as a document, is a list (or table in the ITSM tool) that correlates all this information. You can even see it as mini (but, really, really mini) CRM (Customer Relationship Management) tool.<br \/>\n<div id=\"middle-banner\" class=\"banner-shortcode\"><\/div><script>loadMiddleBanner();<\/script><br \/>\n<div id=\"side-banner-trigger\" class=\"banner-shortcode\"><\/div><\/p>\n<h2>What does it include?<\/h2>\n<p>The standard doesn\u2019t define many details regarding what you need to document. It states that the service provider needs to identify and document users, customers, and interested parties of the services, and a contact for each customer. So, to fulfill the standard\u2019s requirements, the <a href=\"https:\/\/advisera.com\/20000academy\/iso-20000-documentation-toolkit\/?rel=sms-related-documents&#038;doc=service-management-system-scope\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">SMS<\/a> must contain a document, or maybe more practical \u2013 a list (as mentioned in the previous section \u2013 Customer Portfolio) with just a few details:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Who is the customer?<\/li>\n<li>Who is the responsible person?<\/li>\n<li>Details about communication with the customer<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>But, once you have such a document or list, it\u2019s obvious that you can get much more than just a list. It\u2019s your chance to manage customer service relationships, as well as customer needs. That opens the door to many opportunities. And, it could be very useful.<\/p>\n<p>Here is what else (the mandatory requirements) that should be in the content of the Customer Portfolio document:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>General data about the customer<\/li>\n<li>Related contacts inside own organization<\/li>\n<li>Information about services that particular customer uses<\/li>\n<li>Communication details, like who is responsible for what on both sides, history of meetings<\/li>\n<li>Details about inquiries, potential new opportunities<\/li>\n<li>Financial data<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>So, basically, \u201cthe sky is the limit.\u201d But, be careful, because too much information can create a situation where people will not use the document because of bad usability.<\/p>\n<h2>And, the purpose<\/h2>\n<p>Once I witnessed a situation when people from my company talked to a customer and tried to create a lead for a service that the customer was already using. It\u2019s not a nice example, but I\u2019m sure that there are many similar cases. And, it\u2019s disgraceful (at least for me, at that time). The point is, that customer already used a long list of services (managed by many different Service Managers), and there wasn\u2019t anything like a Customer Portfolio. And, even worse, there was no overview of the communication matrix (who is communicating with whom on both sides). So, a Customer Portfolio will provide you with a way to manage your customer, relationships with him, and related services.<\/p>\n<p>Basically, it was a wonder in the above situation that no \u201ccollisions\u201d happened. The good thing, while implementing a standard like ISO 20000, is that it forces you to manage the situation. So, since you find yourself in that situation \u2013 make the best out of it. Managing your most valuable asset \u2013 the customer \u2013 will pay back in many different ways. And for a long time, as well.<\/p>\n<p><em>To implement ISO 20000 easily and efficiently, use our<\/em> <a href=\"https:\/\/advisera.com\/20000academy\/iso-20000-documentation-toolkit\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">ISO 20000 Documentation Toolkit<\/a> <em>that provides step-by-step guidance for full ISO 20000 compliance.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For some of you it may sound strange, but in my experience, many people in IT Service Management (ITSM), while implementing ISO 20000, have issues with the Business Relationship Management (BRM) process. BRM is certainly not one of the operational processes, and that\u2019s usually the source of the problems. ISO 20000 implementation and, later, operation &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":6916,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[579,528,404,580,366],"class_list":["post-6914","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","tag-brm","tag-business-relationship-management","tag-customer","tag-customer-portfolio","tag-iso-20000"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/advisera.com\/20000academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6914","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/advisera.com\/20000academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/advisera.com\/20000academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/advisera.com\/20000academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/32"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/advisera.com\/20000academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6914"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/advisera.com\/20000academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6914\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17951,"href":"https:\/\/advisera.com\/20000academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6914\/revisions\/17951"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/advisera.com\/20000academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6916"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/advisera.com\/20000academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6914"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/advisera.com\/20000academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6914"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/advisera.com\/20000academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6914"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}