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Introduces the concept of service level agreements (SLAs) in IT service provision, especially in the case of outsourced service provision. Reports the experience of several consulting engagements and surveys to substantiate suggested frameworks and checklists. Discusses the reasons for exercising rigour around SLAs. Differentiates between SLAs negotiated for internal versus external service providers. Describes the structure of good service level agreements. Outlines the most important elements of measurement for monitoring service level performance. Concludes with the importance of SLAs to the management of commercial relationships in which services are provided.

The aim of this paper is to present the key areas of activity to be used for drafting service level agreements (SLAs) for electronic services and, at the same time, to present best practices and problems that arise from the application of this discipline.

A range of recently published (2000‐2005) works has been reviewed, in order to: a) analyse how an SLA has to be defined and applied b) identify the applicable best practices and c) identify the problem areas.

Provides guidance for the business and the Application Service Provider (ASP) when they want to engage in an outsourcing agreement by presenting best practices and problems that occur from the application of SLAs.

Suggests further research is needed in a number of research areas such as: development of semantic models for SLAs, development of flexible pricing models in relation with SLAs, definition of SLAs in cases of dynamic service creation, etc.

A useful source of information both for academia and the business.

Provides practical insight on a specialized topic and guidance to researchers.

The purpose of this paper is to define the standard structure of a vendor managed inventory (VMI) agreement, which can be used as a guideline for the early definition of the agreement.

Starting from an industrial application of relevance, the information flow and the technical details, which are to be defined before the operation startup, are identified and discussed. These data are used as the key points for the definition of the basic frame of the agreement. A particular emphasis is given to the “Technical Specification” and the “Service Level Agreement” sections.

It is shown that a VMI agreement should be arranged into parts dealing with the generic and legal sides of the agreement, whereas the technical aspects and the relation‐specific topics should be addressed in the annexes. This increases the flexibility of the agreement in that, as the VMI relationship evolves over time, changes will affect only the annexes leaving the main body of the agreement unaltered.

The proposed agreement has a flexible structure and can be easily adopted by the personnel involved to correctly define and implement VMI in several industrial fields.

By approaching VMI from a practical point of view, this paper identifies the main issues that must be covered in the agreement to fit the needs of both parties and to assure benefits on both sides.

Service‐level agreements (SLAs) have been claimed to be an excellent vehicle for organisational improvement where there is a substantial degree of departmental autonomy. Such a situation is likely to exist in NHS trust hospitals because of the differentiated nature of the work performed by each department, with varying degrees of specialisation and professionalism, access to patients, use of technology and differing cost bases but also an interdependence of the direct services to the support services. It is proposed that SLAs can be used to promote improved integration between departments, quality assurance and provide a framework for cost transfer charging. The article describes and analyses SLAs from an overview of the idea to the particular implementation to date at the Huddersfield NHS Trust. SLAs have been negotiated between the Directorate of Clinical Support and its customers, and these are supported by computerised measurement and reporting tools.

This study sought to examine the extent to which outsourced contracts, buyer-supplier trust and supplier opportunistic behavior explain supplier performance in Ugandan Public Procuring and Disposing Entities (PDEs). This study was prompted by reports of long lead times, failure to match specifications, late deliveries, poor quality of services delivered, contract violations, and increased supplier cheating. Cross sectional data from 116 central government PDEs concerning outsourced contracts was collected using a self-administered questionnaire. Hierarchical regression was used to indicate what happens to a model that was developed as part of this research as different predictor variables are introduced. The findings revealed that outsourced contracts, buyer-supplier trust, and supplier opportunistic behavior are significant predictors of supplier performance. The study has both managerial and policy implications which are discussed in this paper.

The purpose of this study is to empirically explore management challenges that management must overcome in the early phase of adopting IT-shared services. Organizations to an increasing extent adopt IT-shared services as a means to providing organization-wide IT services.

Qualitative data from 20 case studies were analysed. The data were originally collected in a variety of predominantly large-size organizations from the public and private sectors in six different countries. The data used were collected between 2002 and 2010.

Our research identifies seven reoccurring themes in the collected data, all being common management challenges. These challenges are evident within the whole organization – including their service-consuming business units – as well as their service-providing IT units. The seven challenges are related to the ability to deliver IT services, communication between IT and non-IT staff, IT-service portfolios, nature of IT services, power and control, pricing and service-level agreements.

Gaining a deeper understanding of the seven common challenges is essential for further research on how to manage the successful transition towards organization-wide shared-services arrangements.

This study provides fundamental insights into the complex endeavour of adopting IT-shared services in organizations. It furthers the understanding of common management challenges, which management needs to consider in the early stage of an organization-wide adoption of IT-shared services.

Discusses the formulation of a business recovery plan. As a starting point, presents the business recovery timeline model. Gives a framework of components to be considered in a business continuity project planning process, i.e. a risk reduction programme.