Four Essential Elements of Successful Business Services
Business services are activities that businesses perform to benefit other companies (B2C) and/or end consumers (B2B). These businesses do not produce physical goods. They perform tasks such as advising and supporting companies, helping them maintain their practices and property, or providing insurance services that help reduce their financial obligations.
Service businesses can be classified into three broad categories: those that serve a specific clientele, those that provide a broader range of services, and those that combine goods and services in innovative ways to provide a new value to consumers. Regardless of which type of business you operate, there are four essential elements that must be in place for you to achieve success.
First, you need to design a service that meets your customers’ needs and expectations. This is a challenging task, because unlike product companies, service businesses do not have an opportunity to differentiate themselves from their competition by developing a brand name identification.
Second, you must make sure that your services are delivered efficiently and in a safe manner. This requires a focus on quality, cost control, and the ability to respond quickly to changing market demands.
Third, you must ensure that your services are available to your clients when they need them. This involves ensuring that your systems are up-to-date and your staff has the right skills to support them.
Fourth, you must make sure that your services are affordable to your clients. This includes determining the best ways to deliver your services at a price that is competitive with your competitors.
Fifth, you must ensure that your services are accessible to your clients. This can be done through remote access, virtual private networks, or a combination of both.
Sixth, you must ensure that your services are reliable and secure. This can be done through monitoring, alerts, and a variety of other tools.
Seventh, you must ensure that your services are easy to find and use. This can be accomplished through the creation of a web interface or by integrating your service with a mobile device application.
Eighth, you must ensure that your services are scalable. This can be done through the creation of a service blueprint that details how to grow and expand your services as your business grows and changes.
Nineth, you must ensure that your services are flexible. This can be done through the creation of an IT Service that monitors a set of related IT infrastructure components, such as a DNS and a Collector Group, or by creating a custom Service Model that describes how you want to organize your business services.
Lastly, you must ensure that your services are governed by an IT service policy. This can be done through a policy that specifies the IT infrastructure component you want to govern your services, such as the devices that your organization uses to monitor your IT infrastructure.
You can create, update, and delete services in both ServiceNow and SL1; however, you cannot merge services between the two systems. This is because SL1 must be built entirely in SL1 and ServiceNow must be built entirely in ServiceNow.