The "product" of professional service providers is a service. Delivering the service relies on people's time and expertise. It is integrated with the bidding, pricing and invoicing part. It is the basis of the definition of the project activities corresponding to the delivery of the services that are part of the contracts associated with the projects. Integrate commercial with delivery. Oraroo responds to these specificities and offers a catalog of services completely adapted to consulting and outsourcing firms.
1. What is a service catalog?
- 1. The commercial vision of the catalog of services
- 2. The delivery view on the service catalog
2. The Oraroo approach
3. The Oraroo advantage
A service catalog keeps information about all the services you currently offer to customers.
In fact, service catalogs offer immense value and benefits.
Externally, service catalogs clarify customer expectations. Customers know which services they can call on and what to expect. They can also understand if their expectations are or are not met.
Internally, service catalogs clarify the work tasks and load levels expected in service delivery for the entire company.
The service catalog is used by professional service providers to shape their offerings and associated pricing rules. It can be used in conjunction with the billing and pricing engine to improve revenue control and standardize and automate the billing process.
The catalog of products and services is also used by operational managers to model the actions and tasks related to the process of making/delivering commercial services.
The service catalog practically makes the connection between the commercial vision of the service and the needs (capacity, skills, costs) necessary for its delivery.
- The commercial view on the catalog of services
The business service catalog is an important tool for anyone involved in sales and business development, as it supports the marketing and offering of the provider's services to potential and current customers. It also serves as a reference for requesting services from clients as well as contracting them.
Here are some types of relevant information from this perspective:
Service Name – The name by which the service provider and service consumer refer to the service
Service Description – A summary of the service's activity and/or the results the consumer obtains
Service type/category – How the service has been categorized based on the provider's offerings
Tariff methods - fixed or variable price, time or result invoicing, subscriptions, etc.
2. The delivery view on the service catalog
The service catalog contains information relevant to the service provider regarding the delivery of the service to meet customer needs.
The activities or types of tasks as well as the competencies and the time allocated to them constitute the delivery vision of the service catalog. This structures how business processes work together to deliver value to customers. It is a valuable tool for teams involved in the various activities of the service management and delivery value chain.
Without a catalog of activities, there is no visibility into how core activities support service delivery to meet customer needs.
Here are some types of relevant information from this perspective:
- activities required for delivery (eg: testing, support, training);
- possible results (example: documents, statements);
In Oraroo, defining the Service Catalog is an important step, having a major impact on contracts and the invoicing process. You have the possibility to add services according to category and organizational unit (company, department, team, etc.) and set their validity period.
At the same time, for each service added to the Catalog, you can establish:
- activities required for delivery (eg: testing, support, training);
- possible results (example: documents, statements);
- seniority rates: you set seniority levels and the rate applied for each level.
Once the Catalog has been finalized, services can be added to contracts.
When adding services to contracts, for easy identification, you can use the name from the Catalog or the category they belong to. At the same time, the activities required for delivery, possible results and seniority rates are also taken up on the contract. Later, you can come back with changes to the information, if necessary.
It is possible that during the company's activity it is necessary to update the Service Catalog - either to add a new service or to update the data of an already existing one. You will be able to update or add new services easily by accessing the Company Services Catalog section from the main menu.
Any type of company needs a catalog in which it stores specific information as well as the price of what it sells. Other types of companies may refer to this repertoire as a product catalog.
The service catalog is a catalog of "products" adapted to the specifics of professional service providers. The difference is that the product is a service. And the realization or delivery of the service is based on people's time and expertise. These are characteristics that influence the commercial vision (for example, pricing and invoicing methods) as well as the delivery vision (actions and specific skills required).
Oraroo takes these specificities into account to provide a service catalog completely adapted to consulting and outsourcing companies. It is also integrated with the bidding, pricing and invoicing part. Last but not least, it is the basis of the definition of the project activities corresponding to the delivery of the services that are part of the contracts associated with the projects.