Committed Service Levels

Our customer

Our customer, a major player in the energy distribution sector, is responsible for introducing all digital meters in Flanders. These digital meters produce data, which is captured and processed. The data is a rich source of information. It allows for optimizing future energy distribution and to enable the development of smart communities and cities in the future. The successful rollout of the digital meters is a key element in tackling Belgium’s environmental challenges in the future.

What was our mission?

The data processing chain for digital meters runs from the digital meter, managed by external service providers, up to the business department that manages the energy market. Key question was: what services and service levels does the business expect from the underlying service providers for them to be satisfied?

Our mission was to design and implement a business control center with the objective to be able to guarantee committed service levels to the business.

What was our approach?

At the start of our mission we took the business requirements as a starting point. These business requirements were then translated into requirements for all underlying service providers. Since the implementation of the digital meter chain was outsourced, the requirements were drafted into two large Requests For Proposals, for which Xedis drafted the Service Management specifications.

Once the tendering process was finished, the requirements were converted into Service Level Agreements (SLA’s) with the underpinning service providers. These SLA’s form the basis for the service levels that are ultimately committed to the business.

SLA’s are important, but that’s just the beginning. Next to the SLA’s, an entire new business control center was erected. This business control center manages the complex end-to-end data processing chain from a business point of view. It monitors service levels, it manages issues, it manages changes and it manages performance. Staff was hired, Business Service Management processes setup, governance introduced and Service Management tools installed.

What are the results?

For our customer, we realized:

  • Satisfied business departments J !

  • Committed service levels to the business

  • Completely new business oriented service organization: new processes, new staff, new tools, new governance

  • Transversal, cross-departmental processes

Why did we succeed?

Key elements in the successful completion of this assignment are:

  • Starting point: Business is leading, ICT is supporting

  • Application of Business Service Management practices that have proven added value in the field

  • In depth industry knowledge of our consultants

  • Seniority of our consultants: all have 15+ years of experience in Service Management related topics