CHAPTER 2: SERVICE MANAGEMENT ROLES
This chapter defines:
•Service provider
•Stakeholder
•Service relationship
•Consumer:
Customer
User
Sponsor
•Examples of value
Service provider
The organisation providing a service is a service provider. A service provider can be part of the same organisation as a consumer (for example, an IT department offering services to a sales team) or an external organisation (for example, a software solutions provider selling to customers).
A service provider must understand who its customers or consumers are, and which other stakeholders are part of its wider service relationships.
Stakeholder
A stakeholder is “a person or organization that has an interest or involvement in an organization, product, service, practice, or other entity.”
Service relationship
A service relationship is “a co-operation between a service provider and a service consumer. Service relationships include service provision, service consumption, and service relationship management.”
Service consumer
The service consumer is the person or organisation that is receiving a service. Most organisations will act as service providers and service consumers as part of normal service delivery (for example: as a consumer they buy components to build a service they provide as a service provider). Consumer is a broad term that includes customer, user and sponsor.
| Customer | “The role that defines the requirements for a service and takes responsibility for the outcomes of service consumption.” |
| User | “The role that uses services.” |
| Sponsor | “The role that authorizes budget for service consumption. Can also be used to describe an organization or individual that provides financial or other support for an initiative.” |
One individual might act as the customer, the user and the sponsor for a service (for example, an individual who enters into a contract to have a mobile phone fulfils all of these roles). In other situations, the roles are held by separate people (for example, a purchasing department procures mobile phones for staff in a sales team).
Defining roles clearly supports:
•Better communication
•Better relationships
•Better stakeholder management
Roles can have different and conflicting expectations about value, what is an essential requirement, and how much they are prepared to pay.
Different stakeholders receive different types of value.