• Top quality assessment of bids and incoming work requests 
• business
• financial
• technical
• support resources
• Pre-defined timescales for responding to requests
• Managed implementations - no surprises
• Improved management information for workload forecasting and planning
• Full involvement of Service Delivery team - cradle to grave - provides realistic practitioner experience and reduces risk of unachievable service levels being agreed without consultation.
• Customer expectations set up front - better use of Customer Care resources

Provide a single point of contact where customers can request technical assistance in supplying a solution to a business requirement.

The request will be registered, referenced, passed to Expert Domain referral groups, progress chased and reported upon at every step of the process.

The request will be assessed, translated into an action plan, costed, agreed and delivered to time scales and quality.

The process covers the appointment and management of any third party contractors to the same Service Level Agreements.

The process interfaces with and links to Procurement, Asset, configuration and capacity Management processes and applies the disciplines to achieve an end to end Service Level Agreement.

The process is designed, measured and managed to consistently deliver services to time and quality with minimal senior management intervention, thereby enabling senior management to focus on continual Improvement.

Request management covers the process from receiving a customer enquiry, through the design of a business solution, procuring the resources and equipment, planning the installation, to the full implementation of the solution and obtaining customer acceptance that they received what they asked for and it works.

Two processes have been identified to cater for the wide range of requests covering varying complexities of work involved.

1. Price On Application - POA
2. Pre Authorised - PA

This term is used to define the complex work packages, usually requiring to be Project Managed and involving production of a bid or costing estimation. The submission of this estimate will result in the customer providing an Authority To Proceed (ATP). These work packages follow two cycles prior to implementation:

• Production of a firm price for undertaking the project definition phase and an indicative price and timescale for the implementation.
• Production of a firm price and timescale for the implementation activity.

Stage 1 provides the customer with an indicative price and time scale to complete the task. This stage will have included an initial conceptual design and assessment of availability of resources and equipment required. Level 1 is accurate enough to enable the customer to compile a business case to their management board and seek approval to proceed to the next stage.

Stage 2 provides a detailed Project Definition pack which commits to a firm price and time scale. This may necessitate a site survey, Network and systems design, Bill Of Materials required, Site implementation plans, Customer acceptance criteria.

Stage 3 Testing and Implementation Phase

In this phase, Procurement is undertaken, Third Party Maintenance contracts are agreed, Asset and Configuration processes are initiated, all equipment and processes are configured and tested against pre- determined acceptance criteria.

Stage 4 Customer acceptance and performance reporting

The customer "accepts" the equipment, acknowledging the services and processes supplied, meet the initial business requirements. The customer will accept request for payment for the products and services delivered thus far and for the levying of support charges here after.

Performance reports will be produced to confirm compliance with the service level agreement. In the unlikely event of non-conformity, reasons will be provided along with an action plan to ensure the circumstances will not be repeated.

This term is used to define simple work packages that have been defined in advance in terms of the service to be delivered. That is; the price and timescales for delivery are known and form part of a catalogue, which is available to the Customer. They can be ordered directly from the Service Provider who are then expected to deliver to time and budget. The only exception being where the work has consequences not readily visible to the customer, e.g. where the request for a standard PC would exceed the capacity of the local server, in which case the request would be converted to the "Price on Application" process.

This process can thus be regarded as a Fast Track method of achieving an Upgrade, Move or Change to an existing installation.

The stages 3 and 4 in the POA process are still undertaken but are subject to minor modification dependant upon who has the responsibility for procuring the equipment.

Faster implementations can be achieved through the use of "Buffer stocks" of common, high usage items of equipment. The process can incorporate the management of this stock.