itSMF Bulletin November 2020 | Page 6

Service relationship management refers to the joint activities performed by a service provider and a service consumer to ensure continual value co-creation based on agreed and available service offerings.

The service relationship model is used to showcase the ever-changing interaction between service providers and consumers. An organization can procure services and use them to deliver services to another consumer, thus shifting from consumer to provider. For example, a call centre may purchase internet services from a supplier and then use those services to provide customer relationship management services for its customers.

Products & Services

In ITIL, the service is the ultimate centre of focus in every aspect of service management. A service is defined as a

means of enabling value co-creation by

facilitating outcomes that customers want to achieve, without the customer having to manage specific costs and risks. The services that an organization provides are based on one or more of its products.

A product is any configuration of an organization’s resources designed to offer value for a consumer. Resources can include people, capital, equipment, software, etc.

Service providers usually present their services to consumers in the form of service offerings, which describe one or more services based on one or more products. A service offering is a description of one or more services that are designed to address the needs of a target consumer group. The three main components of service offerings are goods, access to resources, and service actions, as shown:

 

Different offerings can be configured for different target consumer segments depending on demand and capacity to pay, among other factors.