The Connected Service Assessment is a leading analysis methodology and management decision support tool that represents and measures organizational services (internal processes and workflows as well as external services), understands their alignment and contribution to organizational strategy and helps to identify an appropriate strategy for each service in order to enhance the overall effectiveness of the organisation.

This methodology and tool highlights and recommends opportunities for service outsourcing, process improvement, service decommissioning, service capitalisation/monetisation and service internalisation.

The resulting service model serves as the foundation for “enterprise architecture”, providing the basis for service planning, systems and process design and product and platform roadmapping.

Connected Services

Commercial enterprises of any kind are simply a collection of services. Even organisations that deal in the trade of commodities or manufacture of products are, at the core, a collection of services through which products or business transactions are the outcome.

We define services as the combination of resources and activities that together produce business value. Service, whether they are services offered to customers, received from suppliers or even delivered internally as “processes” and “workflow” always have a value associated with their product or output, and nearly always have a cost associated with delivering that product. However the challenge has always been, “how do we measure the value and cost of a service?” and “how do we understand where a service fits in the organization?”

We believe that a “Connected Business” is one where services, trading partners and workers are both aligned and integrated toward common business objectives and overall strategy.

“Connected Services” then are essentially services, whether they be internal services (processes, workflow) or external services (customer service, etc.) that are both aligned to organisational strategy and integrated to and between each other

The Connected Service Assessment

The Connected Service Assessment seeks to represent and measure an organisation’s Service Model so as to understand and advocate for one of four primary service strategies:

1. Service Enhancement. Services that are identified as having a relatively high level of strategy alignment, as well as relatively low level of execution are candidates for service enhancement (investment in improvement). Examples may include R&D-related services in a manufacturing organization, customer-related services in a service organization or economic monitoring in a financial services organization. These services represent a Strategic Gap to the organization. 
2. Service Commercialisation. Services that are identified as relatively low in strategic alignment (i.e. they are more tactical in nature), but have a high relative degree of execution are candidates for service commercialization in the form of service unit spin-off (capitalization) or even new revenue sources (via external markets). These services offer the organization a Tactical Advantage. 
3. Service Externalisation. Services that are both relatively low in strategic alignment (i.e. tactical) as well as low in overall execution are candidates for service externalisation (or outsourcing). This strategy allows the organisation to divest of capital investments in this service as well as future investments in service sustainment and improvements. Externalising these services to the right partner will ensure higher level of execution at (potentially) lower costs. Though these services are Underperformers, they are sometimes the greatest opportunities for value and capital retention. 
4. Service Internalisation. Services that the organisation delivers at a high level of competency and execution, that are also strategic for the company need to be further internalised. That is to say that any external components of the capability or service are candidates for internalisation to ensure that the strategic capability is sustained and enhanced internally and not available to the competitive market. These services are Strategic Differentiators. 

As indicated in the Service Assessment Quadrant below, we see that these strategies can be justified based on their relative alignment and execution viz-a-viz the organisations strategic vision.

The outcome of this type of assessment allows management the ability to determine a course of action through both normative and current state assessments, based on both quantitative and qualitative data.

For more information on the Connected Service Assessment or a Connected Service Program, contact Jame Healy (Jame.Healy@Avantage.com) at +1.778.891.5263.