Service Level Agreements Expert and Leading Instructor, Joe Caruso


Joe Caruso

Joe Caruso is the very lively and brilliant Director of The Cullen Group besides being an experienced practitioner in Contract Management and Service Agreements. He has also spent several years as a Chief Information Officer, honing his industry skills in the process.

Many companies have benefited from his enigmatic training sessions and some of his vast clientele include the Australian Customs, Deloitte, General Mills, KPMG and Mitsubishi.

One of the key hallmarks of Joe's career is the fact that he has provided expert advice and trained over 1300 professionals on outsourcing, strategic contract management and governance with subjects that include; service level agreements, tendering and contract management across Australia, New Zealand, Middle East and in the Asia Pacific region.

Coming with a background in business, he possesses the knack to engage and captivate his audiences with content-rich presentations filled with plenty of interaction with participants and this builds on his experience of being on both the "buy side" representing customers, and the "sell side" representing suppliers.

This enables him to have a "two sides of the coin" view of projects and contracts and allows him to reach outcomes that are mutually beneficial to both parties, thereby ensuring success and sustainable relationships.

Testimonials

"Very good material, systemic and complete framework. Easy to read and follow.”
  Reporting Analyst, Shell IT International (SITI) Malaysia

"Speaker had in-depth knowledge of subject matter. Also grouping us according to our interests was  very useful.”
Vice President, Operations, Malaysia Venture Capital

“A great mix of informative information, practical exercises with a dash of fun!”
Project Coordinator, Department of Foreign Affairs & Trade

“Joe was a good facilitator with terrific knowledge.”
Senior Projects Officer, Medicare

“Learnt more in two days than months of on-the-job training.”
Senior Procurement Officer, State Government

Attend this course and you will learn how to:

• Take a strategic approach to planning and developing SLAs
• Assess the costs and benefits of SLAs – how this tool will work for you
• Cement your understanding of SLAs
• Identify the key stakeholders in the SLA
• Establish the Balanced Scorecard and effective key performance indicators (KPIs)
• Balance penalties and rewards to get the behaviour you want
• Set up the reporting systems to ensure
• Establish the SLA governance framework – clear structure, accountabilities, reviews
• Manage the SLA – desired skills to ensure success
• Design effective SLA communication
• Gain insight over best practices in outsourcing, contracts and supplier evaluation
• Learn negotiation strategies, tips and traps

Program Agenda

Day 1

Section 1: Setting the context of your SLA

• Determine the overall scope of your SLA
• Establishing the responsibility matrix
• Identifying the stakeholders to better understand target market
• SLA formats and options

Section 2: Setting the boundaries by defining the scope and accountabilities of your SLA

• Define the in-scope services in a commercial manner
• Identify critical success factors of each service
• Avoid common misinterpretations

Section 3: Developing the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to measure performance

• Get a holistic report card – applying the Balanced Scorecard to SLAs
• 6 Steps for setting KPIs that matter - all the techniques and issues
• KPI options – during/after normal hours, geographic and business unit distinctions

Section 4: “Incentivising” the SLA to keep your service providers motivated

• Financial and non-financial means of getting the right behaviour
• Use of positive and negative incentives
• Explore different techniques to apply incentives - percents, amounts and points
• Investigate KPI stratifications – different KPIs for different situations

Section 5: Reporting – proven techniques in getting the right information

• Assess the different types of reports common in SLAs
• Design your reporting needs for optimal results - keep track of service
• Exploring the various reports desired at different periods
• Ensure reports can reflect the trends and analyses

Section 6: SLA Governance and Management

• Activities required for successful SLA management
• Setting the roles of each party – get the right interparty relationships mapped out
• Dynamic team roles – is your SLA management team well represented?
• Meetings – frequent forms of different interaction is critical
• Evaluations, reviews and audits
• Benchmarking – make certain of ongoing value for money
• Issue, variation and dispute management - staged approach to resolution

Day 2

Section 7: Service Contracts - drive a watertight Contract

• Explore key contract planning issues
• Examine the key clauses relating to the SLA
• How certain SLA operations can make contracts ineffective

Section 8: Pricing – How it effects your SLA

• Explore the pros/cons of various pricing models – avoid making rookie mistakes
• Identify how price models impact on managing the SLA

Section 9: Understanding and optimising Outsourcing Lifecycle

• Architect Phase – preparing the strategies and designing the future
• Engagement Phase – selecting the supplier and making the transition
• Governance Phase – managing the arrangement and planning for the next generation
• Plan your SLA lifecycle

Section 10: Lifecycle Skills – know what competencies your SLA lifecycle team needs

• The breadth of skills to manage the SLA through an outsourcing lifecycle
• Targeting the skills your SLA needs

Section 11: Planning the Next Generation - the end of the current SLA

• Both natural and unnatural ways SLA's end
• Planning the next “wave” of SLA options and issues
• Disengagement, handover and post termination assistance
• Assessments to consider – well before the end of a SLA

Day 3

Section 12: Relationship Management

• Forms of relationships from power based to partnering
• Planning a successful relationship

Section 13: Communicate or Let the SLA Die

• Set your communication goals – informing, gaining commitment and action
• Target who you need to communication with and why
• Profile your targets – determine the right approach
• Ensure your communication will be effective – identify your targets’ stage of commitment
• Initiate a communication plan for your SLA

Section 14: Securing successful SLAs through negotiation

• Determine how often you may renegotiate your SLA
• Assess how you manage conflict
• Be able to identify negotiation styles and how they impact reaching an agreement
• Role playing session – practice negotiating KPI penalties and rewards
• Negotiation tactics, tips and strategies
• Prepare a negotiation plan

Section 15: Applying best practice for your organisation

• Steps for best practice SLA development and management
• Attributes of a best practice SLA - know what characteristics you want the SLA to have

Who should attend:

This course is designed for both the novice and the experienced and for SLAs with internal or external service providers.

In particular, we highly recommend:
• Service delivery managers
• Shared service managers
• Business analysts
• Service procurement managers
• Strategy, planning and resource managers
• Contracts personnel
• Operations and divisional managers
• Procurement and purchasing managers
• Logistics and supply chain managers

Some of the clients Joe has worked with:

Acumen Alliance
Airservices Australia
Shell IT International (SITI) Malaysia
BHP Billiton
Compaq
British American Tobacco
Australian Customs
Deloitte
Department of Foreign Affairs & Trade (Malaysia)
General Mills
KPMG
Medicare
Mitsubishi
Newcastle Port
Sydney Water

Bonus Offer!

Every delegate will receive a free digital copy of  “Service Level Agreements: Articulating What Will Make a Successful Deal” guide worth USD$ 245!

*******For more details, kindly download the brochure*******

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Save up to 50% from in-house courses!

You may wish to consider having an in-house course delivered locally on-site if you have a number of participants with similar training needs. This course can be customised to fit specific requirements. For more information about IHT kindly send your enquiries to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it