Sourcing’s Five Critical Governance Processes pot

Sourcing’s Five Critical Governance Processes
By Ernie Zibert
Copyright 2012 Ernie Zibert
Smashwords Edition
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Table of Contents
The five core governance processes
Contract Management
Issues Management
SLA Management
Invoice Management
Service Request Management
About the author
Other books by this author
Contact the author
In this e-book, I provide you with the next layer of detail for implementing the best practice
sourcing governance framework. For commercial reasons, I will only focus on five processes that are
crucial for outsourcing success. Whilst these five processes are critical, there are a number of
additional governance processes that you will need to implement effectively for a successful
outsourcing relationship.
The five processes appear in my e-book on the Science of Sourcing Governance. This means,
that if you implement these processes, your sourcing relationship will materially improve and you can
focus on adding more value and/or improving other aspects of your sourcing relationship.
The five core governance processes are:
1. Contract Management: This process allows the service provider and the customer to

interpret, upgrade, administer, modify and respond to queries about the Contract. The process also
covers how changes to the Contract are requested, tracked and agreed.
2. Issues Management: This process allows the customer and service provider to continually
and consistently identify, track, manage and resolve issues raised by either party.
3. Service Level Management: This process defines how to measure and report the
performance of Services against the agreed SLAs.
4. Invoice Management: This process defines how and when the service provider will provide
billing information to the customer and, how to ensure the accurate and timely billing and payment for
the Services provided.
5. Service Request Management. The process that establishes how the customer and the
service provider will manage service requests that fall outside of Incident Management.
Please note that the processes listed above are not in order of priority or importance. The
relative importance of these processes is dependent upon the type and complexity of the deal, and
the maturity of the service provider and customer. What is important is that the above five governance
processes are critical to ensuring success in all outsourcing relationships. Therefore, if you are going
to implement a governance framework, then these processes must be executed efficaciously.
The table below details the key elements of the five essential processes (compliant with ISO
9001:2008). The table is split into two for ease of display.
Please note that in order to ensure effective sourcing governance you will need to augment the
above critical five processes with others that are appropriate for your particular sourcing relationship
and lifecycle.
If you need help identifying the other sourcing governance processes, or have questions
regarding this e-book, please contact me.
I would appreciate your comments and feedback.
About the author:
Ernie Zibert is a senior IT sourcing professional and brings 20+ years international management
experience across government, communications and media, and finance industries. His transferable
skills include IT sourcing strategy and governance, and financial, relationship and commercial
management of external service providers. Annual spend under management includes up to $200M
AUD along with 20% savings.

Other titles by Ernie Zibert
Discover other titles by Ernie Zibert at Smashwords.com.
The Science of Sourcing Governance
What’s the difference between a million and a billion dollar IT sourcing deal?
Ordering IT Services: Would you like CHIPS with that?
Sourcing's Three Fates
The IT Outsourcing RFP COW is too FAT
Outsourcing’s Two Evils
Impotence and Sourcing Governance
AMS – The next stage in the evolution of IT outsourcing
Apply CREAMS to your IT sourcing pain
Connect with Me Online:
My blog:
For more information, contact Ernie Zibert at
Thanks go to Mohandass Ayyappath for his insightful comments and editing.