Free ITIL Service Offerings and Agreements Exam ITIL-SOA Exam Practice Test

ScenarioA commercial IT services company has been successful for many years. Its key strategic differentiator has been the provision of new services to meet customers’ needs in very short lead times. Recently profits have dipped, forcing senior management to take a look at the lifecycle costs of providing the IT services to their external customers.The organization has had a service catalogue containing customer and supporting views for some time. It is an essential source of information about the IT services and is used by both the business relationship managers and the IT services teams. Services are designed internally but often transitioned and operated in partnership with other suppliers.For each service, the service catalogue currently contains:A description of the serviceSummary of the service level targetsThe level of support and support detailsDetails of the supporting services and componentsDetails of services obtained from suppliersWhen sales leads are obtained from potential new customers, the requirements are compared with services in the service catalogue and, if no matching service can be found, a project is set up to quickly develop a new service. In the past this has been justified as meeting the needs of the customers, and full business cases were not developed.A senior service manager has suggested introducing a service portfolio management process and needs to get the support of the IT management team. The management team wishes to know what extra information would be included in a service portfolio over and above what is already in the service catalogue and what value it would be to them.The company is looking to restrict investment in new resources. Therefore, only a few projects can be authorized in the next budget cycle.Refer to the Scenario.Which one of the following sets of statements BEST describes the elements that a service portfolio contains in addition to the elements in a service catalogue, and describes the additional value service portfolio management would bring to the IT services company in resolving their current issues?

• The service portfolio will include: resource allocation; support terms and conditions; ordering and request procedures; the value proposition; offerings and packages.The service portfolio will show where additional resources will be required to operate new services. Service portfolio management will enable the organization to rationalize existing services to optimize the use of resources.
• The service portfolio will include: business cases; risks; business outcomes supported; cost and pricing.The service portfolio will show the proportion of resources acquired from key suppliers so that the cost of new services can be accurately estimated.Creating a service portfolio that includes services in the service pipeline, as well as those in the service catalogue, will enable new services currently being developed to be included in service offerings. This increased visibility of new services extends the range available for new opportunities.
• The service portfolio will include: ordering and request procedures; service level targets; support terms and conditions; details of services obtained from suppliers.The service portfolio will show the resources and capabilities that are needed to improve the services in the service catalogue.Service portfolio management will enable the organization to expand the service catalogue to include details of service requests and standard changes, providing a valuable self-help portal to users.
• The service portfolio will include: business cases; risks; investment priorities; value propositions. The service portfolio will show where resources are used across all stages of the service lifecycle both within the provider and where they have been acquired from suppliers.
• Service portfolio management will improve the organization’s ability to compare potential investments and make sound decisions.

ScenarioA retail company has enjoyed significant growth in profit over the past year due to negotiating lower buying costs from its suppliers. The organization wishes to reinvest some of this profit to fund a program of change to optimize the use of IT services. They hope this will support revenue growth in the next financial year whilst maintaining profitability.The program consists of two main initiatives:An expansion of the on-line retailing services to offer more functionalityEnhancement of the marketing service to allow greater targeting of promotional offers.There are various options for providing these services that involve use of the current infrastructure or the new virtualization technology, which is slowly being deployed across the organization. The board of directors wishes to conduct a financial review over the next 3 months to compare the cost of providing each service. Projected business revenues will allow the return on investment (ROI) of each option to be calculated. This review will provide an input to the IT organization’s service portfolio management process, allowing the various investment options to be considered and an informed decision to be made.The organization has a good appreciation of its IT costs along with a mature service catalogue and configuration management system (CMS).Refer to the Scenario.Which one of the following options would be the BEST approach to providing the information for the financial review of the service options?

• Appoint an IT finance manager to implement budgeting and accounting for IT services.Create a cost model that takes into account direct and indirect costs, as well as fixed and variable costs.Use the cost model to calculate the cost of providing the IT services and provide the information to service portfolio management (SPM).
• Produce a summary of current costs, apportioning all costs directly to the appropriate service.Any investment in virtualization or new infrastructure should be shared equally between the two services.This creates a baseline for comparison with the anticipated business revenues and ROI that will enable a business case to be developed for each option.
• Produce a summary of current costs, recognizing that the resources are shared across services.Use service level agreements to understand how the services are used and create a model for the services, ensuring that both current and projected costs are shared appropriately.These costs can then be compared with the cost of outsourcing the service and with the anticipated business revenue.
• Produce a summary of current costs, recognizing that the resources are shared across services.
• The various options for providing the service, including those requiring investment in new infrastructure, can then be costed. Using the projected revenues supplied, a calculation can establish
• the ROI for each option.
• These costs and ROI for each option can then be compared through the service portfolio management process and used as an input to develop a business case for the most advantageous options.

ScenarioA company provides an internet-based gift delivery service which is highly dependent upon IT services provided by the internal IT organization. A year ago the customer payments service that supports the gift ordering website regularly experienced poor availability. The organization hired a service management consultant to assess why the IT services were performing poorly and to rectify the situation.As part of the solution, the consultant implemented service level management and adopted the role of interim service level manager. Service level agreements were negotiated with the business and agreed. The necessary underpinning agreements were negotiated and put in place. Regular monitoring and reporting was implemented. Monthly service review meetings with the business unit managers were established to discuss IT service performance and any issues and improvements. Within a year of the start of the initiative the gift ordering website IT service was performing at 98.7% availability, a significant improvement.This month's service review meeting was attended by the chief executive officer (CEO) after concerns were expressed about the most recent availability figure for the customer payments service, which was 94%. This covered the period which included one of the traditionally most popular gift ordering times. The consultant stated that the poor availability was almost entirely due to an incident that occurred during one of the busiest periods and. as a result, the overall monthly availability percentage was low. Initial investigation has shown that the service desk used the SLA to designate the incident as a 'Priority 2'. This was however lower than the 'Priority 1" the business believed the incident should have been. The subsequent delay in restoration of the service meant some customer orders were lost.The CEO reminded the consultant that a repeat of such an incident would not only have a major effect on monthly revenues but also seriously affect the company's reputation. The consultant agreed that this was unacceptable and committed to review this issue and report back to the CEO. Refer to Scenario

• The SLM should agree with the business managers to set up a service improvement plan (SIP) to address the issue. Differing views relating to the cause of the low availability mean it should be investigated thoroughly to establish whether the slow restoration of service was due to a lack of understanding by the service desk, incorrect service level targets in the SLA or simply that, owing to the type of failure, restoration was always going to take that length of time. Appropriate action can then be taken to rectify the issue.
• The issue is with the service desk and its incorrect interpretation of the SLA and failure to escalate the issues. The SLM should agree to set up a SIP for the service desk. The operational level agreement (OLA) with the service desk should be reviewed to ensure that it underpins the SLAs. The SIP should include the retraining of the service desk staff. A complete review of the service desk tools should ensure that they can be used to prioritize incidents correctly by passing through targets agreed into the priority matrix of the toolset.
• The issue is clearly a breakdown in understanding regarding the critical business periods and the matching of these to the availability targets in the SLAs. The SLM should agree with the business managers to set up a SIP to investigate the issue. The SLAs should be reviewed with the business to ensure that they match with the business needs and, if necessary are updated. Review and update any underpinning agreements as necessary to ensure that they support the targets in the SLAs.
• The SLM should conduct an investigation by reviewing incidents and problems. Ask the IT service desk and support staff what ideas they have to resolve the issue. Review the impact on all other SLAs. OLAs contracts and procedures. Review the maturity associated with the service level management process and take steps to improve this process if necessary. Create a SIP with an associated business case for presentation to the chief executive officer (CEO).

ScenarioA large, privately owned company has an internal IT organization that runs most of its IT operations from the head office. There has been a history of confusion about what is required from the services and what has actually been achieved, particularly from a warranty perspective. This has resulted in a strained relationship between the business units and the IT organization.Some service-based agreements exist between IT and the customers, where all levels of response to incidents were set to the same targets. Availability targets have not been reviewed for at least two years. There have been a number of complaints by key customers claiming that the IT staff have been resolving incidents and implementing change requests based on operational ease rather than business priority. This is despite operationally robust processes being in place for incident, change and problem management.A plan has been put in place to improve the level of the IT service delivered to the organization. Retirement of the post-holder meant that the first action was to appoint a new IT director. The opportunity was taken to select a candidate from an external organization, who was committed to the ITIL framework. The new IT director believes that good IT service management practices are essential.The IT director plans to implement many of the service management processes and has already overseen the creation of a basic service catalogue. The IT director is sure that many of the current issues can be rectified through the implementation of service level management (SLM) and has therefore directed that service level agreements (SLA) be introduced for the services provided before moving onto other areas. You have been asked to lead the project to establish SLAs for the IT services.Refer to the Scenario.Which one of the following sequence of activities would be the BEST approach to establishing service levels agreements (SLA) in the organization?

• Identify all of the services currently delivered using the service catalogue.Define a primarily customer-based approach to implementing service levels agreements (SLAs). Using a pre-prepared pro-forma service level requirements (SLR) template, meet with the appropriate customer representatives to discuss and document their service level requirements.Arrange meetings with the appropriate IT teams, specifically those involved in incident, availability and capacity management, to discuss, document and agree the levels of service required.Draft agreements from these discussions are then reviewed by service operations to ensure that no existing agreements will be compromised and, once this has been confirmed, theSLA is formally reviewed, agreed, and signed by both the customer and IT.The service level targets are then formally communicated, monitored, reported upon and reviewedat the agreed intervals.
• Identify all the services currently delivered using the service catalogue.Define a primarily service-based approach to implementing service level agreements.Using the service templates already in use, meet with the appropriate customer representatives and, after discussion, produce formal SLRs which document the levels of service that the customer needs. Arrange meetings with the appropriate IT teams, specifically those involved in incident, availability and capacity management, to discuss, document and communicate the levels of service required.From these discussions operational level agreements (OLAs) are then produced.The SLRs and OLAs can be formally monitored, reported upon and reviewed at the agreed intervals.
• Meet with the IT operations team, specifically, those involved in incident, availability and capacity management, to define what level of service they can offer to the business against each service in the service catalogue.Meet with the appropriate customer representatives to give them a clear understanding of the levels of service IT can offer.Produce and agree an SLA and ensure it is signed by representatives of both parties. Document and agree OLAs with the service operation teams.Ensure all parties understand their responsibilities and enforce penalties for non-compliance.Once both agreements have been signed, all service level targets are then formally monitored and reviewed.
• Identify all of the services currently delivered using the service catalogue.
• Define a primarily service-based approach to implementing service level agreements.
• Meet with the appropriate business representatives and, after discussion, produce a formal SLA that guarantees the levels of service that the business needs.
• Arrange meetings with the appropriate IT teams, specifically those involved in incident, availability and capacity management, to inform them of the service levels you have agreed
• Document and agree OLAs with the service operation teams.
• Once these are agreed and signed the OLAs are passed back to the business to demonstrate that IT will support the SLA and to build upon the trust between the two parties.

ScenarioA financial services organization has undergone a period of rapid expansion. From its operating base it has expanded to serve customers in over 25 countries spread around the globe. There are plans to enter more markets in the next 12 months.The key stakeholders involved in the global expansion project have briefed the chief information officer (CIO) on the plans. They have identified IT service performance as one of the major threats to the plan. The CIO has been under pressure from the board due to poor IT service performance in the previous six months. The chief concern has been significant performance variations in network connectivity and communications.The organization currently has three contracts with different local external suppliers in operating markets supporting three IT network hubs. Whilst the suppliers are all happy to follow local internal IT processes, getting the three to work together on incidents or changes has proved increasingly difficult.A number of outages have resulted in a blame culture where even the local internal IT departments have been sympathetic to their service providers, resulting in strained relationships between these internal departments at an operational level.Other issues encountered at one or more locations have included:Long-term service improvements have been sacrificed in favour of short-term fixes that avoid the payment of contract penalties by the suppliersChanges in ownership of the customer relationship by the suppliersThe CIO believes that a lack of communication between suppliers has been the key cause of failures. All three supplier contracts are due for renewal in the next 12 months. After consultation, a decision to re-tender for network services has been taken by IT, and approved by the CIO and the board of directors.Refer to the Scenario.When considering suppliers, which one of the following options would BEST ensure that network issues are addressed in order to meet the needs of the financial services organization?

• Consideration should be given to entering into a partnership with three local suppliers who have worked together before in similar circumstances. This will ensure both communication and local cultural differences are addressed.Supplier management should have a single, defined local point of ownership with responsibility granted for operational management of issues.The threat of contractual penalties should be removed to encourage suppliers to think longer term about sustainable service improvements.Suppliers will commit to the use of local IT processes to ensure compliance and good communication.Suppliers are to ensure that staff engaged in the contract (in particular the account managers and customer service managers) are fully ITIL trained so they understand and can implement service management best practice disciplines.
• Consideration should be given to entering into a partnership with a single supplier where mutual trust and a good relationship can be established.Supplier management should have a single, defined point of ownership within each country to manage all local operational issues.A risk-reward framework should be mapped out as an incentive for the supplier to solve local issues. A strategic alignment should be sought with the supplier where values, goals and cultural fit are similar to that of the financial services organization.The supplier should set up its own dedicated global account management team to deal with transition and on-going issues by working with local IT support teams.
• Consideration should be given to entering into a partnership with a single supplier where mutual trust and a good relationship can be established.Supplier management should have a single, defined point of ownership with local responsibility granted for operational management of issues.A long-term, risk-reward framework should be mapped out to encourage the supplier to work towards sustainable service improvements instead of shorter-term quick fixes.A strategic alignment should be sought with the supplier where values, goals and cultural fit are similar to that of the financial services organization.Implementation of a joint partnership team to initially ensure a smooth transition of the service to the new supplier and to subsequently manage on-going service improvement.
• Consideration should be given to re-contracting with the three current local suppliers. There is no suggestion that they are technically incompetent; it appears to be communication and local cultural differences that cause problems.
• Supplier management should have a single, defined local point of ownership with responsibility granted for operational management of issues.
• The threat of contractual penalties should be removed to encourage suppliers to think longer term about sustainable service improvements.
• Communication issues should be addressed by ensuring all incidents are reported to a single global
• service desk that the financial institution should implement.
• Suppliers are to ensure that staff engaged in the contract (in particular the account managers and customer service managers) are fully ITIL trained so they understand and can implement service management best practice disciplines.

ScenarioAn IT security company provides secure data services to many large financial organizations in several countries. The company has an administrative headquarters in its home country and a data centre in each country of operation.Each data centre obtains support for services from third-party contracts provided by a number of suppliers. All supporting services are scoped and documented, and are aligned to the corporate strategy and the regulations in force in each country. The security services company maintains and regularly reviews a preferred supplier list from which suppliers are selected as required.A service desk function is provided by one of the suppliers. Over the last 10 years, a strong relationship has been built up with the supplier based on the high-quality, consistent service they have provided. The nature of the financial business requires the service desk contract to contain severe penalty clauses that can be enforced if the agreed service levels are not maintained, although these have never been required.A number of complaints have been received from a new banking customer highlighting that, over the previous three months, the level of service provided by the service desk in the management andhandling of incidents has been inconsistent, and many incidents have not been resolved in line with agreed targets.The IT security company has a service level manager who has performed the role for many years. Recently, a new supplier management process was implemented and a supplier manager appointed. Some confusion has arisen over how, and by whom, the recent complaints should be dealt with.Refer to the Scenario.You have been asked to resolve the confusion over the service level manager and supplier manager roles. Which one of the following options BEST represents the correct division of responsibilities and will also address the current complaints regarding the service desk supplier?

• Service level manager: Apologize to the customer and compensate them financially for the poor service levels. Assure them that, under the terms and conditions of the contract, a review with the service desk will be carried out and that the supplier will be strictly monitored against agreed targets and penalties imposed, potentially leading to contract termination.Carry out a risk analysis of the supplier and their contract.Supplier manager: Log the complaints. Set up a review of the supplier and the service desk function. Invoke the contract’s penalty clause to recover compensation from the supplier. Increase the supplier’s risk rating. Initiate a service improvement plan in conjunction with continual service improvement.
• Service level manager: Log the complaints. Inform the customer that the complaints will be reviewed as a matter of urgency. Collect evidence of failures and pass to the supplier manager. Ensure that the complaints are dealt with efficiently and effectively and improvements are initiated where appropriate. Keep the customer informed of both progress and outcome.Supplier manager: Arrange a meeting with service desk supplier to investigate the complaints. Review performance of the supplier for all the services they deliver to the company’s customers. Report findings back to service level manager.
• Service level manager: Log the complaints. Inform the customer that the complaints will be discussed with the supplier at the next scheduled review meeting. Assure the customer that the contractual disputes process will be invoked to ensure that the complaints are dealt with in an efficient and effective manner. Inform the customer of the actions taken.Supplier manager: Discuss the complaints with the supplier at the next review meetingInitiate the dispute process with the supplier. Carry out a risk analysis of the supplier and their contract.
• Service level manager: Inform the customer that the complaints will be reviewed as a matter of urgency. Assure the customer that a disputes process is in place to ensure that the complaints are dealt with in an efficient and effective manner. Inform the customer that they will be updated on the outcome. Review performance of the supplier for all the services they deliver to the company’s customers.
• Supplier manager: Log the complaints. Quickly arrange a meeting with service desk supplier to investigate the complaints. If necessary, initiate the dispute process.

Refer to ScenarioAn IT services company has been providing hosted and managed IT services to a number of major customers for over 20 years. It has invested heavily in ITIL-based service management processes over the last five years, which has resulted in an increase in the quality of the IT services and an increase in customer satisfaction with the services. This activity has led to a significant growth in the number of customers that the company serves.The company has implemented all of the service design, service transition and service operation processes to some extent, and is now developing other processes based on ITIL service strategy. As a result of this latest activity they have recognized that their existing service management tool is limited in its ability to support several existing processes, and all of the planned new ones. The supplier of the existing tool is reducing its investment in future development of the tool and is, therefore, unwilling to commit to any additional new facilities or functionality. This has now become an issue for the company and, as a result, they are looking to replace the existing tool with a more comprehensive alternative.The company plans to develop a requirements specification for the replacement tool and is redwing the areas that need to be considered, including its deployment throughout the organization. The budget for the new tool is limited, therefore it is essential that the new tool can be implemented and used as quickly as possible in order to obtain maximum return on investment (ROI).Which one of the following options provides the BEST description of the areas that should be addressed by the requirements specification for the new tool?

• The usability and functionality of the new toolThe ability to customize the tool to the organization's requirementsThe planned use of the tool within the organization, together with the number of customers and users of the services and their geographical locationsThe plans for the deployment and the associated documentation needed for the tool.
• The utility and warranty of the new toolThe conformance of the tool to international open standardsThe planned use of the tool within the organization, together with the type and number of licenses required for its deploymentThe timing of the deployment and the associated tool training and education.
• The utility and warranty, and service acceptance criteria of the new tool The ability to customize the tool to the organization's requirementsThe number of potential users of the tool together with the number of licenses and their geographical locations required for its deploymentThe timing of the deployment and the associated tool documentation.
• The utility and warranty, and service acceptance criteria of the new tool
• The ability to migrate data from existing tools and to integrate with other tools
• The planned use of the tool within the organization, together with the type and number of licenses
• required for its deployment
• The type and timing of the deployment and the associated tool training and education.

ScenarioThe IT organization of a manufacturing company is carrying out an annual review of its service portfolio. There is limited budget available for the next year and some projects may be delayed or cancelled. The company has control of most of its IT services, however some are mandated by the company's corporate owners.The following services are under review:Service 1: Web ordering service. This is a new service that will enable the company to fulfill its strategy to sell products on-line and increase its customer base by 20%. Only high-level business requirements have been established so far but. if the project goes ahead, the system will be provided by a supplier using standard applications and technology. A business case has been created which shows the ratio of value-to-cost to be much greater than one.Service 2: Sales office service. The service has grown from a number of separate applications that have been combined into one suite. The technical solution for each application is similar but some use different versions of the same operating system. The applications themselves provide the required utility and support their business outcomes well. There is some overlap in functionality across the set of applications contained in the service suite.Service 3: Finance reporting service. The service is used by the finance department to create statutory reports to fulfill legal obligations. The service is hosted on a legacy system. The cost of supporting the service is increasing gradually and the return obtained from the service is decreasing. Eventually the service will be replaced by the new enterprise resource planning (ERP) service. It is projected that, over the next two years, the ratio of value-to-cost will drop to less than one.Service 4: This is a new ERP service that is being implemented across all companies in thecorporate group. It will eventually replace many existing services including the finance reporting service. The service has been approved and chartered, and has a current status of "design". A large number of assets have been allocated to this project. As this service is mandated by the corporate owners, no further decision is required.Refer to Scenario:As part of the service portfolio management team you have been asked to recommend whether investments should be made in these services in the next year.Which of the following options is the BEST set of decisions to make for the services?

• Service 1 - invest. Charter the service and set up a service design projectService 2 - replace. Set up project to replace the set of applications with a single application designed to support the business outcomesService 3 - retire. Mark the service for retirement and set up a retirement project. This will make best use of resources and ensure that information is migrated to the ERP service.
• Service 1 - promote to the service catalogue, project Service 2 - retain. Keep the service and supportService 3 - delay decision. It is likely that this project will use assets that will be allocated review. Allocate resources to the transition stage of the it in its current form service will be retired, but not yet. The retirement elsewhere this year. Reconsider at next annual
• Service 1 - invest. Charter the service and set up a service design projectService 2 - rationalize. Set up a project to identify the best way of retaining the support of the business outcomes but eliminating the duplication of functionality and supporting components Service 3 - delay decision. It is likely that this service will be retired, but not yet. The retirement project will use assets that will be allocated elsewhere this year. Reconsider at next annual review.
• Service 1 - promote to the service catalogue. Allocate resources to the transition stage of the project
• Service 2 – re-factor. Set up project to redesign the applications to concentrate on the core functionality of the service
• Service 3 - retain. As the service is needed to fulfill legal and statutory compliance it should be retained.

ScenarioA clothing manufacturer has made a decision to supplement factory-based retail outlets by opening a series of stores at out-of-town shopping malls.The internal IT organization provides support to many mission-critical business systems for both the manufacturing and retail operations. It must increase its portfolio of services and service options to meet the planned new expansion. Typically, the business is subject to seasonal patterns of demand, which recently have begun to exceed the capability of some of the IT services. This has led to periods of poor performance of some of the critical systems and therefore to degraded service quality. In periods of minimal demand, there is a surplus of capacity and performance is optimal.There is concern that the additional business demand from the new stores will exacerbate these service performance issues.The board of directors, made up of representatives from each business unit, has asked for a review of the business supply and demand issues currently being faced by the IT organization. Many service management processes have been implemented including service portfolio management and capacity management. However, IT does not have a demand management process.Additionally, performance levels on many of the supporting services have remained unchanged for the past 3 years, even though some may now be less relevant to the overall performance of the critical services.Refer to the Scenario.The review of the supply and demand issues concluded that the implementation of a demand management process could help the IT organization address the issues. Which one of the following options provides the BEST solution to both the problems currently being faced and those related to the proposed expansion?

• The service portfolio should be reviewed and an analysis carried out of each business unit’s requirements in order to understand their patterns of business activity (PBA) and correspondingusage of the IT services.Differentiated service offerings should be developed to match PBA; this will make better use of available IT resources. Supporting service performance targets should be amended to reflect these changes.Work with business relationship management and capacity management to develop long term plans to meet the extra demand resulting from the company’s expansion plans.
• An analysis should be carried out of each business unit’s patterns of business activity (PBA), and appropriate services for each business unit selected from the service catalogue.In conjunction with the finance department, a revised cost model should be introduced to allow for the fluctuation in usage and costs.Differential charging should be introduced to address the issues of service quality.
• The service portfolio should be reviewed and an analysis carried out of each business unit’s requirements to understand their current usage of the IT services and where seasonal variations lead to fluctuations in usage.Discussions should take place with the business units to impose limits within specific time periods for each business unit’s usage of IT services.Work with business relationship management and capacity management to develop long term plans to meet the extra demand resulting from the company’s expansion plans.
• The service portfolio should be reviewed and the business unit’s cumulative service usage should be reviewed, monitored and analyzed.
• Work with the business to develop short-term measures to manage demand for the IT services, such as delayed or batch processing of retail transactions.
• Service levels should be reviewed to take into account changes to supporting service performance targets and, where applicable, agreements should be updated through change management.

ScenarioAn internet banking organization plans to expand operations outside of its current market. Whilst the exact details have yet to be established, it is clear that the IT organization must expand its service offerings within the current portfolio in order to support this growth. It is equally apparent that external customer needs for banking will vary from market to market and that consequently this will require development of completely new service offerings.You are the head of service within the IT organization. You helped the organization adopt the ITIL framework some years ago and now have most processes in place. Service owners are allocated for the main IT services. Mature service portfolio, service catalogue and service level management processes are in place.The expansion requires ownership of a business relationship management process and you are considering the role profile for this post.Refer to the Scenario.Which one of the following options provides the BEST overview of the business relationship manager’s (BRM) responsibilities which will be key to support the expansion?

• The BRM will engage actively with the customers, gain a good insight into their business and plans, and develop a strong working relationship. The BRM will work closely with the customer to understand the value proposition of any new IT services that will be required to support the expansion program. The BRM will liaise with the service level manager and service owners to develop the designs of any new IT services, thereby creating value for both parties. The BRM will ensure customer expectations of new services do not exceed what they have agreed to pay for.
• The BRM will engage actively with the customers, gain a good insight into their business and plans, and develop a strong working relationship. The BRM will identify the business requirements associated with the expansion program especially concentrating on gaining a clear understanding of business outcomes and business drivers. The BRM will liaise with the service portfolio manager to understand how the business outcomes can be supported by IT services, and, where possible, create new services and service offerings for inclusion in the service catalogue. It is key that the BRMunderstands how changes to the customer environment in different operating markets might affect the delivery of services.
• The BRM will engage actively with the customers, gain their trust, and help them develop their business area. This would help both the IT organization and the company become more successful. If the BRM commits time and energy, it should be possible to improve the IT services quickly to meet the needs of the expansion program and therefore achieve the business objectives. The BRM should take responsibility for the services and their development, while the service level manager will take responsibility for customer liaison. The BRM will take ultimate responsibility for ensuring the customer needs are met by the service provider by managing any third parties in the emerging markets.
• The BRM will have primary responsibility for engaging actively with the customers. They should develop a mutual understanding with the customers and have a good working knowledge of their business. The BRM would also work closely with the service owners to understand the profile and usage of the IT services, to help develop the IT services and to create a new service catalogue for the new markets. The BRM will articulate service provider business requirement to the customer to prevent them asking for services that would involve them paying more for the IT service they receive.