1.1. Background

When we set out to develop an integrated service delivery (ISD) model to support a global distributed environment, little did we realize that the real power would be unleashed through tight integration, both from a services portfolio perspective as well as organizationally. It was only when we had finished defining our "customer requirements" and "benchmarking" (really more comparing and sharing than benchmarking), that we fully understood the keys to operational success.

We found that organizations, whether they were outsourced or not, were all experiencing similar trends: sagging levels of service (LOS) and rapidly increasing costs, both resulting in customer satisfaction woes. A common theme became fast apparent: the speed at which the business moved to a distributed environment, and associated application set, far outpaced the ability to manage them effectively, (see Figure 1-1).