Preparing Effective Service Level Agreements (SLAs)

Learn how to draft service level agreements that benefit all parties to a transaction.

Business teams and their attorneys often face uphill challenges with establishing, reviewing, negotiating, implementing, and monitoring service level agreements effectively. There is often little upfront attention to the business objectives that should set the basis for service level requirements at the outset of a relationship and, too often, customers in technology and outsourcing relationships rely on a provider's standard or proposed service levels, rather than defining the business needs at the outset of the relationship and establishing service levels to meet those needs. This topic will help the teams responsible for establishing and managing commercial relationships with approaching the upfront requirements analysis that leads to effective service levels and will provide strategies for these teams to implement ongoing management and monitoring of service levels and commercial relationships. The material will provide clarity and guidance on what relationships merit service level agreements, when to scale service levels based on the type of services, and how to effectively identify, draft, negotiate, implement, and monitor service level agreements. As commercial relationships trend towards cloud technology and outsourced services, service level agreements of all types have become a core competency for general counsel and business teams. This material will provide these teams with a depth of understanding and practical tools to use service levels as a means of protecting the organization and providing additional value in commercial relationships.