nal SLA Figure 7.2 eTOM process flow. chain. The components are aggregated to form the measurable corresponding to the end-to-end service. By their nature, these SLAs are often not truly customer-focused as they are not written in terms that can be understood by the end-customer. The key users of these SLAs are the functions responsible for managing the service 4 Implementing Service Level Management Network-related Voice components Voicemail Handset Customer care Itemised billing Per second billing Handset replacement Insurance Non-network-related components Figure 7.3 Product components. components and for managing those components against agreed quality objectives. Other parts of the operator's business rely on internal SLAs: to drive improved efficiency for understanding the service delivery performance within the functions of the business. SLM is not restricted to network-based service components. Indeed, SLM is also be applied to non-network services, such as billing. As operators become more reliant on third parties to deliver services and content, it becomes important to implement SLAs with those suppliers and partners. The implementation of SLAs in this area will often improve the quality of content delivery. It will also enable the operator to pass some of the financial risk of service degrada- tion on to their third parties. These SLAs are similar to internal SLAs and form part of the end-to-end SLA. This may, however, have an impact on the accounting processes for paying for the content services. The final area that needs to be considered is the end-customer or external SLA. This is the type of SLA with which people are most familiar. In considering this area, the nature of the products sold to the customer must be taken into account. Although internally the focus may be on individual services, the offering to the customer tends to be a product comprising a number of services, both network and non-network. An example of a non-network service is maintenance or helpdesk support. Figure 7.3 shows the com