A large volume of data relating to the service quality is collected as part of the service delivery and monitoring. The majority of this information is used internally by IT. Only a small portion is of relevance to the business. The business requires the service provider to produce a comparison with previous reporting periods and to rework incidents.

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The task therefore is not only to show whether or not SLAs have been adhered to but instead to provide a binding report which shows:

• what has happened,
• what action was subsequently taken,
• and what is being done to ensure that in future these incidents will no longer impact on the business.

An ideal approach to the implementation of a business-focused service reporting is to take the time to define and agree the guidelines and rules with the business and the service design. This includes:

• The target groups and their business views.
• Agreement on what is to be measured and to whom the report is to be sent.
• Basis for all calculations.
• Reporting times.
• Access to the reports and the delivery medium.
• Review meetings for improving the service report. 

Consequently, reports can be drawn up in such a way that they either look at the service results, process quality or individual functions.