“With ServiceFlow we charge back services based on consumption and give business units control to drive more value from services.”
– Lincoln Little, Director of
Global BU Billing, Cummins Inc.

Service Financial Management Benefits

In many of today's hyper-competitive service delivery segments, retaining strong profit margins is an ongoing challenge. Service costs continue to represent an increasing portion of an organization's budgets. In this environment, those with the ability to effectively control and manage costs will enjoy a tremendous competitive edge.

Digital Fuel's ServiceFlow™ Service Financial Management (SFM) software provides service billing and chargeback capabilities that enable shared service centers to reduce costs, do sophisticated chargeback, improve forecasting, and much more.

By implementing and maintaining ServiceFlow SFM, shared service organizations stand to gain from a wide range of benefits. Service providers can reduce service costs by 7.5% and increase revenues by 10%, while enterprises can realize annual service budget savings of 10% and increase business value by 15%.

Improve Budgeting, Forecasting and Cost Control
Enable various groups within the service provider organization to collaboratively develop budgets based on more granular, dependable data, improving accuracy and timeliness in financial reporting. With sophisticated billing, chargeback and reporting capabilities at their disposal, key decision makers have ready access to up-to-date reports on service cost status enabling them to identify areas of opportunity, and take steps to realize those opportunities more quickly.

Track and Manage Actual Service Cost versus Budget
Set up budgets for each customer based on the SLA, track actual service costs versus budget on an ongoing basis, and enable business units to be more proactive in managing service usage and derive the most business value from services received. With these capabilities, budgets can be established for each service offering, along with the ability to track actual spending versus budget by service line. By putting service cost visibility at the fingertips of service delivery teams, managers and executives, they will more effectively understand and manage costs, and ultimately realize better service results.

Differentiate with Standardized Service Offerings
Standardized service offerings with varied tiers of service levels and formalized prices will drive sales at a higher profit. Product innovation is accelerated by automating ways to apply best practices and lessons. Cost to serve is reduced through powerful capabilities for analyzing your cost structure, identifying potential areas for savings, and devising new, less expensive alternatives. Consequently, service offerings can be created with pricing that both better suits service buyer's needs and aids your organization in meeting profit targets.

Provide Usage-oriented Detail in Invoices
Cost allocation (or "chargeback") splits the overall service costs among business units that consume the services. By gaining more visibility and control of their consumption, business units can take actions necessary to ensure service usage meets business goals. The ServiceFlow SFM software provides the flexibility and granularity needed to match invoice detail to customer needs for effective allocation. Consequently, business unit leaders can be more accountable for the value the services deliver to their departments.

Manage Business Value and Profitability
Armed with granular cost information from ServiceFlow SFM, both by customer and by service lines delivered, shared services organizations can better manage the value they are delivering to the business. As a result, organizations can better leverage customers and services that are performing well, and proactively take steps to improve in areas where business value is weaker.