ITILSC-SOA ITIL Service Capability Service Offerings and Agreements Exam

The Service Offerings and Agreements (SOA) module is one of the certifications in the ITIL® Service Capability work stream. The module focuses on the practical application of SOA practices in order to enable portfolio, service level, service catalogue, demand, supplier and financial management.

The content of the course is based mainly on the best practice guidance contained in the ITIL Service Strategy and ITIL Service Design publications.

The SOA course is designed to help organizations and individuals understand how the five stages of the ITIL lifecycle (service strategy, service design, service transition, service operation and continual service improvement) can offer value to organizations and projects. It also provides guidance on how service offerings can be developed to support both business and user needs.
ITIL Credit System

Under the ITIL Credit System, you must earn a number of credits from each ITIL qualification to progress to the next level within the ITIL scheme.

The SOA module is worth four credits towards the minimum of 17 required to progress to the Managing Across the Lifecycle module, which is the final step before the ITIL Expert Level.

Credits obtained from the SOA qualification may not be combined with the credits obtained from the IPAD Practitioner module towards an ITIL Expert Level application due to the high level of content overlap. See the ITIL Credit System page for more information.

The Service Offerings and Agreements certification would suit candidates in the following IT professions or areas:
IT Management
IT Finance Manager
Capacity Manager
Availability Manager
Service Level Manager
Business Continuity Manager
Service Portfolio Manager
Supplier Relationship Manager.

This list is a guide only, and choices will depend on the candidate’s individual career goals and objectives. To learn more about roles in IT service management (ITSM) and the skills they require, see our Career Path tool.

ITIL Intermediate Navigator tool
To find out what other ITIL Intermediate modules could complement this certification and teach skills relevant to these job roles, use our ITIL Intermediate Navigator tool.
Service Offerings and Agreements Examination

The exam format is as follows:
Multiple choice examination questions
Eight questions per paper
28 marks required to pass (out of 40 available) – 70%
90 minutes’ duration
Closed book.

The Service Offerings and Agreements certification can only be taken as part of an accredited training course.

Use our Certified Partner search below to find a training provider in your area.

QUESTION 1
Scenario
A retail company has enjoyed significant growth in profit over the past year due to negotiating lower buying
costs from its suppliers. The organization wishes to reinvest some of this profit to fund a program of change to
optimize the use of IT services. They hope this will support revenue growth in the next financial year whilst maintaining profitability.
The program consists of two main initiatives:

An expansion of the on-line retailing services to offer more functionality
Enhancement of the marketing service to allow greater targeting of promotional offers.
There are various options for providing these services that involve use of the current infrastructure or the new
virtualization technology, which is slowly being deployed across the organization. The board of directors
wishes to conduct a financial review over the next 3 months to compare the cost of providing each service.
Projected business revenues will allow the return on investment (ROI) of each option to be calculated. This
review will provide an input to the IT organization’s service portfolio management process, allowing the various
investment options to be considered and an informed decision to be made.
The organization has a good appreciation of its IT costs along with a mature service catalogue and configuration management system (CMS).

Refer to the Scenario.
Which one of the following options would be the BEST approach to providing the information for the financial review of the service options?

A. Appoint an IT finance manager to implement budgeting and accounting for IT services.
Create a cost model that takes into account direct and indirect costs, as well as fixed and variable costs.
Use the cost model to calculate the cost of providing the IT services and provide the information to service portfolio management (SPM).

B. Produce a summary of current costs, apportioning all costs directly to the appropriate service.
Any investment in virtualization or new infrastructure should be shared equally between the two services.
This creates a baseline for comparison with the anticipated business revenues and ROI that will enable a business case to be developed for each option.

C. Produce a summary of current costs, recognizing that the resources are shared across services.
Use service level agreements to understand how the services are used and create a model for the
services, ensuring that both current and projected costs are shared appropriately.
These costs can then be compared with the cost of outsourcing the service and with the anticipated business revenue.

D. Produce a summary of current costs, recognizing that the resources are shared across services.
The various options for providing the service, including those requiring investment in new infrastructure,
can then be costed. Using the projected revenues supplied, a calculation can establish the ROI for each option.
These costs and ROI for each option can then be compared through the service portfolio management
process and used as an input to develop a business case for the most advantageous options.

Correct Answer: D