Checklist Financial Analysis

ITIL Process: ITIL V3 Service Strategy - Financial Management

Checklist Category:: Checklists ITIL V3 Service Strategy

Source: Checklist "Service Portfolio" from the ITIL Process Map V3

The Financial Analysis is an important input to the Portfolio Management process. It contains information on the costs for providing services and provides insight into the profitability of services and customers.

The Financial Analysis typically contains the following information:

1. Service-focused analysis
   1. Costs for the provisioning of each service, itemized by cost types (e.g. licenses, material, labor)
      1. Direct costs (clearly attributable to a specific service)
      2. Indirect costs (shared among multiple services)
   2. Trends in the provisioning costs for services
   3. Variable cost dynamics
      1. Estimates of how costs will change in the case of
         1. Increasing service demand
         2. Decreasing service demand
      2. Thresholds of service demand which require the service provider to make significant investments
   4. Service Value Potential (estimate of the price a customer is prepared to pay for the services)
      1. Competing alternatives and their prices
      2. Value of the service provider’s comparative advantages (e.g. unique knowledge of the customers’ business processes, security concerns)
      3. Costs for switching to competing service offerings
   5. Profitability
      1. Actual revenues from each service
      2. Profit margins for each service
   6. Identification of financially unviable services
      1. What services are no longer provided efficiently relative to competing offers
      2. What services are provided to customers at a financial loss?
      3. What service risk becoming unprofitable because of declining demand?
2. Customer profitability
   1. Actual revenues from each customer
   2. Profits from each customer
3. Asset valuation
   1. Values of tangible service assets (infrastructure components)
   2. Estimates of the values of intangible assets (e.g. technical expertise, knowledge of the customers’ business processes)
4. Post-Program ROI (Return on Investment) Analysis: Assessment if financial objectives of past investments have been met
   1. Investment/ project
   2. Business case
   3. Budget spent
   4. Expected benefits
   5. Realized benefits