A service portfolio and a service catalog are often mistaken to be the same thing, but they are not so. However, what they do have in common is that they are important with regards to the growth and transformation of a company. Let’s take a look at how a service portfolio and a service catalog are different from each other.
Service portfolio
A service portfolio sketches out all the services that have been a part of the business at any point of time. It is no news that businesses often dabble with different niches and services during different parts of their timeline. A service portfolio helps to identify all these different services that were taken or are being taken up for consideration at some point of time.
So if you were to break down a service portfolio, it would include services that have been retired, services that are in function at present, and services that are cued in the pipeline. In case you are wondering how a service portfolio is useful, considering it has services that have become obsolete or have not even been rolled out yet, let us explain. A service portfolio gives you an overview of how the business has transformed over the years. Since it plots out all the different services offered by the company, it offers useful insight on what service ventures worked for the business and what did not. This in turn can help in driving future business decisions in the right direction.
Service catalog
A service catalog can be looked at as a subset of a service portfolio. As the name suggests, the catalog is something that can be presented to clients or customers. It includes a list of services that are currently up on offer for the business’ target audience. A service catalog also highlights the features, duration and cost of the services. A service catalog offers a clear-cut view of the current ventures, which can be used to evaluate the returns and resources of the individual services.
Service providers can also take decisions on the funds allocated to individual services depending on their corporate goals and motives. If a service is eating up a large part of funds or resources and not yielding results in the same proportion, then service owners/providers can take a call on whether or not it should be retired. The functioning gets easier when they have an overall view of all their services.
