The advantages of the top-down approach can be significant. As a consultant, one of the common themes that I hear from clients (both business and IT) is that IT is not aligned with the business; the IT department has no idea what we (the business) really do. Conversely, in many cases the business has no transparency into IT. In other words, IT cannot provide the business with the metrics that can assist with establishing the IT value proposition. Business Service Management (or Business Services Management), if executed correctly can build the bridge between IT and the business. This is achieved by providing transparency into the services that the business depends on and IT having a greater understanding of the business. More importantly BSM can provide a more stable, cost-effective and robust service. For example, a transaction that is generated by a web order experiences a service interruption due to the web server being unavailable. The interruption impact could manifest itself as latency or an actual outage. In either case, BSM can provide IT with understanding of the criticality of the issue resulting in a more targeted and timely response. In addition, both executives and IT staff can have visibility of cost of the incident.