Performance Management of IT Services Delivery

Many applications involve resource allocation problems (RAPs) in which different types of resources are used to provide service to various classes of customers at certain time epochs, else the opportunity to serve the customer is lost. Stochastic loss networks (SLNs) are often used to capture the dynamics and uncertainty of this class of RAPs. Examples include applications in telephony and information technology (IT) networks [13, 18]. Another emerging application is workforce management, and in particular managing the performance of services operations. With the growth of the services sector over the past 50 years, the ability to manage human resources and skills more effectively and efficiently continues to be the critical driver of success for any services company. This is particularly true for IT service providers who typically offer a broad range of service products, each requiring resources with certain capabilities, in markets characterized by highly volatile and uncertain customer demands. Hence, services companies seek innovative solutions to better manage and plan their per-class resource capacity levels in a way that will maximize business performance.