Thiago Barroero

Aligning IT Service Levels and Business Performance: A Case Study

TSF is an Italian IT service company, focused on logistics and transportation IT market segments.. It is able to support customer’s business operations through a complex IT service chain, appraised by a Service Level Management (SLM) system. Due to the long term contractual relationship (10 years) with Italian Railways, TSF developed a symbiotic relationship with its main customer, becoming co-accountable for its business performance. This aspect has highlighted the necessity of the definition of an extended SLM model able to correlate the customer business performances with the delivered ICT service levels, in the perspective of an end-to-end service delivery chain. The paper illustrates the conceptual approach and the method adopted to overcome this problem in a pilot project.

Business Capabilities Centric Enterprise Architecture

In the field of Enterprise Architecture, The Open Group Architecture Framework (TOGAF) is a well known framework, that links Business Architecture, Data Architecture, Application Architecture, Technology. A key concept within Business Architecture domain is Business Capabilities, that are delivered by Business Component (BC). A BC is a business unit that encompasses a coherent set of activities, supported by assets including people, processes and technology. Current TOGAF version recognizes the BC requirements but misses how to bridge those requirements with a data, application and technology architecture. Defining the bridge is specifically the purpose of our extension called Business Capabilities Centric Enterprise Architecture (BCCE), where we adapt some TOGAF phases, extend the core TOGAF meta-model and add architectural contents. We have validated our approach on a telecommunication example taken from literature. A major benefit of the proposed extension is to link changes of business to data, application and technology architectures.

Service Level Analysis method - SLAM

We illustrate a conceptual framework for business oriented Service Level Management (SLM). Currently IT systems are complex objects that support business operations. To be meaningful, a control system should link business and IT performances. This need, though recognized by most IT management frameworks, is not specifically analyzed. Defining a methodology capable to identify this link is the purpose of our work. The proposed methodology identifies relevant IT systems supporting business activities. The key novelty is that the integration between business Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and IT systems KPIs is performed through a new uptake of Use Case approach. The paper illustrates the conceptual framework, the method and its use in a large transportation organization. The proposed approach has been successfully used by an organization.

Right Sizing Customer Care: An Approach for Sustainable Service Level Agreements

Call centers operational models size staff by balancing service quality and efficiency. Classic models consider only the case of dedicated staff. We propose a model for right sizing shared staff, thus extending the classical Erlang C by using the Gamma incomplete function. This model has a wider coverage and support flexible configurations as required by emerging markets and, furthermore, it enables transparent pricing against a certified service level.

IT Service Level Management: Practices in Large Organizations

We survey actual practices of IT SLM (Service Level Management) in large organizations. The survey is based on a comprehensive analysis framework, called ESLAM (Extended Service Level Analysis Model) that considers (a) service level variables, that are what SLM measures (b) service information system, that processes information on service level technology, and (c) service organization that defines roles and procedures to run SLM. The survey was based on face to face interviews to both IT intensive (Banks and Telcos) and non-intensive (as Railways) organizations and has considered also context variables, as size and organizational shape, to develop correlation analysis. The survey has identified key drivers of SLM maturity and shown that IT intensive organizations, as banks and telecommunications, develop a more mature SLM. Also SLM maturity is unrelated to organizational size.

Sustainable Service Level Agreements

Our paper provides a method to manage sustainable service levels in call centers. We defined a service level management process and a related capacity and workforce management that considers Erlang-A operational model for staffing levels. Based on such model, we compute the minimum sustainable price for a service contract based on the fixed service levels, and enable transparent pricing against a certified service level. The model has been implemented in a tool and are being tested in real call centers.

Design of Performance Aware Service Systems: A Conceptual Framework and a Case Study

We identify key elements of an ideal paradigm for service systems (SS): execution architecture, functional layers, execution dynamic and design approach. The critical service elements are (a) a control layer that enables the customer to compose, monitor and modify service and (b) compensation actions. To exemplify the distinctive characteristics of SS we consider the case of a travel control layer, that shows how the SS paradigm could be implemented even on the top of traditional architectures.)

Forecasting in Multi-skill Call Centers: A Multi-agent Multi-service (MAMS) Approach: Research in Progress

Workforce management is critical in call center business. Human resources are the highest cost, and therefore efficiency is a key success factor. On the other side relevant peaks of incoming calls have to be served. We here consider a complex case, with a many-to-many relationship between agents and services, i.e. the same agent serves many customers and the same customer may be served by many agents. In this perspective, we propose a model to forecast calls in long- and mid-term by ARIMA (Auto-Regressive Integrated Moving Average), and to size workforce in mid-term by integrating an Erlang model. Finally, we have developed a tool to forecast calls in a multi-agent multi-service call center. Field tests are running and first results validate our model.

General Enterprise Framework (GEF)

We present a technique in the domain of the business architecture of enterprises. It is called GEF (General Enterprise Framework) because it intends to be universal and to apply at whole enterprise. GEF is a grid where the activities of business processes are classified into five levels - Plan, Execute, Monitor, Control, Manage information. In an ideal situation, all levels are defined and computerized. By surveying the current situation, management can check to which extent the organizations business processes (a) cover levels (completeness) and (b) are ITsupported (computerization). This twofold assessment enables a fit-gap analysis and a maturity appraisal. The novelties of GEF are agility and universality, and also the completeness of the analysis. A test on real projects showed that GEF is easy and effective.

Higher Education Curricula for Services Science

A growing number of universities are offering curricula that are labeled as Services Sciences and/or Services Engineering or that are actually oriented to Services Sciences. We here review their contents, by a specific taxonomy of competences, founded on a Delphi research. A key of Services Sciences and/or Services Engineering curricula is the overlap between a service oriented concept of IT and the organizational analysis of business processes. To better exemplify a real world approach we analyze the case of University of Pavia that launched a Master of Science Curriculum in 2006. First in Europe, it integrates a strong background on enterprise systems with a practice of a model driven approach to the design and implementation of business processes and related IT services.