Over the past decade, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation has sponsored a series of industry studies, the aim of which is to understand how technology and human resources practices blend together to create high-performance workplaces and competitive industries. This report summarizes the first year...

This paper presents a methodology that determines the role of design in calculating the efficiency of service delivery processes. The efficiency of these processes is determined by using a variation of frontier estimation (DEA-like) techniques. The methodology is then applied to a particular...

Call center operations in retail banking are undergoing a transition from being service-oriented centers to becoming sales-driven organizations. This paper explores the tradeoffs between service and sales in phone center operations and develops an analytical approach to quantify the costs and...

This paper presents a methodology which determines the role of design in calculating the efficiency of service delivery processes. The efficiency of these processes is determined by using a variation of frontier estimation (DEA-like) techniques. The methodology is then applied to a particular...

This paper presents a model for the study of operations at an inbound call center. The call center is modeled as a multi-class processor shared loss system, where the interacting effects of human, telecommunication and information technology resources are explicitly incorporated. Product form...

How does a retail bank innovate? Traditional innovation literature would suggest that organizations innovate by getting new and/or improved products to market. However, in a service, the product is the process. Thus, innovation in banking lies more in process and organizational changes than in...

This paper presents a consumer-based methodology for new product pricing and positioning in the face of price competition. The price competition is modelled as a Nash equilibrium for which two complementary approaches are employed: an analytical approach of duopoly provides qualitative insights...

I. Overview -- 1. Introduction -- 2. The Art and Science of Decision Making: The Analytic Hierarchy Process -- 3. Applications of the Analytic Hierarchy Process: A Categorized, Annotated Bibliography -- II. Recent Developments -- 4. Group Decision Making and the AHP -- 5. An Alternate Measure of...