Abstract
There are many industries like the Business Process Outsourcing companies or industries where the operations involve receiving transaction/requests from clients and addressing them within a stipulated time. A common problem that is faced by these industries is that of planning and managing the agents/associates who receive the calls and address them. It turns out that this problem is too complex to handle manually without the aid of a software solution. A software tool that acts like decision support systems is badly required for routine decision making for this kind of problems. This work has evolved from one such requirement from an Information Technology Enabling Services (ITES) industry where the management found it very difficult to plan and manage effectively their human resources. Following a scientific approach, the company’s problem is formulated as an integer-linear programming problem and a software tool is developed to aid the management. The tool is Excel based, simple to use and can be effectively deployed as a decision support system. The tool is applied to various projects using past data to evaluate and compare different types of solutions. Based on the analysis, a useful metric is proposed to assess the management decisions for managing the human resources. The primary objective of this work is to promote business excellence through scientifically designed low cost solutions for the industries related to BPO and ITES.
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Acknowledgements
This study was carried out for a multinational company based in Hyderabad. Mr. Mahesh Giri, a senior executive from this company, initiated this study as a part of his course requirement at the Indian Statistical Institute, Hyderabad. He played a very active role in undertaking and carrying out this study, development of the software and getting it implemented in the company.
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Murthy, G.S.R. (2015). A Scientific Tool for Workforce Management in BPO Companies. In: Applications of Operations Research and Management Science. International Series in Operations Research & Management Science, vol 229. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-17921-6_6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-17921-6_6
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