When one undertakes a benchmarking study, it is quite typical to collect performance data on a set of business processes from a variety of organizations. While one can compare efficiency on a process-by-process level, how can one compare the overall efficiency of one organization versus another...

This paper develops methods to compute performance measures in a specific type of loss system with multiple classes of customers sharing the same processor. Such systems arise in the modeling of a call center, where the performance measures of interest are blocking the probability of a call and...

Throughout the financial services industry, the call center is being recognized as a critical delivery channel, helping firms to keep existing customers, expand their business, and control costs. For banks, call centers provide a cost effective means of servicing in customer requests, and are...

Financial services comprise over 4 percent of the gross domestic product of the United States and employ over 5.4 million people. By offering vehicles for investment of savings, extension of credit and risk management, they fuel the modern capitalistic society.<p> <p>While the essential functions...</p></p>

Customers’ participation in service co-production processes has been increasing with the rapid development of self-service technologies and business models that rely on self-service as the main service delivery channel. However, little is known about how the level of participation of customers...

The financial sector is one of the most, if not the most significant economic sector in modern societies. In advanced countries, it employs more people than major manufacturing industries combined and accounts for a high percentage of the Gross Domestic Product. But the financial services sector...

There has been much debate on whether or not the investment in Information Technology (IT) provides improvements in productivity and business efficiency. Several studies both at the industry-level and at the firm-level have contributed differing understandings of this phenomenon. Of late,...

Andersen and Petersen (1993) presented an extension of the basic DEA methodology, called modified DEA, which has the desirable feature of ranking not only the inefficient DMUs, but the e ficient ones as well. However, when their basic approach is extended to the cases of variable returns to...

This paper studies competition between two firms that service time sensitive customers. Customers choose firms based on the firms' prices, the firms' expected waiting and service times, and the firms' brands. The firms may choose diverse strategies: one could choose a high price, but serve...