Activity-based Demand Management

Business process es are the primary source of demand for services. Patterns of business activity (PBA) influence the demand patterns seen by the service providers (Figure 5.23). It is very important to study the customer’s business to identify, analyse and codify such patterns to provide sufficient basis for Capacity Management. Visualize the customer’s business activity and plans in terms of the demand for supporting service s.

Figure 5.23 Business activity influences patterns of demand for services

For example, the fulfilment of a purchase order (business activity) may result in a set of requests (demand) generated by the order-to-cash process (business process of customer). Analysing and tracking the activity patterns of the business process makes it possible to predict demand for services in the catalogue that support the process. It is also possible to predict demand for underlying service asset s that support those services. Every additional unit of demand generated by business activity is allocated to a unit of service capacity. Demand patterns occur at multiple levels. Activity -based Demand Management can daisy-chain demand patterns to ensure that the business plans of customers are synchronized with the service management plans of the service provider (Figure 5.24).

Figure 5.24 Example of activity-based Demand Management

If a business plan calls for the allocation of human resource s, the addition of an employee can be translated into additional demand for the Service Desk function in terms of service request s and service incident s. Similarly, new instances of business processes can be used as predictors of demand for the Service Demand in terms of incidents and requests. After validating the activity/demand model it is possible to make adjustments to account for variations such as new employees, changes to business processes, and technology upgrades on the customer’s side.

Some of the benefits for analysing PBA are in the form of inputs to service management functions and processes such as the following:

• Service Design can then optimize designs to suit demand patterns
• Service catalogue can map demand patterns to appropriate services
• Service portfolio management can approve investments in additional capacity, new services, or changes to services
• Service Operation can adjust allocation of resources and scheduling
• Service Operation can identify opportunities to consolidate demand by grouping closely matching demand patterns
• Financial Management can approve suitable incentives to influence demand

Дата добавления: 2015-11-14