Supply chain Issues in knowledge-based service industries: discussion

Abstract

Knowledge-based services represent the largest and fastest growing sector of economies world wide and human resources are important assets in knowledge-based firms. However, managing the capacity of human resources in these firms so as to meet the service level promised to customers has become a crucial issue. Traditional manpower planning models do not seem to capture the key characteristics of the knowledgebased service industry, and the human resource planning issues for this industry demand special attention. IIMB Management Review invited a panel of specialist practitioners and academics to discuss the issues surrounding the designing of optimal supply chains in services and developing appropriate contract mechanisms to help service firms align performance across service supply chains. The issues discussed by the panel included forecasting of human resource requirements, designing and managing bench, arriving at the right skill mix, capacity planning in globally dispersed service operations, new analytical models for human resource planning and service contracts.