Performance modeling of service businesses

Business performance continues to be one of the principal subjects in enterprise operations. The evolution of the service economy brings renewed interest to the field of performance modeling. Senior managerial decision makers constantly seek to improve the performance of an organization. Key areas of interest are what aspects of the business are important for successful performance, and how best to control them, e.g., what investments, resource allocations, and other actions must they take to maximize business performance. Our ultimate goal is to develop quantitative models and associated methods or tools that will help high-level managers of services businesses improve their performance. We believe that most organizations could improve their understanding of what drives their performance by following a more rigorous methodology. In this paper, we explore the possibility of modeling performance through reviewing relevant work from several different technical areas and developing a preliminary approach based on our learning. © 2007 IEEE.