Alignment of contact center workforce management implementation with research and ITIL version 3

Abstract

The purpose of this research is to theoretically validate three contact center workforce management processes models against both the previous research and the ITIL framework version 3. The three models are about processes themselves, processes implementation, and processes and tools implementation together. The research has been conducted in a constructive way. First, the three models that have been used in real-life are described, the relevant ITIL and workforce management research are summarized, and the ITIL framework service lifecycle is explained on the level it is needed. Then, the models are first compared against the ITIL framework and then against the summarized research. The most important finding is that the three contact center workforce management processes models do follow ITIL guidelines. Also, the processes model is the most comprehensive contact center workforce management model available. Furthermore, although the research itself was not on focus, there were relative few pieces of research available about either ITIL version 3 or the contact center workforce management processes. In conclusion, the three contact center workforce management processes models can also be used in environments where ITIL has been implemented. Also, there needs to be more research done around the models presented here. Furthermore, there needs to be more research done on ITIL version 3 and on ITIL integrations. Finally, contact center workforce management field is also scarcely academically researched.