Skill-sets migration planning via Analytic Hierarchy Process

This paper discusses the experiences of applying Saaty’s Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) in planning evolving skill-sets requirements for a high-tech service company. The high-tech service marketplace is becoming very complex and cannot be supported in a cost-effective manner simply by hiring highly skilled systems-oriented field engineers. It is virtually forcing a service company to make an effort to understand and quantify the factors associated with service complexity and then develop and implement a skill-sets migration plan. Since most of the major parameters (e.g. systems complexity, customer needs complexity, etc.) associated with such a plan are qualitative in nature, the AHP methodology was chosen for this purpose. The AHP approach enables one to deal with both quantitative and qualitative factors in a logical fashion and had, indeed, helped the field service management quantify future skill-sets requirements and allocate training budget to best equip its field force in handling the evolving service marketplace in a cost-effective and efficient manner.