Using Data Mining to Facilitate More Efficient Resource Allocation and Training for IT Support in Large Organizations

The information technology (IT) support function in business organizations has evolved from “end user computing” support in the 1980’s to what is now referred to as “information centers” or “IT Help Desks.” In recent years the IT Help Desk has become a strategic focus of management. In a top-down performance-enhancing effort, management often employs statistics to help make system resource allocation and training decisions. We propose that data mining of and nugget discovery in customer call data and associated customer satisfaction surveys can be used to approach the training issue from the bottom up, thereby making more efficient use of resources. This is illustrated through an empirical study from a University IT Help Desk over a period of several months. Results show that data mining can lead to specific, focused bottom-up policy decisions that are more resource-efficient than the traditional broadly applied training programs applied top-down across the system.