From e-business strategy to IT resource management: A strategy-centric approach to timely scheduling web requests in B2C environments

For a B2C enterprise, resource management plays a crucial role in the achievement of business objectives. When a Web server becomes busy, and there is no control over which user requests to attend to first, negative business outcomes may result, such as a customer in the final steps of making a purchase being kept waiting and deciding to abandon the site for lack of a timely response, while less critical or urgent requests are being handled. On the other hand, if the relative value of executing different types of user requests is known, resource management mechanisms can be used to optimize the allocation of the sparsely available resources. In this paper, we introduce a methodology for estimating the value of end-user requests on a business-to-consumer (B2C) environment based on business strategy. The proposed value-estimating methodology can be used as a base for improving the allocation of e-commerce resources during peak traffic situations by maximizing the aspects of the service with more return to offer in terms of the achievement of business goals and objectives.