Vol. 43, No. 2, March–April 2013, pp. 152–169 ISSN 0092-2102 (print)  ISSN 1526-551X (online) http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/inte.1110.0621 © 2013 INFORMS HP Enterprise Services Uses Optimization for Resource Planning Cipriano Santos, Tere Gonzalez HP Labs, Palo Alto, California 94304 {cipriano.santos@hp.com, maria-teresa.gonzalez.diaz@hp.com} Haitao Li College of Business Administration, University of Missouri, St. Louis, St. Louis, Missouri 63121, lihait@umsl.edu Kay-Yut Chen HP Labs, Palo Alto, California 94304, kay-yut.chen@hp.com Dirk Beyer MarketShare L.L.P., Los Angeles, California 90025, dbeyer@marketshare.com Sundaresh Biligi HP Enterprise Business, Bangalore 560 100, India, bilgi@hp.com Qi Feng McCombs School of Business, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas 78712, annabelle.feng@mccombs.utexas.edu Ravindra Kumar HP Enterprise Business, Bangalore 560 100, India, ravindra.kumar@hp.com Shelen Jain HP Labs, Palo Alto, California 94304, shailendra.jain@hp.com Ranga Ramanujam HP Enterprise Business, Bangalore 560 100, India, ranga.ramanujam@hp.com Alex Zhang HP Labs, Palo Alto, California 94304, alex.zhang@hp.com The main responsibility of resource and delivery managers at Hewlett-Packard (HP) Enterprise Services (HPES) involves matching resources (skilled professionals) with jobs that project opportunities require. The previous Solution Opportunity Approval and Review (SOAR) process at HPES addressed uncertainty by producing decentralized project staffing decisions. This often led to many last-minute subjective, sometimes costly, resource allocation decisions. Based on our research, we developed a decision support tool for resource planning (RP) to enhance the SOAR process. It optimizes matching professionals who have diverse delivery roles and skills to jobs and projects across geographical locations while explicitly accounting for both demand and supply uncertainties. It also embeds capabilities for managers to incorporate tacit human knowledge and judgment information into the decision-making process. With its 2009 deployment in Best Shore, Bangalore operations of HPES, the RP tool’s significant benefits include reduced service delivery costs, increased workforce utilization, and profitability. Key words : resource planning; workforce optimization; decision support; mathematical programming; supply and demand uncertainty; human knowledge. History : This paper was refereed. Published online in Articles in Advance August 24, 2012. 152