Good to Great in IT Service Management: A Case Study

For IT services companies, delivering high quality IT services is of eminent importance. IT service quality drives customer satisfaction, which in its turn drives firm performance. It is this link that is addressed in this paper: How can the performance of customer service delivery teams be improved, when looked upon from the perspective of firm performance? Based on the literature on excellent performing organizations, we apply the concepts that, according to Collins (2001), drove the development of ‘good’ companies to ‘great’ companies to a case study of an under performing service delivery team that developed into an excellent performing service delivery team. The lessons from this study were that most of the drivers behind the performance improvement of this team were in fact ‘soft’ factors that concerned the human side of the team more than the organizational, procedural or structural measures

Effects of Swathed Forage Type on Intake and Total Tract Digestion

Research results assessing the effects of swathed forage and protein supplementation on dietary intake and digestibility of cows

Influence of grain source and dried corn distillers grains plus solubles oil concentration on finishing cattle performance and feeding behavior

Eighty-one steers (428 ± 3.5 kg of BW) were used to determine the effect of grain type (corn vs barley) and oil concentration of dried corn distillers grains plus solubles (DDGS; moderate = 7.9% vs low = 4.5% ether extract) on growth performance, feeding behavior, and carcass characteristics. Intake and feeding behavior traits were calculated from data generated via the Insentec feeding system. Steers were slaughtered with an average BW of 668 ± 4.4 kg. Final BW and ADG were not affected by grain type or DDGS oil concentration. Dry matter intake decreased (P = 0.002) and G:F increased (P = 0.01) in steers fed diets containing barley. Daily visits to the feeder decreased (P = 0.05) but time eating per visit increased (P = 0.03) in steers fed diets containing barley than corn. Plasma urea N concentration was greater (P ≤ 0.05) in steers fed diets containing barley than corn and in steers fed diets containing low-oil DDGS than moderate-oil ddgs diets. There was no effect of treatment on carcass characteristics. These data indicate steers fed diets containing barley had improved G:F and that including low-oil vs. moderate-oil DDGS in a finishing diet does not influence growth performance, feeding behavior, or carcass measurements.The accepted manuscript in pdf format is listed with the files at the bottom of this page. The presentation of the authors' names and (or) special characters in the title of the manuscript may differ slightly between what is listed on this page and what is listed in the pdf file of the accepted manuscript; that in the pdf file of the accepted manuscript is what was submitted by the author

Effects of Replacing Dry-rolled Corn with Increasing Levels of Corn Dried Distillers Grains with Solubles on Characteristics of Digestion, Microbial Protein Synthesis and Digestible Energy of Diet in Hair Lambs Fed High-concentrate Diets

Four male lambs (Katahdin; average live weight 25.9±2.9 kg) with “T” type cannulas in the rumen and proximal duodenum were used in a 4×4 Latin square experiment to evaluate the influence of supplemental dry distillers grain with solubles (DDGS) levels (0, 10, 20 and 30%, dry matter basis) in substitution for dry-rolled (DR) corn on characteristics of digestive function and digestible energy (DE) of diet. Treatments did not influence ruminal pH. Substitution of DR corn with DDGS increased ruminal neutral detergent fiber (NDF) digestion (quadratic effect, p<0.01), but decreased ruminal organic matter (OM) digestion (linear effect, p<0.01). Replacing corn with DDGS increased (linear, p≤0.02) duodenal flow of lipids, NDF and feed N. But there were no treatment effects on flow to the small intestine of microbial nitrogen (MN) or microbial N efficiency. The estimated UIP value of DDGS was 44%. Postruminal digestion of OM, starch, lipids and nitrogen (N) were not affected by treatments. Total tract digestion of N increased (linear, p = 0.04) as the DDGS level increased, but DDGS substitution tended to decrease total tract digestion of OM (p = 0.06) and digestion of gross energy (p = 0.08). However, it did not affect the dietary digestible energy (DE, MJ/kg), reflecting the greater gross energy content of DDGS versus DR corn in the replacements. The comparative DE value of DDGS may be considered similar to the DE value of the DR corn it replaced up to 30% in the finishing diets fed to lambs