In this regard, profitability of a service organization is measured by the revenue generated from service demand (in the form of service work orders being carried out), and by the costs due to activity of the enterprise's human resources (who provide the service). Service chains consider the full life-cycle of service demand from early stages of forecasting, through planning, scheduling, dispatch, execution and post-analysis.
Service Chainchain Optimizationoptimization is closely related to the fields of [[workforce management]] and [[field service management]]; the activity performed by field service resources is managed through the latter while being planned and optimized through the former. This relationship is analogous to the relation between [[supply chain optimization]] and [[Supply chain management software|supply chain management]] in the ___domain of manufacturing. In this regard, the service chain benefits from [[demand forecasting]], resource planning and scheduling, and long term analysis activities similarly to the manner these contribute in the [[supply chain]] (being typically managed by [[Enterprise resource planning|ERP]] systems and optimized by supply chain optimization systems).
