1. How has Schwab's strategy changed? How have these changes affected its information needs? 2. Did the various profitability analysis systems (MUSE, MUSE II, PAS) answer those needs? Compare these systems. 3. Analyse the managerial implications of PAS: - What factors have enabled Schwab to extract value from the PAS? What elements have made it difficult for the PAS to create value? How has it affected managers and their decision making process? Managers' behaviours? 4. Would we advise Velez to pursue the idea of providing different levels of service to customers in the same segment, depending on their profitability? More specifically, in page 10 of the case, Velez mentions the possibility of differentiated call routing as a function of customer profitability. Keeping in mind that one of the factors determining customer profitability is the frequency of calls to the call center, please consider the following dimensions of the policy: What are the advantages and disadvantages of providing different call waiting times for customers in the same segment, as a function of customer profitability. How would you implement this differentiated call routing? Would you inform customers in advance about the different levels of service? If so, how? How long should Schwab observe a customer's behaviour before routing him/her to the "long wait" queue? Do you believe that the new routing will affect customer profitability? In particular, how would you calculate the cost of call centre capacity for different customers? (Note: currently Schwab has only one hourly rate for call centre operators because its call-centre capacity is flexible. IT costs associated with a customer phone contact are described in Exhibit 6)