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The Service Day 2012 29th May 2012 Aalto– Hanken - VTT

Adopting a Service Perspective on Innovation Christian Grönroos Professor Hanken School of Economics Finland (Svenska handelshögskolan)

Christian Grönroos Svenska handelshögskolan / Hanken School of Economics Finland

What takes place in the marketplace

There are those who need support to facilitate their everyday processes in order to successfully achieve their goals (more or less clearly and explicitly formulated)

and there are those who have the resources, processes and capabilities, and access to network partners required to support and facilitate those everyday processes, and thereby help the customers achieve their goals.


Given this, what should an offering aim at? A service provider should develop offerings and ways of delivering them that truly support its customers everyday processes, thereby helping the customers achieve their goals.

This is service! Hence, in the final analysis, in the marketplace there is only service, and therefore, in the views of customers, there are only service businesses: good, mediocre, or lousy service businesses!


Service defined

Service is to facilitate and support a customer’s everyday processes, and through that the customer’s goals in life / in business in a value-creating way (= help customers to successfully reach their goals)

I n the final analysis, this is w hat service innovation should aim at!


The role of the customer in service

Service means to incorporate the custom er/ user in the business logic,

so that the custom er/ user, in turn, w ants to incorporate the service provider in his/ her/ the organization’s life. The customer/user is - the beneficiary - the value creator (use value) and potentially

- an idea generator - a co-innovator/co-designer


Service innovation – two aspects

1. Innovating services 2. Innovating for service

1. Innovating service activities 2. Innovating the way to approach customers (the business perspective)


A Service Innovation Triangle

CUSTOMER/USER

The Service Innovation Process CONCEPT

PROCESS


A Service Innovation Triangle (cont’d) CUSTOMER / USER

-

w ho is the user w hat should the user achieve -

The Service Innovation Process

CONCEPT

w hom should be served - w hat purpose should be facilitated by the service - w hat is the underpinning logic -

PROCESS

how to support the user’s goals - w hat resource constellations to use for providing this support - how to design the process and artifacts used in it

-


The Customer’s Quality Experience Perceived Quality

P rocess

Outcom e Image Technical Quality

Functional Quality

W HAT?

HOW ?

W hat state of m ind, or real effect, is the custom er left w ith after the service process

How is the custom er ex periencing the service process


Service Innovation - Opportunities 1. The Outcome of the service processes: Can we achieve something novel? 2. The Process: Can we do it in a novel way? 3. Innovating for Service: Can we create a novel approach or a new business? Sources of Process innovations: 1. Products that are servicized (e.g. easy to use, maintain, upgrade ...) 2. Hidden services that are turned into real service (e.g. invoicing, handling complaints (service recovery), documentation ...) 3. Existing service activities that are made supportive to customer processes (e.g. deliveries, installing, call centres, FYI ...) 4. Work with the servicescape (e.g. environment, systems, self-service ...) 5. Involve the customer in the production process (e.g. self-service diagnostics)


Thank you
