1、中文 2270字 标题： Issues in the Innovation Service Product Process:A Managerial Perspective 原文： Southern Illinois University at Carbondale Innovations in service augmentation are perceived to have a big impact on sales and profits as well as the success of other products. One of the most pivotal factors
2、in the services innovation is the employment of champion. The “service champion” is defined as someone charged with nurturing and protecting a new service from idea generation to commercialisation stages. The whole innovation process is basically dependent upon the service champions capability of de
3、signing and executing creativity and innovation as well as bringing people together. This paper discusses key issues to be considered in the services innovation. Strategies that can be used to enhance the services innovation management are: (1) formalising the process of innovation, (2) creating a n
4、ew service charter, (3) increasing customer inputs to the overall process, (4) emphasising internal idea generation and concept development, (5) enhancing quasi-search quality, and (6) hiring and maintaining innovation champions. 1. Introduction “How much more productivity can we get from our people
5、 and processes? Rather than continuing to invest in doing what we do faster, better, cheaper, maybe we need to look at doing something altogether different.” (Consortium for Service Innovation 2005) These sentences have been mentioned in many places and on many occasions recently, with the main idea
6、 underpinning them is the importance of finding and managing discontinuous innovation in services. Services innovation is becoming more important due to the more significant role that the service itself plays in the business. Goffin and Mitchell (2005) argue that relative to manufacturing activities
7、, the service sector increasingly dominates current research on innovation since: 1. The service sector accounts for more than 60% of GDP in many countries, especially in developed nations. The economy basically comprises three main sectors - agriculture, industry, and service - that also indicate t
8、he development stage of the country. The first development phase is focused on agriculture as heretofore prevailing in developing countries. When the country improves, the needs for agricultural products are satisfied and the development embarks on focusing on industrialisation. Finally, when the in
9、dustrial products have fulfilled peoples demand, they are then concerned about intangible aspects of product consumption, making services a crucial element at this stage. 2. In the business environment with stiffer competition than ever, services are mostly utilised for differentiating manufacturing
10、 products. The technology is more convergent over time since the information flow is easily access through information and communications technology (ICT). Hence, services are notably used to differentiate product attributes. For instance, many car buyers are considering after-sales services to be t
11、he most important criterion for choosing a brand. 3. Services somehow have distinct characteristics relative to the manufacturing activities such that specific approaches to managing innovation in service area are needed. Staggeringly, although managers and leaders realise the importance of services
12、 innovation to survival and maintaining competitive advantage, the statistics show that research and development (R&D) expenditures are relatively low albeit showing an increasing trend. For instance, service sector contributes 80% of the GDP in the U.S. whilst the R&D expenditures for service secto
13、r are only 24% (Goffin and Mitchell 2005). In the U.K., the service industries contribute 72% to the economy yet receive just 14% of R&D investment (Live Work 2005). The examples indicate that there is still a big room for improvement in the service area. In this paper, the innovation management of
14、services is the focal point. The discussion is divided into three sections: characteristics of services, issues in managing services innovation, and strategy for enhancing services innovation. 2. Characteristics of Services The United Nations (in Goffin and Mitchell 2005) describes services as “a he
15、terogeneous range of intangible products and activities difficult to encapsulate within a simple definition.” Services produced and delivered to customers are labelled as “service products”. However, as services cannot be stored, the customers perception of the service quality also hinges on “servic
16、e augmentation”. Goffin and Mitchell (2005) name the combination of service products and service augmentation “augmented service offering”. The following figure and table depict the concept and examples of the augmented service offering. New service products are able to open new opportunities but th
17、eir impacts on sales and profits are moderate (Goffin and Mitchell 2005). It is only the new service products that provide distinguished attributes and are difficult to copy can bring a competitive advantage. On the other hand, innovations in the service augmentation are perceived to have a big impa
18、ct on sales and profits as well as the success of other products. Accordingly, service providers need to deliver the best service products within excellent service augmentation so as to create high-quality services perceived by the customers. The components of services are further translated into th
19、e service characteristics. As mentioned in the introduction section, services have some characteristics quite distinct from those of physical products. Service characteristics, defined by Kotler (2003) and Goffin and Mitchell (2005), are summarised in table 2. 3. Issues in Managing Services Innovati
20、on Managing services innovation has the same purpose as the physical product innovation management, which is to create new and valuable services. There are several key issues intertwined with the services innovation. To begin, we derive the key issues from the service characteristics. level of conta
21、ct. For instance, when going to a bank for sending money overseas, ourcolleague prefers to write and arrange the documents by herself and then submits them with the cheques directly to the cashier. Meanwhile, we prefer to go through the customer service desk, letting the associate write and prepare the receipts since we do not exactly know what to fill or tick in the papers. Another example is that in supermarket, people are inclined not to be close to the staff if not required. However, recent fact also shows that businesses are trying to get closer to their
