Hello all,

in the meantime the Service Innovation Journey went on to Aachen, where the famous RWTH Aachen opened its doors to show the current state-of-the-art in service standardization strategies. Well, standardization seems to be boaring at a first look, but the innovation forum turned out to be highly exciting and featured latest research from a joint initiative between DIN (Deutsches Institut für Normung e.V), fir (Forschungsinstitut für Rationalisierung) and a range of further research and industry partners.

Standardization might account for economic benefits which have been estimated at 16 billion euros a year for Germany alone. In addition it is seen as a major driver of innovation. And as we all know from the Web 2.0 world templates, norms and restricted solution space can definitely boost creativity and innovation. Just imagine Wikipedia or just Blogs without templates, open innovation without rules or innovation toolkits without predefined solution space. Well, what we all know from the software and internet realm also applies to the service world.

 It’s norms and standards that make services tradable and ready for world-wide export, like containers can be seen as the icon of globalization. Interested in the “German Standardization Strategy“?

Could we imagine individualization and personalization at a large scale without standardization? Have a look at the current issue of CICERO magazine … it comes with 160,000 different front covers and an additional 160,000 back covers based on  the 2007 Reuter’s archive with about 50 million fotos … customization at its best … is there still the traditional divide between mass communication and individual communication … the boundary seems to blur … and this is why the innovation journey will soon focus on service customization – but this is another story to come soon …

All the best

Kathrin
www.wi1.uni-erlangen.de / www.clicresearch.de

Hello service researchers of the world,

hope you all did a great job in commenting on the Cambridge/IBM discussion paper. If so, I can now go on and tell you about the next event on the Service Innovation Journey:

 Already on October 25th, 2007, the community met in Stuttgart to explore the Fraunhofer IAO’s “magic” ServLab and how service innovators like the Accor hotel chain uses it to prototype its new hotel check-in processes. But let me start from the beginning:

The Fraunhofer IAO is part of the overall Fraunhofer Gesellschaft. The IAO focuses on innovations in industrial engineering. To learn more about them or their ideas and concepts you might want to consult their website or ideas brochure.

One of their compelling innovations is the ServLab – a lab that offers service firms an environment for service prototyping. There is some cool technology behind that provides 3-D-feeling and offers a virtual version of the customers own service context (e.g. the hotel lobby where a new check-in process has to be put into place). However, I think, the technology is not the key. The fascination comes from the communication it triggers. Suddenly invisible service innovations become tangible, understandable. The whole spectrum that protoyping allows as a communication tool for the product development world now opens up for service innovation.

Well, I don’t have to try to explain why I am fascinated by this new communication tool that opens up a whole new range of options for service prototyping. Just have a look at the

• ServLab video or
• ServLab leaflet

where Walter Ganz, the father of the new tool, explains how it works.

All the best for now!

Kathrin
www.wi1.uni-erlangen.de / www.clicresearch.de

On Friday, 5th October 2007, University of Cambridge’s Institute for Manufacturing (IfM) and IBM launched the discussion paper “Succeeding through Service Innovation – Developing a Service Perspective on Economic Growth and Prosperity”.

Overview of the document:

Section 1 of the document gives an introduction to service innovation and service science as an emerging field.

Section 2 clarifies the rationale for a science on services and defines its domain.

Section 3 looks at existing theoretical underpinnings and identifies knowledge and skills gaps in the field.

Section 4 points to potential approaches and opportunities to address the gaps.

Section 5 focuses on recommendations for education, business and policy.

Finally, section 6 invites feedback.

A glossary and rich appendix provides complementary background info. 

Feedback on the document is invited online till Friday, 30th November 2007:

 ”The discussion or ‘green’ paper is intended to stimulate further dialogues among the stakeholders. (…) Anyone with an interest in service innovation and its implications for education, business and policy is invited to comment on the document by 30 November 2007. The document will be revised based on suggestions and comments received and then published as a ‘white paper’.” (page 1)

 The document was first presented at the Cambridge Service Science, Management and Engineering Symposium, which is documented with programme, presentations  and audio files at the symposium website.

So long …

Kathrin
www.wi1.uni-erlangen.de / www.clicresearch.de

Today, in Munich, the first event of the “Service Innovation Journey Germany” took place with a clear focus on “superior services” and a range of high-level speakers and discussants.

Participants had the chance to look behind the scenes of two “superior service providers” in Munich, one being Munich Airport, the other being the Technische Universität München (TUM).

TUM’s president, Professor Wolfgang Herrmann, provided impressive insight in the strategy, structure and some key processes of Technische Universität München, that recently has won the “elite”-status in the Excellence Initiative by the German Federal and State Governments with its service-oriented strategy: “TUM. The Entrepreneurial University”.

Dr. Michael Kerkloh, CEO of Munich Airport, gave a lively presentation about some reasons why Munich Airport had been named the winner of the “Best Airport in Europe” award for the third year in a row in an international survey of close to eight million passengers worldwide. In addition, participants had the chance to take a tour to the unknown part of this superior service provider.

And what are the conceptual underpinnings behind these kinds of superior services?

Germany has a specific (academic as well as practical) strength in systematic service design and service engineering. It is the basis for the realization of these kinds of “superior services”.

Based on interdisciplinary research projects funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research, the following publications provide some insight in the area of systematic service design and service engineering:

Bullinger, H.-J. / Scheer, A.-W. / Schneider, K.: Service Engineering: Entwicklung und Gestaltung innovativer Dienstleistungen (Service Engineering: Design and Implementation of Innovative Services), 2nd ed., Springer: Berlin 2005.

 Lukzak, H. / Reichwald, R. / Spath, D.: Service Engineering in Wissenschaft und Praxis. Die ganzheitliche Entwicklung von Dienstleistungen (Services Engineering in Research and Practice. Holistic Service Design), DUV: wiesbaden 2004.

More soon …

Kathrin
www.wi1.uni-erlangen.de / www.clicresearch.de

Curious about services, services research and the growing crowd of “service scientists”? Well, there are already quite some resources to access and networks to join.

As a first step you might want to look at the one or other of the following links that I would recommend you to consult:

• AIM Research,
• CITRIS and Services,
• CLIC Research,
• DL2100.de,
• MC+OI,
• serviceCLICs,
• ServINNO,
• SRII,
• Spohrer on Service,
• SSME at UC Berkeley,
• SSMEnetUK.

There are also some forthcoming events where you might find like-minded people. Have a look at the following:

• The “Service Innovation Journey Germany” starting with its first public event on September 17th, 2007, at Munich Airport and followed by a full series of service innovation events featuring most recent service research results with relevant impact on the real world. Further events shall happen in Stuttgart, Hamburg, Frankfurt, Aachen, Berlin, Nuremberg, and Leipzig. This is where you will meet the leaders in service innovation from academia and business practice in Germany (more … ).

• The “Frontiers in Service Conference” which takes place October 4-7, 2007, in San Francisco, California (16th Annual AMA). It is sponsored by IBM’s Almanden Research Center, USA, the Center for Excellence in Service of the University of Maryland, USA, and the American Marketing Association in cooperation with INFORMS (more … ).

• The MCPC 2007 – Innovation and Research Conference, which takes place October 7-10, 2007, at MIT Cambridge/Boston, and is followed by a Business Seminar at HEC Montreal on October 11-12, 2007. This event looks at service innovation from a personalization perspective and showcases mass customization innovations which represent a relevant subset of service innovations (more … ).

• The “Service Forum 07″, organized by the Tampere University of Technology, that will take place on October 29-30, 2007 at the Museum Centre Vapriikki, Tampere, Finland and focuses on knowledge-intensive service firms and their innovative business ideas (more … ).

• The “Compete Through Service Symposium” (the 18th annual!) that takes place November 7-9, 2007 at the Ritz Carlton Hotel Phoenix, organized by the W.P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University (more … ).

You have more service research links, groups, events or activities to suggest? Let us know and join the conversation!

Yours …

Kathrin
www.wi1.uni-erlangen.de / www.clicresearch.de

12 years are an awful long period of time and a lot has happened since.  12 years ago, on  Sept 1st, 1995, together with Ralf Reichwald I published my first working paper in the field of service research. I remember the day quite well, as at that time it took me quite some effort to come up with some clear thoughts about the future role and future strategies of service value creation. For the first time writing a piece together with a senior management researcher has been an additional challenge, but an incredible chance. The paper is based on research we did together on service value creation and service productivity as innovation strategies. Well, it is written in German, no longer fully up-to-date … I want to say: “You don’t have to read it!” … it’s just a starting point.

     “Wertschöpfung und Produktivität von Dienstleistungen? – Innovationsstrategien für die Standortsicherung”

 In 1995, the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research organized the first German Conference on Service Research “The Future of Services” and started a huge initiative – “Services for the 21st Century” – under the academic leadership of Hans-Joerg Bullinger. By initiating 13 parallel working groups nationwide that were charged to identify the most challenging and promising fields for service research an overall research and funding agenda has been developped. Service engineering and service design, service standardisation and benchmarking of service systems, service culture and service mentality emerged as some of the promising fields that were complemented by branch-oriented areas of focus, like financial services, high-tech services etc etc. Further German Service Research Conferences followed regularly. Results were published in conference proceedings and later made available online in the German Service Community Platform.

Now, 12 years later, the field is much further developed and has moved to the centerstage of management research interest. Therefore I have decided to finally make use of my webdomain www.service-innovation.de that for 12 years has been a domain waiting for a field to emerge )

My intent is to talk about my personal thoughts, about interesting international initiatives and activities as well as new funding opportunities in the field. In addition, there is currently an interesting “service innovation journey” starting. From September 2007 to February 2008 there will be a series of eight service innovation events across Germany showcasing latest research, discussing current approaches and discussing future directions. I plan to attend all of these events and will report regularly on this blog.

Join me on my journey!

   Kathrin
   www.wi1.uni-erlangen.de / www.clicresearch.de