Download the report Strategies and Challenges in Service Management 2007
Service business is responsible for steady growth and solid profits. Across multiple industries and within various market sizes, many ‘product centric ‘companies, which provide technologies to their customers, suffer from pressure on prices and margins due to strong competition and difficulties in differentiating their products. Service business is considered a new driver for revenues, profits, customer satisfaction and loyalty and provides competitive differentiation to avoid product ‘commoditization’. Moreover, and although it may be different from one service industry segment to another, the overall potential for growth in technical service business is considerable when compared to the other business activities.
Our research reveals that in order to maintain the traditional high profit margins, the challenge for service executives is now to build a very cost efficient service delivery organization and to use it as a foundation for their future service business thereby enabling the support of the rapid evolution in the converging technologies and multi vendor, multi product, and multi technology services. At the same time, intangible benefits are becoming more important as they are the source of competitive advantage for many service businesses. Both the technical and soft skills of service employees are instrumental in delivering such intangible benefits through increasing customized and complex services. However, such strategies may not be sustainable as the demand for highly skilled service employees is threatening to outstrip the supply in Western Europe and the US.
Executives from field service, part management, support service and professional service organizations will benefit from the insights provided by their peers who participated in this survey, of which a significant majority hold senior, influential positions in their respective companies.
More than 130 participants from all over the world have contributed to this study that consisted of on-line questionnaires followed by several in-depths interviews with managers and executives. They represent a wide range of industries and geographies and also encompass an even spread of organizations in terms of size. Our analysis of the survey results in combination with in-depth interviews and the collective knowledge and experience from consultants from Noventum and Service Strategies resulted in this report of Strategies and Challenges in Service Management.
Table of Contents
1.Introduction
2 Key Business Findings from the survey
2.1 Customer Support and Services are expecting solid growth
2.2 Customer Support and Services has to be a ‘profit or business center’
2.3 Customer Satisfaction and Loyalty is a critical success factor
3 Challenges in Service Management
3.1 Best of Class Service at an optimized cost is now a ‘entry level requirement’
3.2 Differentiation from the competition will be ‘On top of‘ Best of Class performance
3.3 Challenge to support the evolution of converging technologies
3.4 Challenge to globalize Service Delivery Organization and Part Management
4 Recommendations
4.1 Service Delivery and Parts Management should be redesigned
4.2 Understand and manage customer perception about the value of the service that comes on top of the measurable benefits
4.3 Customers are looking for new services
5 Conclusion
6 Topics for further research
6.1 To increase service business profitability
6.2 To develop new service offerings
Download the report Strategies and Challenges in Service Management 2007
