Strategic Management in Services

Unit 410

Overview

Service is the backbone of developed economies, and service industries are in a period of accelerating growth driven by the global impact of the Internet on existing and new service businesses. This unit addresses service industry opportunities and the implications of developing e-business strategies in traditional service businesses, lessons from successful service providers and development of service management philosophies and processes. The value profit chain is the overriding integrator of the unit.

This concept links vision, strategy, culture, values, leadership and management to the value drivers and value levers. Participants explore the service management strategies of international and Australian companies, and develop an understanding of the value profit chain by studying their own organisations.

Aims

After studying this unit you should be able to:

• Explain the significance of customer value, value creation and services management as key drivers in successful organisations
• Explain the concept of service quality and analyse how it relates to product quality
• Explain how competitive service marketing strategies relate to and contribute to successful business outcomes
• Describe the importance of strategic positioning in the success of an organisation
• Use the framework of the customer value equation to explain a superior value proposition
• Evaluate a range of lean processes for creating and implementing service strategies in organisations
• Explain how organisational culture and the effective management of human resources contribute to the successful implementation of a competitive service strategy
• Identify the impact of new technologies on service provision and outline a process for the successful implementation of technology in an organisation’s service provision processes
• Evaluate the key metrics that can be used to measure and improve service performance in an organisation
• Evaluate the services strategies of a number of different organisations

Topics

• Placing the concepts of services, value and the impact of technology into context
• Competitive service as a business strategy
• The value concept, positioning and understanding customer needs
• Customer value, research and service management
• Value of employees: Building employee capability
• Developing an implementation strategy: Creating a vision, mission and core values
• Re-engineering the service organisation to deliver customer value
• Developing processes that deliver value
• Developing customer relationships
• Measuring performance

Unit Chair and Study Guide Author

Tim Baker