Page 14 - DMGT522_SERVICES MANAGEMENT

Unit 1: Service Operation Management

change is driven by a basic desire to re-establish the service material within the core disciplines. Notes
It appears that we have forgotten, or mislaid, our established roots and academics have focused
on material and approaches depicted in the circles in the last column of Table 1.4. We seem to
have been swept along on the tide of interest in service focused predominantly from a customer
perspective. Whilst there is nothing unhealthy, or indeed inappropriate, in this, we seem to
have ignored the strength that our core discipline has to offer. In service quality, for example,
we have focused on customer-based notions of service quality but appear to have ignored
quality of conformance and the delivery of customer-based quality, surely key issues for operations
managers and academics.

Table 1. 3: Stage Three – The Service Management Era

Nature Operations
Stage of Focus of Outcomes management
research research issues
ONE Descriptive Goods v/s services Growing awareness
services are different of the importance of
service, customer
operations and
customer contact
TWO Conceptual characteristics of conceptual challenge to existing
service and frameworks operations paradigms
service and the development
management of "customer
operations"
THREE Empirical development large amount development of
and testing of of service material service processes,
frameworks based on new quality, failure,
cross- functionally design and
derived models technology with a
view that service
could contribute to
manufacturing

Table 1.4: Stage Four – Return to Roots?

Nature of Focus of Operations management
Stage Outcomes
research research issues
ONE Descriptive goods v/s Services are Growing awareness of the
services different importance of service, customer
service, and customer contact
TWO Conceptual characteristics conceptual challenge to existing operations
of service and frameworks paradigms and the
service development of "customer
management operations"
THREE Empirical development large amount of development of service
and testing of service material processes, quality, failure,
frameworks based on new design and technology with a
cross- functionally view that service could
derived models contribute to manufacturing
FOUR Applied prescription linking operations the return to roots – the need to
drivers to re-focus service operations
outcomes towards traditional operational
issues and approaches

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