For a longer period of time, manufacturing was the core business activity and hence service has gained lesser attention. However, a time came when manufacturers faced a huge challenge to stay profitable which apparently gave service to get more attention. The reason to this can be classified in to three categories: economic reasons, customer satisfaction and competitive advantage (Oliva et al., 2003). Understanding this, Volvo Group has set high target for revenues from soft products including service. In order to achieve this it is necessary to expand existing service offerings and explore more new service offerings. As part of this goal, Volvo Technology has been working on several projects. One of the projects which are closely related to this thesis is the Hauler Development Service (HDS) which started in 2008 for the trucking (Hauling) industry. HDS has two versions; HDS Green Field and HDS Efficiency and Effectiveness. HDS Green field focuses on starting up new road transport operations and establish business processes including system support on emerging markets. HDS Efficiency and Effectiveness focuses on performing assessments and improvement programs on already established firms on mature markets. These business offerings started to get their orders from customers and thus proving their functionality. However, unlike the trucking industry, the construction equipment business area within Volvo Group is lacking such business offerings today. Volvo Construction Equipment is the second largest business area within the Volvo group generating about 16 % of the total sales. Volvo CE is mostly offering hard products and wants to expand its service offerings and assume a better position as a professional service solution provider. The development of HDS for the trucking industry and the need for Volvo CE to expand its service offerings laid the background for this thesis. One of the market segments Volvo CE provides equipments is to the quarry and aggregate business segment. Customers with in this business area were successfully contacted and collaborated in this study. This master thesis investigated what the customers in the quarry and aggregate business area needs and problems are and developed a service concept which Volvo CE can offer while at the same time solving customer problems. This service concept was found out to be Energy Efficiency Improvement Service intended to help lower production costs of the customer by eliminating or lowering energy wastes and improve environmental impacts by lowering carbon emissions. Moreover, customer energy performance measures were studied and analysed if they are robust enough to be used as measures to the improvements inevitable by the new service offer, the Energy Efficiency Improvement Service. Results show that the energy performance measures currently in use are not robust enough, and suggest further development of energy performance measure system. In order to realize the service offer in a practical manner, the five lean principles (define value, identify value stream, floe, pull and continuous improvement) were tested if they can be used as tools to identify and measure energy wastes at the customers operation site and proved to be useful.

Master Thesis Linnaeus University, School of Business and Economics, Växjö, Sweden Authors: Juan Calcerrada, Henrik Wapner Tutor: Sarah Philipson Title: New service development of SMS-lending companies in Sweden Introduction: Many customers started to get into debt from taking sms-loans during the last years with the news being highlighted in media frequently. After the financial crisis in 2008, new laws & regulations were imposed on the sms-lending companies. As of today, the sms- lending companies are still having problems with customers whose debts are being handled at the enforcement administration of Sweden. Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to identify the major barriers that serve as hinders for service development among sms-lending companies in Sweden. Method: A qualitative study has been conducted through semi-structured interviews with CEO’s, operation managers, and marketing managers of six companies in the sms-lending industry. Conclusion: The result shows that a standard model is not necessary for sms-lending companies in order to be profitable. However, none of the companies has a large share of the market, making it fragmented. Standardization in the market and problems to take patents on service innovation makes it difficult for the companies to innovate other than in their internal processes. The barriers to successful NSD processes are somewhat juridical and financial ones, but, although not mentioned by the interviewed companies themselves, we believe that the lack of customer involvement in the NSD process is serving as the major barrier. This is due to the fact that service companies are more dependent on customer interaction because of the service offerings being intangible, thus demanding a closely-monitored “fit” between service characteristics and customer requirements.

Environmental impact has increasingly become a “buzzword” and an important topic. This topic has been integrated into the agenda of many companies worldwide, and this dissertation focuses on the transportation and logistics industry. Environmental concerns have gained increased attention among many logistic service providers (LSPs) due to the environmental impact from their operations, and they have been identified of having a significant role in reducing the environmental burden in the supply chain. An environmental approach of the LSPs' business has also been identified as a way to achieve competitive advantage and provide market opportunities where the development and marketing of new products and services associated with green issues are suggested as important aspects for future growth. However, considering the scarcity of research regarding this topic, a study that reveals potential aspects in the development of green service offerings can bridge the knowledge gap and provide opportunities for further research within this field. The purpose of this dissertation is therefore to develop and explain a framework for LSPs’ development of green service offerings. The purpose is addressed by first investigating LSPs' service development from a general perspective in order to, in a second stage, reach a better understanding of the implications when integrating green aspects in LSPs' service development efforts. Theoretically, this dissertation departed from service marketing literature or more specifically new service development (NSD) research. This resulted in a conceptual framework including key dimensions and aspects regarding a company’s NSD efforts and activities. From this foundation, the theoretical framework was developed further based on research regarding LSPs' service development and innovation management. Finally the framework was extended with green logistics literature as well as research regarding LSPs' green development and influences on their service offerings. Empirically, this research is mainly based on qualitative data from an in-depth case study on a large LSP active on the Swedish market. In addition, empirical data from a multiple case study and a questionnaire survey conducted for the Licentiate thesis were used in order to enrich the analysis regarding the LSPs' development of green service offerings. The analysis followed a stepwise approach where literature and empirical data were analysed. One of the main results in this dissertation is the framework for LSPs' new service development, consisting of five dimensions: NSD culture, NSD strategy, NSD process focus, IT use and expertise and NSD knowledge and skills. The NSD framework presents a holistic view of the LSPs’ NSD efforts by revealing different dimensions, their roles and relations to each other as well as the pre-requisites to take into consideration in the development of new services. Thus, the different NSD dimensions should not solely be viewed as isolated dimensions; instead, there is a need for LSPs to have a holistic view and understanding of the NSD activities’ reciprocity. Another main result concerns the adaption of the NSD framework to green service development. The results reveal some pre-requisites relevant for LSPs to consider in their efforts to develop green service offerings and are summarised in the following main dimensions: Creating green awareness in the NSD culture – encourage participation regarding green initiatives within the organisation, defining a “common picture” in order to facilitate collaboration efforts and knowledge exchange concerning green expertise. The support from top management was also identified of having an influencing impact. Defining the strategic approach of green service offerings – integrate a green concern in the overall business strategy and to define the strategic role and incentives for developing green service offerings. The results also suggest LSPs to adapt green NSD efforts to different business contexts and market possibilities to match existing resources and skills with customers’ green requirements, and to perform a segmentation of customers’ environmental work and ambitions to increase the understanding of customers’ green attitudes and requirements. Create processes and routines to facilitate spreading of green knowledge – highlights the relevance of a process focus for spreading green knowledge both from an external and internal perspective. It involves e.g. adoption of certifications, procedures for environmental calculations and documentation as well as routines to spread and integrate green knowledge among employees as well as identification of customers’ green requirements. Improve green internal knowledge and build green collaborations – provide training and education to increase the level of green awareness and knowledge among employees as well as customers and strive for collaboration efforts both internally and externally to utilise each other’s knowledge and resources towards the development of green service offerings. Increase transparency of green information both internally and externally – improve green information transparency to build both internal and external trust and increase possibilities to effectively use other actors’ knowledge and resources to develop environmental improvements in the supply chain. Integration of IT expertise and synchronisations of IT systems to facilitate and support environmental work and development of green service offerings.

Extant literature identified the value of innovative firm behavior for organizational success for manufacturers and service providers (Christensen, 1998; Damanpour, 1991; de Brentani, 1993; Easingwood, 1986; Schumpeter, 1939; Senge, 1994). Increasing complexity of consumer markets, information technologies and an economic environment that forces organizations to rethink their business strategies are especially characteristic for service providers, making the development of new services an essential, but also risky task. A series of organizational conditions, such as a formalized new products/service development process, managerial support for innovation and a culture that encourages innovation were identified as critical for the successful development of innovations. Little research, however, has been done to understand the role of partners for the development of new service, and in particular to evaluate which aspects of new service development benefit the most from partner involvement. To understand the link between organizational settings for innovation and inter-organizational relationships in the new service development process, this study incorporates three areas of research: innovation, supply chain management and inter-organizational relationships. This study was framed within tourism destinations, especially destination marketing organizations (DMOs). They are responsible to market and develop a destination and, due to their role as information intermediaries, their need to collaborate with destination businesses to deliver a seamless tourism experience. This study consists of two major phases. First, a national study among the population of American DMOs was conducted to identify the extent of innovation, the drivers of partner integration in new service development as well as their impact on new services. Second, the value of organizational innovation settings on partnership integration was identified. Study results provide insight into the current status of innovation development and partner integration in the new service development process. The results also indicate that the nature of DMOs was changing from pure marketing organizations to management organizations that actively participate in destination development through innovation. In this study innovation was measured by three core elements: orientation towards demand, strategic and corporate fit as well as newness. DMOs do collaborate with partners to develop new tourism products and services. Partner integration was driven by top management support, as well as a strategic and long-term perspective towards partnerships. Furthermore, partner integration was found to have a positive effect on the strategic and corporate fit as well as market orientation. Lastly, DMOs that organize for the development of new services were found to achieve a more positive effect on innovation. This study concluded that organizations strategically need to engage in inter-organizational relationships with the goal to incorporate partners in the new service development process. Furthermore, organizational strategies towards innovation are critical as they enable the organization to achieve better results. Partnerships, thus, are critical for innovation, whereby innovation can be programmed given that it is supported through organizational settings. / Business Administration

Submitted by Silvana Teresinha Dornelles Studzinski (sstudzinski) on 2015-05-08T15:58:07Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Debora Moehlecke.pdf: 980082 bytes, checksum: fdb15528a7aada1f0dafab6b637180c8 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2015-05-08T15:58:07Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Debora Moehlecke.pdf: 980082 bytes, checksum: fdb15528a7aada1f0dafab6b637180c8 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014-06-09 / Nenhuma / Para que as empresas possam sobreviver e principalmente prosperar, novos serviços são desenvolvidos, por vezes aproveitando a ideia de um cliente ou mesmo uma oportunidade percebida no mercado. O desenvolvimento de novos serviços (DNS) já foi visto como um mero acontecimento que se tornava possível devido à sorte ou intuição. Porém, com o aumento dos estudos sobre o tema, o conhecimento foi ampliado e atualmente defende-se a necessidade de planejamento do DNS e uma maior compreensão gerencial para que assim as empresas possam alcançar o desempenho esperado. A fim de buscar entendimento da capacidade das empresas em utilizar recursos e rotinas para obter sucesso no novo serviço lançado no mercado, em um estudo anterior foi elaborado um modelo de competência em DNS considerando cinco dimensões: i) Foco no processo de DNS; ii)Acuidade de mercado; iii)Estratégia de DNS; iv)Cultura de DNS; e v)Experiência em Tecnologia da Informação (TI). Utilizando este modelo, o presente estudo visa verificar a relação entre as dimensões formadoras da competência em desenvolvimento de novos serviços e o desempenho das empresas no desenvolvimento destes novos serviços, por meio de hipóteses de pesquisa. Tendo em vista a importância do setor de serviços intensivos em conhecimento para a economia mundial e o crescimento destas empresas no Brasil, buscou-se através de uma survey com 239 organizações, confirmar a relação que há entre as cinco dimensões no DNS, validar o instrumento de “modelo de competência” para o desenvolvimento de novos serviços e também verificar como as dimensões contribuem em conjunto para o desempenho das empresas de serviços intensivos em conhecimento (ESIC). Por meio de testes estatísticos como a técnica de análise fatorial exploratória e a análise de regressão múltipla, verificou-se que quatro fatores podem ser considerados responsáveis por 30% do desempenho em DNS das empresas analisadas. Destaca-se que a dimensão Acuidade do mercado foi considerada a de maior efeito em desempenho, seguida da Experiência em TI, Cultura de DNS e Foco no processo de DNS, entretanto a dimensão Estratégia de DNS não pode ser avaliada pois suas variáveis foram eliminadas durante a análise fatorial exploratória. / In order to enable companies to survive and succeed in the market, new services are developed, sometimes availing some customer idea oreven a perceived market opportunity. New service development (NSD) had been seen as a result of luck or intuition. However, due to the increase of studies on the subject, the knowledge has been expanded and now is believed the need of NSD planning and greater managerial understanding so that companies can achieve the expected performance. In order to seek understanding of the ability of firms to use resources and routines to succeed in the new service launched in the market, on a previous study a NSD competence model was developed considering five dimensions: i)NSD process focus; ii)Market acuity; iii)NSD strategy; iv)NSD culture and; v)Information Technology (IT) experience. Using this model, the present study aims to investigate the relationship between all competence dimensions in new service development and the performance of some companies in developing new service through research hypotheses. Given the importance of knowledge-intensive service sector in the world economy and the growth of these companies in Brazil, we attempted through a survey with 239 o rganizations to confirm the relationship between these five dimensions during the new service development, also to validate the instrument “model of NSD competence” as well as to check how all dimensions contribute to the knowledge-intensive service company performance. By statistical tests such as the technique of exploratory factor analysis and multiple regression analysis, it was found that four dimensions can be considered responsible for 30% NSD performance. It is noteworthy that market acuitywas found to have more effect on performance, followed by IT experience, NSD culture and NSD process focus. However, NSD strategycould not be evaluated as their variables were eliminated during exploratory factoranalysis.

Syfte: Syftet med denna studie är att undersöka hur existerande NSD-teori kan bidra till förståelse av kundinvolvering av sällanköpsvaror i säljande organisationer. Metod: Vid genomförandet av denna studie har en kvantitativ forskningsmetod tillämpats med ett deduktivt tillvägagångsätt. Den empiriska undersökningen genomfördes via en webbaserad enkätundersökning som sändes ut till 598 franchisetagare och kontorschefer inom fem av de åtta största fastighetsmäklarföretagen i Sverige. Erhållen data analyserades därefter med hjälp av statistikprogrammet SPSS där en faktoranalys, klusteranalys samt korrelationsanalys genomfördes. Resultat & Analys: Vi kan konstatera att det finns både en positiv och en negativ syn till att arbeta och ta fram tjänster i samspel med kunden. Studiens resultat visar dock på att majoriteten innehar en positiv inställning till detta tillvägagångssätt och att detta skulle generera fördelar för företaget. Resultatet visar på både skillnader och likheter jämfört med tidigare befintliga modeller inom NSD och vi kan konstatera att fastighetsmäklarbranschen inte följer NSDmodellen likande andra tjänsteföretag men att den till viss del är applicerbar även inom denna bransch. Uppsatsens bidrag: Denna uppsats ger ett bidrag till fastighetsmäklarbranschen genom att indikera på betydelsen av att involvera kunden i tjänsten samt i utvecklingen av dessa och visar på att det finns en positiv syn till detta. Resultatet pekar på att kundinvolvering skulle generera fördelar för företag inom denna typ av bransch. Det teoretiska bidraget visar dock på att existerande NSD-modeller bör modifieras för tillämpning inom branscher med sällanköpsvaror i säljande organisationer. I och med att tidigare forskning inom NSD inte visar på skillnader mellan olika branscher med olika kundstruktur pekar detta på att vår studie utgör ett bidrag till forskningsdiskursen. Förslag till vidare forskning: Då vi fann att det finns en positiv syn till kundinvolvering hos chefer inom fastighetsmäklarbranschen skulle det vara intressant att genomföra studien ur ett omvänt perspektiv och då istället undersöka hur kunder ser på att involveras i tjänstens utveckling. Med anledning av att studien berör en bransch med engångskunder skulle det dessutom vara intressant att undersöka om befintliga NSD-modeller överensstämmer i en bransch med en annan kundstruktur. Vi tror att resultatet med sannolikhet skulle bli annorlunda i en sådan studie. Med anledning av att detta är en övergripande studie inom fastighetmäklarbranschen skulle det dessutom vara intressant att genomföra en mer djupgående och detaljerad undersökning

<p>Given today’s industry dynamics, new service development is becoming increasingly important to the competitiveness, growth, and survival of organizations. Unfortunately, new service development has proven to be a complex and difficult task. Numerous reasons are stated in the literature such as the difficulty of understanding and anticipating latent customer needs and insufficient market research techniques. To facilitate proactive learning about the customer, recent findings stress customer involvement in the development process and observations of customers in real action.</p><p>The overall objective of the dissertation is to contribute to an increased knowledge of customer involvement, i.e., the role of customers as contributors and co-creators in new service development. The thesis draws on theory from market and learning orientation in conjunction with a service-centered model, and provides an extensive review of literature on customer involvement in innovation. In five separate studies, this doctor’s thesis addresses the customer’s role in innovation activities in various industries (e.g., Staffing Services, Airline Services, and Mobile Telecommunication services).</p><p>In this thesis it is argued that interaction is not only the focal point of services, but also the essence of customer involvement. A special emphasis is put on supporting techniques as these are the means by which customer information and knowledge are created. In addition, results are provided showing that customer involvement in innovation pays off. Companies that engage in collaborative innovation with customers can expect improved customer satisfaction, customer loyalty, and profit margin.</p>

Problemformulering: I och med kundens roll i värdeskapandet måste företag få kunskap i hur deras kunder kan involveras, och även utveckla formella processer för det. I och med tjänsternas allt större roll i världen krävs en ständig utveckling av teorier kring området. Forskning kring tjänsteutveckling har vidare mestadels bara har bidragit till det teoretiska området och inte gett något större bidrag till de som faktiskt arbetar med tjänsteutveckling i praktiken i dagsläget. De här aspekterna är några av de faktorer som ledde fram till studiens syfte. Syfte: Syftet med studien är att förstå hur kunder involveras i tjänsteutveckling i praktiken och hur deras roll ser ut i utvecklingsprocessen, samt att undersöka kopplingen mellan tillvägagångssätten i praktiken jämfört med vad som står i teorin. Metod: Studiens metod är av en kvalitativ karaktär med en fallstudiedesign. Tack vare nio stycken semistrukturerade intervjuer med både tjänstedesignbyråer och tjänsteföretag som arbetar med kundinvolvering kunde värdefull data samlas in och ge en förklaring kring ”fallet”. Slutsats: De slutsatser som har kunnat dras utifrån studien är till att börja med att de traditionella tjänsteutvecklingsmodellerna har fasats ut till förmån för designmodeller med iterativa faser. Det visade sig även att en sådan uppdelning av kunder som återfinns i teorin, inte är aktuell i praktiken, utan baseras snarare på behov än egenskaper. Slutligen kunde, förutom de traditionella effekterna av kundinvolvering, en annan typ av effekt identifieras. Nämligen att kundinvolvering kan leda till stora organisationsförändringar på grund av ett nytt kundfokus. / Problem: Given the role of the customer in value creation organizations need knowledge on how their customers can get involved, and develop formal processes to do so. Given services role in today’s world there is a need for continuous research and development in the field. Furthermore, the research surrounding service development has mostly contributed to the theoretical field without much contribution to those who work with service development today. These aspects are part of the reasoning leading up to this studies purpose. Purpose: The purpose of this study is to develop an understanding on how customers are involved in service development in practice and the role of the customer in the development process, as well as examine the practice with the current literature. Method: The study is of a qualitative character with a case study design. Due to nine semi-structured interviews with both service design firms and service businesses both working with customer involvement in their service development processes valuable data could be collected to explain the case. Conclusion: The conclusions that were made from the study is that the traditional service development models have been phased out in favor of design based models with iterative phases. Furthermore, the theoretical classification of a services user is not as widespread in practice, it is more based on the needs of the customer than the customer’s characteristics. Finally, the study could identify that besides the traditional effects of customer involvement, there is an additional effect. Namely, that customer involvement can lead to large organizational changes as a result of a new customer focus.

<p>Project evaluation is concerned with indicators setting and performance tracking along the life of a project. It plays an essential role to the success of any project and therefore demands special attention. At the heart of this process lies a system of criteria one has to take into account when performing the evaluation. Our thesis considers this problem in a particular context, namely New Service Development (NSD) projects. The topic is of our interest because innovation (hence NSD) has become an inherent aspect of service industry while the research dedicated to NSD project evaluation is rather limited. Our thesis aims at understanding the purposes, the process of evaluating NSD projects and pointing out specific criteria included during the evaluation of NSD projects. As a result, the research question pursuing is: ‘What are key Evaluation Criteria for New Service Development projects?’ From the literature review on project evaluation and new service development, our study reveals a list of eight important criteria of evaluation. This consists of three financial criteria: (1) profitability, (2) production cost, (3) return on investment; and five non-financial criteria: (4) strategic fit, (5) marketing criteria, (6) corporate social responsibilities, (7) information quality, and (8) facilitating factors. From empirical perspective, qualitative approach is applied to collect data through three case studies and a series of semi-structured interviews with seventeen respondents in Albania, Italy, Sweden and Vietnam, from companies offering various types of service. The case studies build comprehensive understanding on the process of new service development, of project evaluation for NSD whereas interviews check the transferability of the three cases and identify evaluation criteria employed in practice. The empirical results were analyzed in comparison with the arguments found from literature. Regarding the research question, the study found that the set of evaluation criteria collected from empirical study fits with the list of eight criteria proposed by literature. Among this set, two main criteria ‘strategic fit’ (4) and ‘customer satisfaction’ which is apart of ‘marketing criteria’ (5) are recommended as ‘must’ for the evaluation process on any type of NSD project. Findings of this research contribute to the existing knowledge provided by both academic and practitioners regarding both project management field and new service development area, by suggesting a set of key criteria that should be used as guidance in order to succeed with evaluation of NSD projects.</p>

Given today’s industry dynamics, new service development is becoming increasingly important to the competitiveness, growth, and survival of organizations. Unfortunately, new service development has proven to be a complex and difficult task. Numerous reasons are stated in the literature such as the difficulty of understanding and anticipating latent customer needs and insufficient market research techniques. To facilitate proactive learning about the customer, recent findings stress customer involvement in the development process and observations of customers in real action. The overall objective of the dissertation is to contribute to an increased knowledge of customer involvement, i.e., the role of customers as contributors and co-creators in new service development. The thesis draws on theory from market and learning orientation in conjunction with a service-centered model, and provides an extensive review of literature on customer involvement in innovation. In five separate studies, this doctor’s thesis addresses the customer’s role in innovation activities in various industries (e.g., Staffing Services, Airline Services, and Mobile Telecommunication services). In this thesis it is argued that interaction is not only the focal point of services, but also the essence of customer involvement. A special emphasis is put on supporting techniques as these are the means by which customer information and knowledge are created. In addition, results are provided showing that customer involvement in innovation pays off. Companies that engage in collaborative innovation with customers can expect improved customer satisfaction, customer loyalty, and profit margin.