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.

Bakgrund I november 2010 avskaffades revisionsplikten för små aktiebolag i Sverige. Anledningen till lagändringen var att regeringen ville sänka kostnaderna för små bolag, samt att regeringen ville att Sveriges lagstiftning skulle harmoniseras med EU:s lagstiftning. Regeringen menade att bolagen efter revisionspliktens avskaffande skulle använda den insparade kostnaden till att köpa andra tjänster från revisionsbyråerna. Syfte Syftet är att beskriva hur den avskaffade revisionsplikten för små företag har förändrat kundunderlaget och tjänsteutvecklingen för några utvalda revisionsbyråer. Vidare är syftet att beskriva vilken betydelse revisionsbyråerna anser att revisionen har för de små företagen. Metod I uppsatsen har en kvalitativ metod använts. Intervjuer med 6 olika revisionsbyråer i Sundsvall har genomförts. En litteraturstudie, baserad på vetenskapliga artiklar, andra artiklar, böcker och skrifter från regeringen, ligger till grund för studiens referensram. Slutsats Revisionsbyråerna erbjöd redan innan lagändringen andra tjänster, förutom revision. Revisionsbyråerna har därför inte utvecklat några helt nya tjänster efter lagändringen. Istället fokuserar de på vissa tjänster, såsom redovisning och rådgivning. Respondenterna är positiva till lagändringen, men därtill anser respondenterna att alla företag är i behov av någon slags granskning. Här finns utrymme att erbjuda kunderna andra slags kvalitetsgranskningar istället för en revision, till exempel en särskild granskning.

<p>Competition in the logistics service industry has constantly increased over the last decades which has lead to the traditional services offered by third-party logistics (TPL) providers becoming commodities and no longer offering attractive profit margins. When the company’s core product becomes a commodity, the company’s performance of supplementary services becomes vital for competitive advantage. The term “value-added service” is defined as a service adding extra feature, form or functions to the basic service and stands for all types of activities which are not directly based on services traditionally offered by TPL providers, i.e., transportation and warehousing. The term value-added service is mainly used in the logistics literature while supplementary service is used in the service management literature. Although value-added services can offer obvious advantages in form of customer lock-in and improved competitive advantage, such services are still offered at a low level and there is much space for development.</p><p>The purpose of this thesis is to analyse how TPL firms develop value-added services and to investigate what the driving forces and barriers for developing and providing such services are. In the frame of reference, literature within service management, outsourcing, third-party logistics, value-added services, innovation and learning have been used.</p><p>In the thesis, an inductive research approach is used and qualitative study has been carried out by applying multiple case studies as a research strategy. The empirical material is gathered from three TPL providers: Bring Logistics Solutions, Aditro Logistics and Schenker Logistics. Data was collected through several interviews conducted at the three target companies and the findings have been analysed using the existing theory stated in the frame of reference.</p><p>The main conclusions from analysing the development process of value-added services are that this process in most cases is initiated by customer request and that development of value-added service can occur both in the beginning or during an ongoing relationship, though a lack of information about a customer’s business in the beginning of the relationship can hinder the TPL provider to develop value-added services. Apart from the TPL provider and the customer, firms such as IT companies, transport suppliers and other companies can be involved in the development process. No formal innovation process is applied for developing value-added services. The main driving force behind value-added services is meeting customer demands. Lack of proactiveness from the TPL provider’s side can be a barrier for developing value-added services, as well as problems with achieving successful organizational learning. The difficulty for the TPL firm to coordinate offering so many different services can be also seen as a barrier.</p>

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.

No description available.

<p>Consumers are negatively impacted by the increasingly high rate of product returns. In 2020, an estimated $428 billion in merchandise were returned to retailers post-purchase with $25.3 billion being fraudulent returns (NRF.com). Previous research has stated that consumers undergo various negative emotional and cognitive mechanisms when returning and identified reasons as to why consumers return purchases such as product failure, dissatisfaction, and regret (Lee, 2015). Specifically, regret occurs when an individual second-guesses a chosen product due to the realization that the benefits of the unchosen product outweigh the original choice, which elicits uncomfortable feelings (Zeelenberg et al., 1998). However, how does the process of product acquisition and the outcome of the purchasing decision affect post-purchase consumer regret? The purpose of this study is to investigate how the process of expending consumer resources (e.g., time vs. money) to acquire a product and the outcome of inconsistent product attitudes and behaviors (e.g., cognitive dissonance) can affect post-purchase consumer regret (PPCR). In this mixed factorial design, participants viewed scenarios that presented the ‘time’ and ‘money’ spent in acquiring their chosen product and were asked to read a product review that either elicited low or high dissonant feelings. It was hypothesized that consumers would experience greater PPCR when dissonance is high, and the time spent to acquire the product is primed. The interaction effect was not supported; however, an ad hoc analysis revealed that a consumer experienced less PPCR when dissonance is high, and the time spent to acquire the product is highly convenient. The current findings highlight the importance of understanding the process and outcome of purchase on post-purchase evaluations.</p>

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

No / In the face of growing demand in radiology, skill mix initiatives have sought to improve and expand service provision. Within the UK radiographer reporting is now widespread, although the growth in computerised tomography (CT) head reporting has not been as rapid as anticipated. The literature in this area is limited, but case studies have highlighted the successful implementation of this training through new radiographer roles in practice. Method A cross-sectional survey was developed to elicit information from radiographers and managers on their experiences before, during and after post-graduate training in CT head reporting. Results Seventy one responses were received comprising 48 past students (n = 48/111; 43.2%) and 23 service managers (n = 23/67; 34.3%). Key factors for the development were personal continual professional development for students and departmental need for managers. Challenges during training included a lack of study time due to staff shortages and access to radiologist mentors. Only 48.8% of students responding have gone on to use the new skills in practice cited reasons include staff shortages, resistance from radiologists and increase in radiological staffing. Conclusions This qualitative study has demonstrated that those trusts who have implemented CT head reporting have evidenced perceptible benefits for both the department and individuals. Those radiographers who are successfully reporting have shown themselves to be highly motivated and persistent in their development.

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.