Service Innovation & Design

  • Takeoff into Design Thinking

    There is an ever growing list of definitions for design. Some people agree with Nelson & Stolterman who’ve said that “Design is the ability to imagine that-which-does-not-yet-exist, to make it appear in concrete form as a new, purposeful addition to the real world (The Design Way)” whereas others prefer Tim Brown’s version: ”Design thinking is a discipline…

  • Competing with Business Models

    “If you are not thinking about business models, you are an irresponsible leader.” Co-author of Business Model Generation (Osterwalder & Pigneur, 2010) Alexander Osterwalder challenged Finnish business experts in Business Model Innovation Seminar in Helsinki 6th of November 2012.  He stated business models makes organizations thrive or die. “We will have more industries where companies…

  • Hey executive! A few tips to make your organization strategically agile

    “The only thing constant is change” – Heraclitus We know your job as an executive is getting tougher and tougher no matter in what business you´re in. Operating environment is getting more and more competitive, fast based, complex, turbulent and blurry. You have probably noticed that the “old” way of thinking about the strategy and…

  • Revolutionary Coffee Cup

    By Tero, Eva, Pingshan, Outi and Mari This is going to be an unusual day for you! Because you don’t start checking your emails or Facebook, or logging into your Skype, MSN or whatever instant communication system you use at work. But look over the edge of your coffee cup and dare to discover the…

  • Service Design Breakfast

    What is the Service Design Breakfast? The Service Design Breakfast is a series of open talks by leading service design experts. All the Finnish service design community is welcome and the main communication channels for the talks are blogs from the Finnish Universities and Facebook community page. To attend each talk you must to subscribe…

  • Book review: Fischer T., Gebauer H. and Fleisch E. (2012), Service Business Development: Strategies for Value Creation in Manufacturing Firms,

    Cambridge University Press, UK The book gives a comprehensive overview of the service business development in the business environment of capital goods and brings together years experience on how manufacturing companies can create value through services. It also discusses the challenges of how to generate revenue of the services itself (along with products) and what…

  • Biography of Jan Carlzon, the author of the book, “Moments of truth”, published in 1987

    The title of Jan Carlzon’s book, “moment of truths” is perhaps the main reason I chose to read the book among other recommended books. The term “moment of truth” became a household name to me as far back as my past studies in Sales and Marketing at Helsinki Business College. Carlzon’s book laid emphasis to…

  • Service Innovation: (Having a) Meeting with Customer Needs

    Vast number of new service concepts fail (> 4 out of 10), because they are build first and then introduced to the market (Bettencourt, 2010). The focus should be another way around and shifted away from the service solutions and back to the customer. Rather than asking, “How are we doing?” companies must began asking…

  • Service Design meets Futures Thinking #2

    A research based series of posts discussing the statement “Futures Research supports the Service Design process in multiple ways and throughout the whole process” by Minna Koskelo and Anu K. Nousiainen. Part #2: Synergistic Principles of Service Design and Futures Research We start our second blog post with where we left you in the first…

  • Forerunner Service Companies – the Trendsetters of Service Business Innovation

    by Jenni Aranko It is widely acknowledged, that services will gain ground from the traditional manufacturing and product-based approaches. As a part of this change, it has been recognized that market value is equally important focus point for the operations of a company as revenues and profits. Intangible assets such as knowledge, customer relationships and…