Tag Archive | Services

4 interesting things I learned from service productisation

Nov20

If Video-on-phonesomebody had said in 1984 that he had a vision of people watching Formula 1 from their phones in 2014, he would have been considered mentally ill. In 1994 he could have been hired into a start-up-firm going bankrupt later that year. In 2004 this idea had already landed on Steve Jobs’ office desk. And now in 2014 it’s part of our everyday life! In the end it was all about daring to think in a new way.

I was intrigued to take part in Aalto University’s seminar about Leadership in the productisation of services (LEAPS) a couple of weeks ago. The closing seminar showcased results of the LEAPS –project   that had lasted two years. The project focused on identifying and developing open and customer-driven methods for service productisation. LEAPS-project was carried out in collaboration between Aalto University, Tampere University of Technology and Innotiimi Oy.

Here are the 4 most interesting things I learned during the afternoon:

Everything can be viewed as a service

The keynote speaker, professor Anders Gustafsson from Service Research Center in Karlstad University, Sweden had a really interesting presentation. He talked a lot about service logic and that service is a perspective on value creation. The most important thing is to focus on value-in-use, especially on co-creation of value. He also concluded that everything can be viewed as a service. This was something we all agreed with, after hearing that already 70-80% of our GDP is service related. The service sector is constantly growing as traditionally goods based companies are starting to rely more on the service part of their business.

Big change: yShowroomingou have to get the customers to pay for the services

Anders Gustafsson also talked about companies traditionally giving services for free to sell products. This can generally be considered as a big problem. The companies have to make a transformation: customers have to start paying for the services. As a solution to this problem, Gustafsson mentioned bronze, silver and gold levels for customers as an example. You have to find a way to make the service part somehow visible to the customer.

5 steps for successful productisation workshops

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Service Design meets Futures Thinking #4

Jun3

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 (LinkedIn) and Anu K. Nousiainen (Linkedin).

Part #4: We are in the Service Innovation business!

Our three (and a half) previous blog entries have been summarizing the purpose of our study initiated in 2012 and the main findings from the study including the synergies between (Service) Design Thinking and Futures Thinking, and our illustration for Futures Research enhanced Service Design process. After some more investigation (selection of 150 books and articles) and integrating the strategic business thinking into the model with Katri Ojasalo (Linkedin), (our Head of Master’s Degree Programme in Service Innovation and Design here at Laurea University of Applied Sciences) we are proud to announce our forthcoming chapter in an international Handbook of Service Innovation (to be published by Springer in early 2014). Indeed, we have came into a realization:

What we’ve done so far is not only about Futures enhanced Service Design – instead, this is the next chapter in building unique, synergistic and dynamic capabilities for Service Innovation.

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Take a novel path to create new business opportunities and new value

 It has been clear from the beginning of our study that Design Thinking and Futures Thinking share a strong synergy in their principles and targets. Now it is crystal clear that by combining their unique approaches in innovation process results in bright and viable business opportunities (see process framework A. below). While Futures Thinking concentrates on driving forces in complex evolving systems and alternative contexts, Design Thinking embraces the viewpoint of system constraints and people oriented solutions. Not only this powerful combination gives you options for decision making in strategic and offering creation level but it tackles the two critical challenges in today’s (and tomorrow’s) business: Uncertainty and timing in creating Value Roadmaps in the interconnected and changing world. Here, Futures Thinking helps to make uncertainty easier to approach through providing alternatives for decision making and therefore improving organization’s readiness to act. Design Thinking improves the organization’s agility to seize the change with emphatic, adaptive and deep research approach and through iterative co-designing with customers to provide desirable, feasible and viable options for solutions.

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Service Design meets Futures thinking # 3

Dec7

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 #3: The Process Perspective

Our two previous blog entries have been summarizing the purpose of our study and the main findings including the synergies of service design and futures thinking, thus why it is beneficial for the two disciplines utilize approach and methods from one another and learn from each other. This third post introduces Service Design Process that is enhanced by futures thinking. Additionally we illustrate how service design thinking benefits foresight process.

The big picture: Becoming a human-centric innovative trendsetter

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Service Innovation: (Having a) Meeting with Customer Needs

Oct30

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 “How are the customers doing?

The key questions in service innovation are “How the customers define value?” and “How the companies approach customer needs?”. Outcome-driven innovation is an innovation philosophy and process built around the understanding that people “hire” goods and services to get jobs done (Bettencourt, 2010). By concentrating on these jobs, companies are capable of creating services beyond traditional services. For example when a person opens a bank account, creates a budget etc. the fundamental job is managing day-to-day cash flow. Service innovation in this case would be to create service to help the customer manage cash flow on daily bases. Creating a tool to help the customer make a budget in an easier and better way would not be service innovation but service development. Continue reading →

Service Design meets Futures Thinking #2

Oct29

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 opening part of the series:

“Service Design and Futures Research ensure sustainable business, because they provide tools and processes for innovation through effective visual and anticipatory stories by means of co-creative research methods and iterative processes that nurture the unthinkable.”

We identified lots of synergies between the two disciplines as well as many areas where the fields supplement each other. While investigating selected literature and talking with experts, we faced also very similar vocabulary when discussing about the approach, principles, processes and tools of both Service Design and Futures Research. We created a table along the way to record our findings (see below). This blog post starts to unwrap the principles of Service Design and Futures Research which both aim at better futures and better business success. Continue reading →

Service Design meets Futures Thinking

Sep30
A series of posts discussing the statement “Futures Research supports the Service Design process in multiple ways and throughout the whole process”. Part #1: Conclusions based on the first round of literature review
by Minna Koskelo and Anu K. Nousiainen.

This is the first post by the authors regarding the “Service Design meets Futures Thinking” research that they have conducted in summer 2012.

During our Master’s Degree studies of Service Design and Innovation at Laurea University of Applied Sciences we noticed that Futures Research was lightly covered in the literature of (Service) Design Thinking and related practices. Since both of us have a professional background in Strategic Foresight in the private sector we knew that Futures Research can be utilized especially for innovation and for identifying new business opportunities. Therefore, we decided to investigate the topic and our assumption in order to explain how these fields can benefit and supplement one another. Continue reading →