Service Innovation and Management: Digitalization, Service Infusion and Customer Experience

by Lars Witell (Editor)

Overview

This open access book investigates how digitalization and service infusion are changing service provision and the customer experience. It highlights the central role of service management and service innovation in making these changes not only appear in theory but also implementing them in business practice. At the beginning of the 21st century, many manufacturing firms struggled to exploit the financial potential of service businesses, a phenomenon described as the service paradox. While many manufacturing firms are still struggling with this paradox, several firms (both service and manufacturing firms) are simultaneously struggling with digitalization. This phenomenon can be viewed as the digitalization paradox, i.e., as a situation in which companies invest in digitalization but struggle to reach the expected revenue growth. By applying the lens of service innovation to digitalization and service infusion, the book showcases how firms can overcome the service and digitalization paradoxes, transform service provision, and improve the customer experience. It offers comprehensive coverage, blending literature reviews, conceptualizations, empirical illustrations, and case studies to offer a multifaceted perspective on corporate strategies, illuminating pathways to address the challenges posed by the service and digitalization paradoxes.

Built on the latest research from the CTF – Service Research Center at Karlstad University, Sweden, this book offers a valuable resource for managers seeking practical strategies and approaches to enhance their understanding and implementation of service management and marketing principles. It will also appeal to academics with an interest in service management and marketing.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9783031765599
Publisher:	Springer Nature Switzerland
Publication date:	01/29/2025
Series:	Future of Business and Finance
Pages:	184
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.25(h) x (d)

About the Author

Lars Witell is a Professor at the CTF – Service Research Center at Karlstad University, Sweden. He also holds a position as Professor in Business Administration at Linköping University, Sweden. His research interests include service innovation, customer experience, and service infusion in manufacturing firms. Over the past 20 years, he has led large research programs in collaboration with industry.

Table of Contents

Managing service towards better customer experiences: Digitalization, service infusion, and service innovation.- Service management: Evolution and moving forward.- Service management through service platforms and digitalization.- Strategies for service growth.- Value co-creation through collaboration: The case of efficient load out.- Configure to conquer – implementing configurators to improve competitiveness.- Enabling a Circular Economy through Green Service Strategies.- A Little Bit of That Human Touch – Avoid and Recover Service Failures.- Enhancing the phygital customer experience in the digital world.- Balancing value propositions with privacy: Exploring data-driven digital wellness business models.- Service innovation in the eyes of customers: The Swedish innovation index.- B2B service innovation: How business customers perceive firm innovativeness.- Service innovation in healthcare: Service today versus service tomorrow.