In today's competitive global markets, simply making a great product is not enough. To achieve profitable growth and stand out among competitors, you must start to strategically compete through service and innovative solutions for business customers. Professors Christian Kowalkowski and Wolfgang Ulaga guide you how to shift your business from a goods-centric to a service-savvy model. The authors' proprietary twelve-step roadmap to profitable service growth will help you break out of a narrow product-centric logic and discover how to � determine if your company is "fit-for-service," � make the most of your existing services, � innovate and create value-added services and customer solutions beyond your products, � embed a true service-centric culture in your organization, � drive change and align your service strategy with corporate goals, � transform your product-centric sales force into a service-savvy sales organization, � design an organizational structure that promotes service growth, and � align your interests with distributors and partners. Kowalkowski and Ulaga's twelve-step roadmap is based on rigorous research and long-standing experience working with businesses. They have worked with hundreds of managers in industrial and professional services companies, conducted research projects, led executive workshops, and published numerous articles in scientific and managerial journals, including Harvard Business Review, among others. Here, they share not only their own insights but the lessons learned from successful case studies and years of extensive research.

This volume provides updated guidance on how to design, develop and implement service management both as an organisational capability and a strategic asset. It is a guide to a strategic review of ITIL-based service management capabilities, with the aim of improving their alignment with overall business needs. It is written primarily for senior managers who provide leadership and direction in the form of objectives, plans and policies. It is also benefits mangers at other levels, by explaining the logic of senior management decisions.

Management, Computers, Computer networks, Information exchange, Data processing, IT and Information Management: IT Service Management

"ITIL® 2011 At a Glance" is an important update to the internationally-recognized ITIL® best practices for IT Service Management. "ITIL® 2011 At a Glance" provides graphical and textual memory joggers for the primary concepts of those best practices. IT organizations worldwide are implementing ITIL® as a vehicle for improving IT service quality and improve return on investment for IT services. This book is an update based on the ITIL 2011 Update. The desk reference’s unique graphical approach will take otherwise complex textual descriptions and make the information accessible in a series of consistent, simple diagrams. "ITIL® 2011 At a Glance" will be of interest to organizations looking to train their staffs in a consistent and cost-effective way. Further, this book is ideal for anyone involved in planning consulting, implementing, or testing an ITIL® implementation.

Examines the special characteristics that make services and the management of service organizations successful. Provides a comprehensive framework for service oriented businesses that stresses a streamlined service management system, the key components of which are market segment, service concept, service delivery system, image, and culture. Growth strategies and the nature of innovation are analyzed and amply illustrated. The role and principles of good leadership in service organizations form a crucial area of discourse. Topics such as the use of image and culture as management instruments, effective and persuasive communications, and ``high social technology'' are also explored.

In the world of industry and management producing 'intangible products' poses unique challenges. This book provides a comprehensive framework on these unique management issues and looks into the special characteristics of services and conditions necessary for success in the management of service organizations This classic book, as relevant as ever and updated, provides a set of ideas which has proved its power and validity beyond the fads of the moment, over an extended period of time. A book that is at the same time very holistic and conceptual, and yet both easy to grasp and to translate into practical action. It also evokes an alternative perspective on services, namely that of refocusing attention from the production and the product to the value creation process of customers. With these perspectivess every company todays needs to see itself as a service company. The book stresses the need for a streamlined service management system and analyses and illustrates growth strategies and the nature of innovation -but above all it emphasizes the special role played by good leadership. In particular, this edition looks at the role of technology in services as well as - more generally -the role of services in society. Of great value to managers and academics involved in the service industry this practical book, which has been translated into eight languages, will stimulate people to analyse and act on their situations.

& Top quality, needs-based, business best practice from Europe's leading executive education provider. & & The only hard, practical, implemental book on customer service. A classic business text book. & & Heavily updated and expanded with checklists and case studies.

How to close the gap between strategy and execution Two-thirds of executives say their organizations don’t have the capabilities to support their strategy. In Strategy That Works, Paul Leinwand and Cesare Mainardi explain why. They identify conventional business practices that unintentionally create a gap between strategy and execution. And they show how some of the best companies in the world consistently leap ahead of their competitors. Based on new research, the authors reveal five practices for connecting strategy and execution used by highly successful enterprises such as IKEA, Natura, Danaher, Haier, and Lego. These companies: • Commit to what they do best instead of chasing multiple opportunities • Build their own unique winning capabilities instead of copying others • Put their culture to work instead of struggling to change it • Invest where it matters instead of going lean across the board • Shape the future instead of reacting to it Packed with tools you can use for building these five practices into your organization and supported by in-depth profiles of companies that are known for making their strategy work, this is your guide for reconnecting strategy to execution.

Seven Secrets of Service Strategy reveals how to compete through service differentiation by concentrating on the creation of a valuable 'service culture' and customer loyalty programmes that improve customer satisfaction..

This book focuses on complex services, that is, services embodying the knowledge and capabilities of professionals, sought because of the client’s lack of knowledge or skills in specialized fields. This book is also concerned with the many organizations, such as hospitals and banks, that provide services requiring a mixture of professional and other services to produce the results that customers or clients need. Professionals, semi-professionals, and technical workers laboring in all spheres of human endeavor, from law to medicine, accounting to engineering, social work to architecture, who are involved or are interested in taking part in managing their businesses, small or large, will find this book an invaluable tool in achieving success. This third edition comes with an augmented value proposition: as you read and try to understand and experiment with the material, you are invited at various points to view video clips, lasting between 15 and 25 minutes, that will clarify, complement, illustrate, or go further than what you are reading.