Service Innovation

Summary
This chapter gives an introduction to innovation management in a services context. First, basic definitions and types of innovation are presented. The history of service innovation research and its origins in manufacturing innovation are outlined. The main part of this chapter introduces and applies relevant methods that can support projects for new services development. The last section elaborates on the servitization of manufacturing. It emphasizes the importance of services for the manufacturing industry and presents five types of integrated product service offerings.

Review Questions
1. What is the definition of innovation that was used in this chapter?

2. What are the four basic types of innovation according to Henderson and Clark? Name the two dimensions along which they are distinguished, draw the resulting framework and give an example for each category.

3. What are the three approaches to studying innovation in services and how do they relate to existing knowledge in the manufacturing innovation domain?

4. What are the essential elements and steps in applying the Janus Cones method? Please apply the method to a service topic not presented in this book and record your results.

5. Which method presented in this chapter is most suitable for analyzing the current and potential stakeholders of a service system? What value can you derive from applying it to your innovation challenge? Please compare the services offered by a budget airline, such as Ryanair, and those offered by a full-service provider, such as Emirates, using the value curve method.

6. Using the customer system method, please analyze the involved parties in the following situation: A start-up is considering to offer a novel service that allows college students to mentor highschool students in order to give them profound insights into their colleges of interest before they start with their studies.

7. Which types of product service systems are there? Find an example from practice for each type of product service system defined.

8. What are the challenges posed by servitization and how could each of them be addressed?