The service sector used to be the stepchild of the business world, with a reputation for relatively low-paying positions in industries such as retail, banking and hospitality. No more. Service is drawing the attention of high-powered executives and academics alike.
That’s welcome news to Mark Davis (above). The Bentley professor of operations management has spent the last 15 years making the case, through his research and writing, that stellar service is a major factor in successful organizations.
“The global marketplace has shifted power from producers to customers, who can now buy anything they want from anywhere in the world through the Internet,” he explains. “Companies increasingly recognize that in this hyper-competitive environment, providing outstanding service gives them the edge.”
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics characterizes 80 percent of the American economy as service oriented – an understated figure in Davis’s view. “Every business employs workers in accounting, sales, and human resources,” he observes, “all of which are service positions.”
Marshaling Insight, Ideas
To promote and encourage dialogue on the subject, Davis has organized the Art and Science of Service conference for five years running. The annual event enables academics and practitioners interested in service to exchange ideas, insights and success stories.
The 2009 conference, held at Bentley in June, engaged the broadest range of disciplines yet. Attendees hailed from operations management, marketing, information technology, human resources, and design. Executives from Newton-Wellesley Hospital, Continental Airlines, and IBM – which pioneered the concept of service science – gave presentations. Other participants were professors from Technion in Israel, the University of Exeter in the U.K., and IE Business School in Spain.
“This is the only truly transdisciplinary service conference,” notes Davis, whose collaborators on previous conferences included IE Business School, Carnegie Mellon University, the University of Hawaii, and IBM. “We focus on the challenges common to all services, such as barriers to service innovation and the use of analytics to improve customers’ experience.”
Timely Topics
Such topics are winning favor among a growing number of organizations, which are launching or refining initiatives that cultivate a service culture.
“They know service will give them a competitive advantage in the marketplace,” Davis says of organizations such as Tufts New England Medical Center, the Ritz Carlton, and Northeast Delta Dental.
The next Art and Science of Service conference takes place in June 2010 at IE Business School in Madrid. Bentley is co-sponsoring the event, which will focus on how technology affects the design and delivery of high-quality services.