Innovation in Services
In the current issue of CEO Refresher Katalin Eibel-Spanyi and Andrew Spanyi give some pertinent advice on how to innovate in services. They point out that most people think of innovation first in terms of products. But service or business process innovations can be much more powerful. Dell, Direct Line and Amazon are all examples of revolutionary service innovations. Processes apply at all levels of the business so we need to think creatively about our methods and procedures - each of them offers scope for innovation - either incremental improvements or radical replacements.
How can you go about this? Is there a process for process innovation. There are several. Katalin Eibel-Spanyi and Andrew Spanyi give an example of where you sketch out a process from your point of view and then from the customer’s point of view. Every delay or inconvenience in the customer’s experience is an opportunity for innovation. The article was written for SMEs but the lessons apply to organisations of all sizes.
 Paul Sloane