This volume describes how frontier efficiency methodologies such as Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) and other techniques such as multi-criteria decision making can help service industries to improve their performance by providing a ranking of best-practice efficient service units and by identifying sources of inefficiency for each service unit. It explains how they can be used to determine potential improvement targets for each of the inefficient service units, to identify peers for each service organization and to provide a basis for continuous performance improvement. Presenting applications in a variety of industries, this book will be useful for the service management to improve service productivity, profitability, sustainability and quality and effectiveness of service deliveries. A free trial version of the World’s leading Data Envelopment Analysis Software (PIM-DEA) is available for readers of this book.

Here is an in-depth guide to the most powerful available benchmarking technique for improving service organization performance — Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA). The book outlines DEA as a benchmarking technique, identifies high cost service units, isolates specific changes for elevating performance to the best practice services level providing high quality service at low cost and most important, it guides the improvement process.

Christofer F. Daiberl explores how to enhance the productivity of services delivered by a network of co-providers. Harnessing empirical insights and synthesizing contributions from service design, information systems, and engineering, the author develops a systematic productivity improvement technique. The technique supports practitioners to iteratively discover and seize opportunities to enhance productivity for their own organization, customers, and relevant co-providers. Reflecting on the overall results, five general design principles are proposed that support the development of new artifacts fostering truly productive services in a networked world.

Claudia Lehmann explores service productivity from the providers, customer and operations perspective in the German airport industry using a solid empirical foundation. Available service productivity concepts, methods, measurements and their ability to overcome the emphasized problems are discussed, suggesting ways on how to deal with them. The insights of this book deliver considerable value for both management and academia.

Service organizations are grappling with unprecedented challenges in maintaining and enhancing productivity. As the landscape evolves, traditional approaches to service operations become obsolete, necessitating a deep understanding of the intricate dynamics at play. Innovative Technologies for Increasing Service Productivity delves into this urgent issue, offering a comprehensive exploration of the trends and challenges confronting service industries. The book sheds light on the impact of digital transformation, emerging technologies, and disruptive business models, serving as a guide for navigating the complexities of service productivity in an ever-changing environment. As a groundbreaking solution, this book not only identifies challenges but provides various solutions for service organizations to thrive amidst technological disruption. Its unique selling points lie in the breadth of its coverage, spanning diverse service industries and dissecting the symbiotic relationship between technology and productivity. Offering practical strategies and tools, the book equips service professionals with the means to enhance productivity, quality, and customer experience. By connecting the gap between theoretical insights and practical implementation, it stands as a valuable resource for academics, researchers, and service managers seeking innovative solutions to the evolving landscape of service productivity.

The conference committee encourages contributions on this wide range of topics through the use of a variety of rigorous approaches, including theoretical and empirical papers employing qualitative, quantitative and critical methods. Action-based research, case studies and work-in-progress/posters are enthusiastically welcomed. PhD research, proposals for roundtable discussions, practitioner contributions and product demonstrations based on the conference themes are also invited.

Diving into the evolution of Customer Experience this text offers an insightful exploration of the paradigm shift from customer service to Customer Experience (CX) within the Caribbean context. Unveiling the dynamics of CX's influence on satisfaction, loyalty, and business profitability, this book delves into strategic planning, employee development, data-driven decisions, and emerging technological trends. Scholars and practitioners within customer service, services marketing, customer experience management and customer relationship marketing in the retail hospitality and tourism, financial, health care and education sectors will find this a valuable resource on CX's transformative power in this region and beyond.

The book is a collection of perspectives on service and service management written by leading researchers in the field. It considers the range and importance of services, the challenges of managing services and recent contemporary innovations in services and service management.

Interest in the phenomenon known as "lean" has grown significantly in recent years. This is the first volume to provide an academically rigorous overview of the field of lean management, introducing the reader to the application of lean in diverse application areas, from the production floor to sales and marketing, from the automobile industry to academic institutions. The volume collects contributions from well-known lean experts and up-and-coming scholars from around the world. The chapters provide a detailed description of lean management across the manufacturing enterprise (supply chain, accounting, production, sales, IT etc.), and offer important perspectives for applying lean across different industries (construction, healthcare, logistics). The contributors address challenges and opportunities for future development in each of the lean application areas, concluding most chapters with a short case study to illustrate current best practice. The book is divided into three parts: The Lean Enterprise Lean across Industries A Lean World. This handbook is an excellent resource for business and management students as well as any academics, scholars, practitioners, and consultants interested in the "lean world."

The current economic and political climate places ever greater pressure on public organizations to deliver services in a cost-efficient way. Focused on the costs of service delivery, governments across the world have introduced a series of business like practices – from performance management to public-private partnership – in the belief that these will increase the efficiency of their public services. However, both the debate about public service efficiency and the policies and practices introduced to advance it, have developed without a coherent account of what efficiency means in this context and how it should be realized. The predominance of a rather narrow definition of the term – very often focused on the ratio of inputs to outputs – has tended to polarise opinion either for or against efficiency agenda. Yet public service efficiency, more broadly conceived, is an inescapable fact of the public manager’s task environment; indeed in the past, the notion of efficiency was central to the emergence of the field of public administration. This book will recover public service efficiency from the relatively narrow terms of recent debates by examining theories and evidence relating to technical, allocative, distributive and dynamic efficiencies. In exploring the relationship between efficiency and democracy, this book will move current debates in public administration forward by reflecting on the trade-offs between the different dimensions of efficiency that public organizations confront.