New Service Development: Preliminary Findings on Process Development and Assessment from the Greek Hotels

Facing deregulation, blurring of industry boundaries, increasing competition, rapidly advancing information technology, and increased customer sophistication, financial institutions attempting to survive and grow will need continuously to create new ideas and launch new financial products. Successful new financial products (new services hereafter) not only contribute to the increase in sales and profits, but also help the institution build up reputation, improve customer royalty, boost the sales of existing products, and develop into new markets. However, the results of empirical researches show that only 60-70% of new services are successful, the failure rate of some financial sectors even amount to 50%. The financial loss directly caused by unsuccessful new services may not be great, but the hidden costs, such as the wasted human capital, negative impact on company image, opportunity cost (other new services with success potentials are missed) and customers’ losing faith in other services, can’t be neglected. How to improve the performance of new service development (NSD)? Scholars have suggested that financial service industries should enhance executive quality of idea screening and market studies to improve new service performance, yet these suggestions have seldom been verified empirically. Also substantial research has investigated the reasons that service industries neglected market research and test marketing during new service development (NSD), but little empirical research has examined the objectivity of these reasons. This study focuses on NSD in financial service industries in an attempt to explores the contribution of executive quality for idea screening, market research and test marketing on new service performance, and also examines the influence of service-market newness on the relationship of marketing-related activities to new service performance. Sixty-two NSD projects form banking and insurance industries in Taiwan were sampled as empirical subjects. The empirical results show that the executive quality of market research has significantly positive impact on new service performance. Subgroup regression analyses indicate that idea screening and test marketing have significantly positive impact on new service performance for projects of low service-market newness. Furthermore, market research has significantly positive impact and test marketing has significantly negative influence on new service performance for projects of high service-market newness. Overall, the significance of idea screening, market research, and test marketing during the new financial service development process varies depending the degree of newness that characterizes the new service and the targeted market. Therefore, this study suggests that for proving new financial service performance, participants in financial industries may adopt contingency criteria for new service idea screening and flexibly implement market research and test marketing during new financial service development process. For projects of low service-market newness, meeting the existent competencies, resource, and experience should be adopted as the idea screening criteria, and implementing detailed, formal and planned test marketing would help participants verify the effectiveness of marketing mix on attracting customers from competitors or potential customers. For projects of high service-market newness, strategic alignment may be the proper criteria for new service idea screening, and participants should enhance the executive quality of market research to reduce the uncertainty during new financial service development process (i.e., customer preference, expected market size), but should not implement overly complicated test marketing planning before launch to avoid giving competitor’s possible opportunity of leading into targeted market.

IntroductionMany manufacturing firms introduce service innovations to satisfy customer needs and grow their business (Gebauer, Gustafsson, & Witell, 2011; Bettencourt & Brown, 2013). For these firms, the installed base of products acts as a platform for selling services to utilize the entire life cycle of the products to increase profits (Wise & Baumgartner, 1999). On the basis of the identification of value for the customer, manufacturing firms develop new services and use different value constellations for service provision (Kowalkowski, Witell, & Gustafsson, 2013). Theoretically, these services should be developed in a state-of-the-art new service development process (Gebauer, Krempl, Fleisch, & Friedli, 2008; Kindstrom & Kowalkowski, 2009); however, what should this process look like? Previous research confirms several important hypotheses about how new product development (NPD) (Griffin, 1997) and new service development (NSD) (Menor & Roth, 2008; Edvardsson, Meiren, Schafer, & Witell, 2013) should be performed - but do these findings hold for NSD in manufacturing firms?To achieve a competitive advantage, manufacturing firms need to innovate both products and services (Gebauer, Gustafsson, & Witell, 2011). Given increasing competition, manufacturing firms are emphasizing the development of new services (Wise & Baumgartner, 1999). Using service differentiation as a competitive advantage requires the formation of new service capabilities (Prahalad & Hamel, 1990), the development of service strategies (Gebauer, 2008), and knowledge of how to organize for NSD (Fischer et al., 2010). However, our scientific knowledge on NSD in manufacturing firms relies on a few conceptual contributions (Kindstrom & Kowalkowski, 2009), case studies (Gebauer, 2007), and cross-sectional surveys (Santamaria et al., 2012). Many of these studies viewed NSD as a strategic maneuver for manufacturing firms interested in services and treat NSD rather superficially. The present study aims to provide additional knowledge about NSD in manufacturing firms summarized in a set of propositions on how to successfully develop and introduce service innovations.An empirical study was performed to investigate the validity of previous findings of NPD and NSD for NSD in manufacturing firms. A survey was performed on 791 NSD projects, including both manufacturing and service firms. The results show that NSD in manufacturing firms is treated in a step-motherly manner. Often, no special unit for NSD exists, a service development strategy is missing, and the NSD process is either not used or was adopted from the product development process. The possibility of succeeding with service innovations in manufacturing firms in the long run under such conditions seems impossible or even a certain road to failure.Theoretical FrameworkNSD in Manufacturing FirmsWindahl and Lakemond (2006) claimed that the research on NSD focuses solely on the service sector, underexposing NSD that occurs in the manufacturing industry. Moreover, most research on NSD focuses on consumer markets rather than industrial markets. However, exceptions exist, such as Atuahene?Gima (1996) who suggests that service and manufacturing firms should focus on similar factors for improving their innovation performance. De Jong and Vermeulen (2003) argued that organizing NSD is an important topic for decision makers in both service and manufacturing firms. However, a service innovation builds on a different logic than a product innovation. This fact forces manufacturing firms with a challenge to manage different innovation logics and development processes. Product innovation concentrates on changes in product characteristics, while service innovation involves changes in the delivery process and client interface (Gebauer et al., 2008). Much knowledge exists on the innovation logic for product innovations and the NPD process. Reviewing the research on NSD in manufacturing firms shows a knowledge gap on what contributes to success with service innovation in the NSD process of manufacturing firms. …

The quality of relationships built with customers during the New Service Development (NSD) process is a current concern of researchers in relationship marketing (and NSD) and is particularly important in a highly competitive environment characterised by rapidly changing customer needs like the one of financial services. The primary relationship analyzed in relationship marketing is the one between seller and buyer, but the focal type of relationship for new product and service development is the one termed “the knowledge relationship” (Gummesson 2002), a relationship used to create knowledge. This paper reports the results of in depth qualitative research on the factors that impact on the quality of such relationships developed between new service developers and their customers during the NSD process of business-to-business financial services. Results show that the most important factors that affect relationship quality are: communication quality of the relationship; the development of strong relationship bonds; the quality of relationship partners; a strong customer orientation in NSD based on a proactive approach of relationship partners during the NSD process, and proficiency in knowledge brokering.

This paper examines new service development (NSD) in a distinctive set of services: experiential services. Organizations delivering experiential services place the customer experience at the core of the service offering. They focus on the experience of customers when interacting with the organization rather than just the functional benefits following from the products and services delivered. Increasingly, organizations are recognizing that managing customer experiences is a powerful way of differentiating from competitors, establishing emotional connections, and increasing customer loyalty. Studying experiential services sheds light on this highly intangible type of services and, by representing an extreme end of the service spectrum, can advance the knowledge on the wider area of new product and service development. This paper addresses three research questions: (1) What are the processes and practices used in the development and design of experiential services? (2) How are these processes and practices similar to or distinct from established NSD practices? (3) How do these findings reflect on the wider area of NSD? The study concentrates on five dimensions of NSD: (1) the process; (2) market research; (3) tools and techniques; (4) metrics and performance measurement; and (5) organization. For each of these areas propositions are formulated and refined with empirical data. Using the case research methodology, empirical data were collected in 17 case companies: experiential service providers, design agencies, and consultancies known for focusing on the customer experience. The main method of data collection was interviews with those involved in experiential service design, such as founders, executives, or experienced designers. The case data revealed a number of practices specific to experiential services. These include a strong emphasis on gathering customer insights, in several cases obtained through empathic research and ethnographic research techniques. Other specific practices for experiential services include mapping customer journeys or touchpoints and storytelling. The case study companies also revealed a trade-off between relatively formal, tight methodologies and more flexible, loose methodologies in NSD. More research is required to investigate the contingency factors surrounding tight or loose methodologies. The results also revealed the use of more broadly used NSD practices, such as a systematic NSD process, multiple performance measures, cross-functional teams, and front-line involvement. The observations from this study are captured in a set of seven propositions concerning NSD in experiential services. Reflecting on NSD in general, this study highlights the important role of service process innovation compared with service product innovation and the importance of continuous innovation requiring NSD processes and practices that are more flexible, iterative, and nonlinear. The study also supports the argument that different types of services may require different NSD processes and practices.

For service enterprises, new service development (NSD) is important as the R&D to the manufacturing enterprises. The most domestic logistics enterprises, to a certain extent, act in a rule of thumb and in a large state of randomness, and lack of expertise awareness and skills of new service management, when they do new service development. They have limited knowledge in the process of new service development. Based on the theoretical study and combined with the characteristics of logistics enterprises, this paper summarises the process of new service development in domestic logistics enterprises, and puts forward the theoretical model of 14 part in the process of new service development in logistics enterprises and describes the relationship between their relative weights, by using the methods of comparative empirical study, interviews and questionnaire survey. Formal process of new service development (NSD) is an effective way to improve the efficiency of logistics business innovation management. It has certain reference to logistics enterprises in new service development (NSD).

Collaboration among firms for innovation has received considerable attention. However, little is known about how firm-to-firm collaboration is configured in new service development (NSD) versus new product development (NPD). This study takes a multidimensional approach and measures firm-to-firm collaboration on different intensity dimensions of (1) processes (mutual communication, joint engagement, sharing responsibilities) and (2) ownership (relationship commitment and mutual trust). By showing that the phenomenon of collaboration is multifaceted, this study is able to knit a more comprehensive and cohesive understanding of the differences between NSD and NPD success as the result of different patterns of collaboration. Specifically, it utilizes survey data collected from 194 alliances to substantiate how NSD and NPD differ on these collaborative dimensions and then explores their impact on NSD versus NPD performance. The findings suggest that collaboration between firms in NSD is configured and works differently than collaboration between firms in NPD. The results further show that there is a stronger, positive relationship of intensity levels of joint engagement among firms involved in product development and performance than when a new service is developed. However, the intensity of mutual trust has a stronger, positive relationship with development performance when a new service is developed than when a new product is developed. Implications are discussed, and suggestions for future research are given.

隨著金融管制解除及電子商務時代的來臨，金融服務業的經營環境有了巨大的變化；為了生存與成長，金融服務業者必需不斷地創思新構想、推出新金融商品。惟實證研究顯示，新金融商品推出的成功率一直不高。新金融商品失敗所造成的直接財務損失可能不高，但仍有許多隱藏成本。如何改善金融服務業者的新服務開發(new service development, NSD)績效呢？這是金融業者高階主管及學術界所關心的問題。目前已有研究探討金融服務業的新產品成功因素，惟這些研究多僅以單一問項來衡量績效，未考量新金融商品績效的多構面特性。此外，這些研究多以探索性統計分析方法檢測NSD活動與新金融商品績效的關聯。再者，許多研究探討NSD活動及NSD效果（如服務/市場配適、行銷溝通效果）對新金融商品績效的影響，惟至今尚乏研究探討NSD活動與NSD效果的因果關聯。 本研究首先透過文獻分析將新金融商品績效歸納為兩個構面—直接績效及間接績效，將可能影響新金融商品績效的因素歸納為NSD行銷活動（包括市場研究、人員訓練、試銷、上市準備與推出）、及NSD效果（包括服務／市場配適、服務獨特卓越性、行銷溝通效果），其次推論NSD行銷活動執行品質對NSD效果之影響、NSD效果對新金融商品績效的影響、服務／市場特性對「NSD效果與新金融商品績效關聯」的干擾效果，並以國內銀行業及保險業的93個新金融商品開發專案為實證對象。 本研究之假設推論以層級迴歸及節制迴歸驗證。分析結果顯示，(1) NSD行銷活動中以上市準備與推出對NSD效果的影響最大，其次為市場研究，試銷活動的影響最小。(2) NSD效果中以行銷溝通效果對新金融商品績效的影響最大，其次為產品／市場配適，服務獨特卓越性顯得並不重要。(3) 「NSD效果與新金融商品間接績效的關聯」受到產品對市場的新穎性、市場競爭度、市場對公司新穎性的干擾。最後，研究者對實證結果在新金融商品開發管理涵義及後續研究做一些討論與建議。

User involvement in New Service Development(NSD) has attracted the limelight as a good method, but we still lack an empirical analysis of the effectiveness of user involvement. In addition, positive and negative determinants of user involvement in NSD have not often been dealt with in past research, and this deficiency has been identified as a barrier to the effective utilization and diffusion of user involvement in NSD. To our knowledge, this is the first study to empirically investigate the degree of implementation of user involvement in NSD, the effectiveness of user involvement, and the utilization strategy in the digital content industry. First, we reveal that ordinary user involvement is more effective for NSP performance than lead users or business partner companies. Second, we empirically demonstrate that the effectiveness of involving lead user and ordinary user in NSP is different according to the new service type and service development stage. Based on the results of our analyses, we suggest some strategic directions for the companies who want to newly adopt or improve their current level of user involvement in NSD. We expect that the implications of this study will be utilized for efficient diffusion of user involvement in NSD and will eventually contribute to tangible achievements for companies in the digital content industry.

The continuous development of new services is a prerequisite for the development and prosperity of Museums in today’s competitive environment. So far, however, limited research effort has been devoted on the development process of innovative services within cultural and creative industries and particularly Museums. Given the crucial importance of cultural organisations for the dynamic cultural and creative industries, this research work aims at studying the development of new innovative services in the Museums of Athens and their ability and capacity to adopt innovation management (i.e., development, organisational, functional and technological aspects of management) as the basic strategy for diversification. To achieve this task, a systematic desk-top research took place in order to identify and analyse models, practices and processes available on the design and development of new services. Based on the results of this work, a survey was designed aiming to identify the current status with regards to innovative services development and innovation management within Athenian Museums. The fieldwork was carried out in 62 museums in Athens and investigated the development process of 184 different services. The analysis was based on data collected via an in depth structured interview with questionnaires from museum directors knowledgeable about new service development in their organisation. A multicriteria methodology was used to examine the potential of a predictive model for successful new service development projects in the cultural industry.

Interorganisational new service development capability in the mobile communications ecosystem

Purpose– The current research aims to analyze antecedents and consequences of using the information provided by customers involved in new service development (NSD). It also seeks to examine the moderating effect of technological turbulence on the antecedents and consequences of information use.Design/methodology/approach– Data were collected from service firms in a variety of industrial sectors. Unit of analysis was a NSD project in which current or potential customers were involved during its development process. A self-administered mail survey was used to collect the data. A total of 102 complete questionnaires were returned. The proposed model was tested using partial least squares.Findings– The results indicate that the instrumental use of the information collected from customers involved in NSD can lead to higher service advantage and service newness and in turn to higher market performance. Findings reveal that higher recording and reviewing of information collected from customers involved in NSD result in greater use of the information during the NSD process. An important result is that under technologically turbulent environments, recording and reviewing information from customers involved in NSD is less likely to result in a higher instrumental use of such information. Finally, the authors' results show that when technological turbulence is high the instrumental use of information from customers involved in NSD has lower value for both service advantage and service newness.Originality/value– Findings confirm the importance of customer involvement for NSD in a business context. Using the information from customers involved in NSD to resolve specific problems or make decisions regarding NSD projects can result in enhanced service performance. Moreover, information processing capabilities are key antecedents to instrumental information use. Finally, managers should be aware of the potential negative effect of technological turbulence.

Although previous research has demonstrated that many critical success factors for new service development (NSD) relate to how the NSD function is organized, few attempts have been made to examine the organizational arrangements for NSD in more detail. This study explores what kind of organization structures firms use for NSD, and what implications such structures have for NSD. To expand the previous research heavily focused on standardized services, a qualitative, in‐depth study of NSD in knowledge‐intensive business service firms was conducted. The study uses a multiple case comparative research strategy where empirical data was collected in nine companies. The study empirically identifies four key organizational arrangements for NSD: NSD in customer relationships, NSD in temporary project teams, NSD in business development units, and NSD in separate R&D units. These arrangements are conceptualized as organization structures characterized by their level and nature of specialization, standardization, formalization, and centralization. The study shows that these key NSD structures can coexist in organizations despite their different and even contradictory characteristics, and highlights the unique opportunities and challenges that each structure brings for NSD. Challenging extant research that has focused on examining particular structural characteristics as success factors for NSD, this study demonstrates that NSD performance may be driven by a configuration of several, simultaneously operating NSD structures rather than by one superior structure. Accordingly, firms should establish organizational approaches that support close connections between different NSD structures.

The intensive competition in grasping banking customers, as well as the rapid growth in customers' needs for high quality, proper services have given rise to new innovative methods for optimization of processes, service development and value creation in Iranian Governmental bank systems. Today organizing a new service development is an important topic for decision-delivery in service banks. New Service Development (NSD) process providing the lower cost and higher benefit methods for creation of competitive advantage in Governmental banking systems. In this paper the new theoretical model of New Service Development process in Iranian Governmental Banks has been introduced. The qualitative data was collected through interviews. The methodology is adapted from in-depth interviews with academic experts and managers of Governmental banking systems until theoretical saturation state achieved. The gathered data was analyzed using axial and open coding methods. The results shows that the NSD process Iranian Governmental banking systems is includes of four main stages and 35 secondary factors consist of analysis& new concept development, design, pilot and launch, development. Eventually, the results of this paper can be used for the new services development in Governmental banking system in a competitive environment at the other countries.

Increasing interest on intermodal transport both by the shippers and carriers has led logistics service providers and transport operators to develop new intermodal transport services. When the service literature is analyzed, it is found that there are a few studies on the New Service Development (NSD) of specific service industries. However, it is observed that there is a gap in new intermodal service development. That’s why this study aims to explore the stages and determine the common stages in NSD process of intermodal transport. In order to reach this aim, intermodal transport operators and service providers offering intermodal transport services in Turkey are investigated by case study method. This study is the preliminary step for NSD processes in intermodal transport for the current literature. According to the findings, the issues of the human resources have not been paid enough attention during the NSD process. It is concluded that intermodal transport requires more detailed and industry-specific NSD models compared with the other service industries.

New service development (NSD) is a growing innovation discipline. Despite the growth of articles about NSD, several authors have criticized the lack of attention paid to NSD, compared with new product development (NPD), and the lack of consensus across NSD findings. At the same time, others have proclaimed that NSD is a sophisticated, mature field of research. This paper tries to resolve these issues by analyzing 230 empirical articles on NSD, published over a period of 30 years. It investigates the content of NSD research articles, the authors contributing to the field, and the research methodologies employed. It finds that, despite its growing popularity, the field has not moved forward substantively. NSD is a subject specialty but lacks an “invisible college” of researchers addressing the topic. This has resulted in a body of research that fails to provide managers with consistent answers to basic questions about how to most effectively manage NSD processes.One of the main causes for the lack of coherence in the knowledge on this topic may stem from the fact that, rather than initially approaching research in the domain without ingoing bias and using grounded theory approaches to create initial understanding, many of the early researchers applied the concepts, frameworks, and methods used to understand NPD to the NSD domain. To correct this problem, it is proposed that the field of NSD needs to move forward in a significantly different manner. This paper provides several recommendations for attracting more academics to the field, elevating the visibility and status of NSD as a research domain, and also presents a research agenda that may help reorient future research in this area so that a more complete and coherent body of knowledge is generated that both advances the field and helps practitioners manage NSD more effectively and efficiently.