Abstract
He we begin a whole series of chapters focused on designing the operational structure. We shall start with service design to then move on, in the following chapters, to its operational implementation using the Service Activities Sequence (SAS). It will be a fascinating journey, as designing an operational structure transforms blocking points into something positive, as it opens the door to thinking up new responses to operational problems that seemed insoluble. “I have to reinvent myself,” a telecoms company managing director told me. “I have to do things differently.” Well then, let’s go!
We have now analyzed the most abstract layer in SPDM using the Promise/essence/flame red tools and knowledge stock. We have introduced brainpower and how to enrich its life by industrializing. The six variables have enabled us to understand basic operational structure. Here, in Chapter 9, we shall go into understanding how to reinvent operational configuration by transforming blocking factors into value-added elements.
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Notes
- 1.
In this chapter I shall summarize ideas I have outlined in more detail in my IESE technical notes. If readers wish to delve conceptually into the topic, I refer them to my notes, which are listed in this book’s general bibliography.
- 2.
Unfortunately I must speak in the past tense. The company no longer exists, as it was sold off and did not know how to survive. I was CEO at Artespaña for three years and have very fond memories of this part in my professional career.
- 3.
Just to mention a few names, Oscar Tusquets, Miguel Milá, André Ricard and Rafael Moneo worked with AZIMUT.
- 4.
Note the verb “obliterate,” i.e., to smash to bits in order to put them back together.
- 5.
And reinvent services.
- 6.
Many engineers will see a similarity with “value analysis” done for a product.
- 7.
I have read somewhere that Steve Jobs never took no for an answer, and in truth that it is a very powerful approach. Can you imagine a life where nobody in the business says no to you, but rather, “I’ll look into, let’s see, it depends.” An important qualitative change.
- 8.
This is my experience when I talk in class. If you are well versed in such matters, then forgive my presumptuousness.
- 9.
Moreover, I shall provide an entire glossary so readers can articulate the issue fluently and, by the way, come across well in conversation with colleagues.
- 10.
A. Cooper, R. Reimann and D. Cronin (2005),
- 11.
E. H. L. Aarts and S. Marzano (2003),
- 12.
A beta version follows the alpha stage in software development. It usually begins when the software has all of its functions. Beta testing focus on reducing the impact on users and often incorporates usability tests. The beta version is usually applied the first time the software is available outside the organization that has developed it.
- 13.
Rehearse as you might, plan and organize as you might, the world is chaotic and there will always be some uncertainty. This is so-called “residual uncertainty” (Muñoz-Seca and Riverola, 2008), that which is left after going through a thousand assessments, plans and trials. C’est la vie, it is what it is, and you have to learn to live with it (it has taken me 60 years to accept it).
- 14.
Starting up various practices that shorten the development cycle, measure real progress without resorting to complicated indicators, and help to understand what it is that clients really want.
- 15.
There we were talking about time to product.
- 16.
The idea is simple and beautiful (there is beauty in simplicity). Product design problems must flourish when they arise, not be buried. In simultaneous design as soon as a possible manufacturing or materials problem, or whatever, is envisaged, it its put on the table to be destroyed. This cuts time unbelievably and products are spawned more flexibly and quickly.
- 17.
This idea is taken from one of the features of experience-centric service (Zomerdijk and Voss, 2009).
- 18.
SSM Health Care is a not-for-profit health system present throughout the United States that seeks to provide treatment to all members of its communities regardless of their economic situation. SSM Health Care owns 16 hospitals, has a minority stake in another five and links with several rural hospitals, owns two geriatric homes and has several associations with the medical profession, among them the Wisconsin-based Dean Health Plan.
- 19.
They are similar to the aforementioned “moments of truth”.
- 20.
Co-creation is business and client jointly creating value by defining and solving problems, which allows clients to co-create a service experience in keeping with their own context. It creates a setting in which consumers may maintain an active dialogue and co-create personalized experiences (Prahalad and Ramaswamy, 2004).
- 21.
I take the name from the anthropologist Margaret Mead, who studied three societies in Papua New Guinea. I loved her books when I was young.
- 22.
Classic ethnographic research relies on three methods to gather data: interviews, observation and documents. It thus obtains three data groups: appointments, descriptions and excerpts from documents. The outcome of all this is a sole narrative description that often comes with graphs, diagrams and other elements that help to “tell the story” (Hammersley, 1990; Genzuk, 2003).
- 23.
For more information, see J. Pruitt and T. Adlin (2006).
- 24.
Ideas like “customer journey” are the fruit of the IDEO approach.
- 25.
It enables new creativity structures for individuals, by making new ideas flourish for activities in service provision (we shall go into creativity in Chapter 13).
- 26.
This focus on unsatisfied demand was proposed by MIT Professor Eric von Hippel 1986. Von Hippel talks of lead users as any company’s advanced clients, who must be the source of inspiration for designing new products. His ideas are perfectly applicable to designing new services.
- 27.
A pictorial description must be imbued in the service essence. A way for agents to act must be designed that conveys the service’s essence by introducing alarms to help to prevent negative behavior.
- 28.
Remember, the law firm.
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Muñoz-Seca, B. (2017). Converting Blocking Factors into Value-Adding Elements: Do Redesign the Service. In: How to Make Things Happen. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-54786-2_9
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