Why it is important

The services sector generates more than 70% of the gross domestic product of industrialized nations. Consequently, there is a great potential in innovation, in particular as information and communication technologies create unprecedented opportunities to offer services internationally, to scale them, and to deliver them much more efficiently.

The potential for new business ideas resulting from this is often too little understood and therefore not taken advantage of.

Also classical product manufacturers can move into new markets with innovative so called hybrid services. These are offerings combining a product with related services, thereby creating a superior value proposition.

Why it is special

Despite the size of the services sector and the innovation potential, research, education, and management for innovation in services is still not as developed as for classical product innovation.

Therefore more often than not the methodological knowledge of how to generate valuable innovations is lacking. It is only recently that the specifics of the service business, particularly the so called knowledge intensive b2b services are addressed on the research front. Relevant keywords are „services science“ and „service-dominant logic“.

A prerequisite to realize the potential is an innovation approach which views customer needs from a services perspective, and of course leveragers classical success factors for innovation, like a clearly defined innovation strategy, light weight and adaptive processes and tools, focus, and perserverance.