Customers, Business Models and InnovationLaajuus (5 op)

Osaamistavoitteet

The course discusses management of a successful service business based on identifying and targeting customer needs. Active listening and development of offerings, aimed at meeting customer expectations and creating positive service experience, results in deeper and longer business-to-consumer and business-to-business relationships. Service climate and positive deviance are recognized as essential elements of a service-dominant logic. The course stresses the need for continuous service improvement and business model innovation. Scalability, efficiency, and profitability of services can be improved by monitoring, rethinking and innovating business processes.

The objective of this course is to gain professional understanding of the new, emerging paradigm in the services economy - its strategic shift towards the customer, which affects most aspects of business management, business models, service operations and processes, and business (service) innovation.

The student gains advanced knowledge of the basic concepts of service business (service organization/provider, service management, service profit chain, service design, service offering, service recovery, customer/service experience, service climate) and develops further understanding of the fundamentals of services economy such as innovation, goods-dominant and service-dominant logic, and recognition of customer needs. The student acquires the competencies to analyze business models and processes in the service industry, and learns to apply this knowledge for the analysis of his/her case company practices. The student gains the capability of designing or developing new service offerings.

Sisältö

Sessions of the course include:

02. Dynamics of service business • Services as a business logic and implications of a service-dominant logic for value creation • Competing through services and profiting from the service chain • Perspectives of service-dominant economy.

03. Towards a customer-focused organization • Value co-creation as an extended paradigm of value creation • Co-creation of value with the customers and its management: balancing the customer and company interests.

06. Innovative business models and strategic development • Exploratory and exploitative businesses; radical and disruptive innovation as basic concepts of modern economy • Developing business models for service businesses.

12. Innovation and service management • Business ecosystems; open innovation; distributed innovation, and communities of creation • Customer involvement in service innovation • Business processes modeling in services.

15. Towards strategic collaborative client management in the service society • Voice of the customer in goods-dominant and service-dominant logic • Client management and relationship alignment: attracting and retaining the customer after customer acquisition • Voices inside the service provider organization and service society thinking.

22. Service concept, customer experience, and service design. • Service science and its concepts • Customer experience in goods-dominant and service-dominant logic • Service experience as a phenomenon beyond the immediate service delivery • Managing the service experience in a new service design • Research priorities for the science of service.

Arviointikriteerit, tyydyttävä (1)

The following criteria are used for assessing the IM Master’s coursework (lecture involvement, discussion, written assignments and discussion leaders).

The coursework meets with many of the below criteria. The assignment meets more than three of the above criteria in a satisfactory manner.

• The student shows an understanding of the relevant course content in relation to the contents of the articles, lectures and discussion.
• The student's texts/presentations demonstrate an understanding of the article/lecture content and an ability to select, interpret and justify key messages in a grounded manner.
• The student shows interconnections between the proposed concepts and current business practice, showing abilities of reflection, evaluation and discussion.
• The student shows professional initiative, active participation and responsibility in both individual and team work.
• Student assignment is written in line with academic writing practice and instructions for Master’s Thesis, using the Harvard Referencing system, with references both in the text as well as reference list. The texts are written in coherent, fluent English.
• The student shows the ability to collect valid knowledge for his/her topic from outside the course sources by using scholarly search tools, by questioning current business practice and by practicing source critique.

Arviointikriteerit, hyvä (3)

The coursework meets with most of the above criteria. Additionally the assignment shows good quality performance in three or more of the criteria or otherwise good interpretation.

Arviointikriteerit, kiitettävä (5)

The coursework meets with all the above six criteria. Additionally the assignment shows excellence in three or more of the above criteria or otherwise deviating excellence.