Service Innovation

Ayumi Nakabayashi
Acting General Manager, Research and Development

July 01, 2009 (Wednesday)

The ratio of the service industry (tertiary industry), in the narrow sense, exceeds 70% in developed countries. Sustainable growth is necessary for the service sector to meet its expected growth potential. Product service system (PSS), an environmentally friendly business model that allows for effective and long-term product use to increase customer satisfaction, is gaining traction even in “monozukuri” (manufacturing).

In the past, experienced individuals have been relied upon for their intuition and know-how regarding the design and provision process of services. This is because it was thought that the value of services was decided by users, individual differences in satisfaction were strong, and scientific and objective methods couldn’t be used effectively. Expansion of the scale of operations and diversification of customers’ values, however, have made it clear that growth is limited using this traditional method of depending on human intuition and experience. In addition, advancements in IT and the internet have made it possible to obtain large amounts of real-time information regarding customers, and effective use of this information leads to strong differentiation.

Service innovation develops and improves services that satisfy customers through objective, reproducible, and versatile methods. By collecting information on customers and the service provision process, and by modeling (visualizing) the provision process, interactions with customers, and customer evaluation, effective (optimal) strategies for improving satisfaction can be specifically examined.

This kind of service innovation cannot be realized overnight. It starts with simple steps such as sharing collected information, and is gradually evolved into something advanced and reliable by continuing the PDCA(*) cycle. It is important to remember that customers, the targets of the service provision process, are differentiators among companies, and simply imitating another company will not yield adequate results. It is also important to remember that early entry secures a competitive advantage.

To realize service innovation, it is necessary to examine targets and methods of data collection, model customer evaluation as well as the service provision process based on data, and develop technology that covers a wide range of areas such as optimization to increase customer satisfaction.

In addition to traditional statistical and data analysis, FRI has developed expertise in mathematical modeling, simulation, and technology and application know-how for optimization, and provides support to meet the needs of our diverse customers.