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zIn both business and practice, services have become the most discussed goods category.
Today, many services markets are extremely dynamic, for several reasons.
The banking and airlines industries are heavily affected by the movement
towards globalisation, for example. A second group of service industries are
being liberalised, and are facing demanding customers for the first time. This
includes utilities, telecommunications, postal services, and administrative services.
A third group, which includes the retail industry, is characterised by strong
competition. Whereas this group was originally dominated by smaller providers,
there are now huge players involved.
From an academic perspective, services are special compared to manufactured
goods since services are more intangible, necessitate the participation of the consumer
and are more heterogeneous. These reasons are the starting point for many
publications in the area of services marketing which deal with operational issues
in this field.
Services Marketing: Managing the Service Value Chain complements this literature
by providing a more strategic approach to services marketing. It takes into account
the current challenges in business practices. In many service industries, the competitive
tendencies mentioned above result in a stronger value orientation of
service firms. The shareholders and top management ask for a value contribution
of each activity of a service firm. In addition, marketing is supposed to create
value by making sure that the service firm delivers value by itself to the customer.
Our Service Value Chain delivers a framework for a systematic, value-oriented,
services marketing.
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