Strategic Understanding of Service Design - Research Paper Example

?CRITICAL AND STRATEGIC UNDERSTANDING OF SERVICE DESIGN IN THE INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY BASED ATTENDANCE AND MONITORING SYSTEM IN THE UK'S UNIVERSITIESINTRODUCTION AND THE PURPOSE OF THE REPORT The service design is the systematic procedure that is used for the designing and deploying the resources which includes the people, material and infrastructure as well as communication system in order to provide the services with continuous improvement (Tidd and Hull, 2003; BS 7000 – 10: 2008). The main dimensions improvement that is aimed at service design includes as quality betterment as well as the improvement in the facilitation between the customer and the service provider. Hence, by the employing the service design techniques the resultant services are developed in a system that is in accordance to the need of the customers and user-friendly for both customers and service provider. All these in turn results competitive services offered by the business or organization in comparison to the competitor (Gronroos, 2000). Effective service design requires developing the critical and strategic level understanding of the services required by the customers of the organization (Hollins & Hollins, 1991). Therefore, the aim of this report is to develop the comprehensive understanding of the service requirement of the customers of the universities of UK from its information technology based attendance monitoring system. The paper in specific reference to the literature review in the context of the service design will determine the service requirement from IT based student attendance monitoring system in the universities of UK. The paper has found that service design appears to have significant involvement in the universities’ attendance systems. It is despite fact that service organizations are less involved in integrating service design. Finally, the improvement recommendations are made for the university attendance system. LITERATURE REVIEW AND RELEVANCE TO THE IT IN UK UNIVERSITIES The service design, simply stating, is aimed at transforming the service that is provided to the customer more useful. The services that are delivered to the customer result in more effective, efficient, usable as well as desirable by the customer once are provided in accordance to the critically developed design (Parasuraman, Zeithaml, and Berry, 1988). Hence, the process and system that uses the strategic level considerations in devising the path through which the product or service are provided to the customer result in winning customer preference (Moritz, 2005). This win-win situation distinguishes the company’s product among large number of homogeneous products and services (DC, 2013). Herrmann, Huber, & Braunstein, (2000) have defined that service design is the domain that enable the organization to explore the potential strategic possibilities within their business model. Service designing uniquely offers the organization to present the new services by redesigning the pattern of the old service (Goldstein et al., 2002). Moritz (2005) and Salter and Tether (2006) state that as the difference between the product and service is quite evident; therefore, the system of designing and implementing service also requires considering different aspects. These features include considering the uniqueness of the customer requirement, expertise from all related and involved field and most important aspect that needs consideration is the on-going and constantly changing nature of services. Therefore, difference service design categories are determined by Moritz (2005) as depicted as follows: (Kytola and Pakkila, 2012) It is important to understand that companies are able to achieve the distinction only on the basis of the good service design. Therefore, good service design shall ensure that process is successful in deliberately designing the experience that customer of the company perceives more valuable. Also the factor that distinguishes a good service design from others is the similar level of valuable experience generated for the service provider as for the service receiver. Hence, the process in order to understand the customers and service providers requirement and integrating them into a comprehensive system requires similar level of efforts as involved in developing innovative service (Ermer & Kniper, 1998). The large number of services is facilitated to the students on the attendance identity. For example, library services, financial assistance, scholarships, extra activities etc. Also the complete profile of the student appears with the same attendance ID using which student can be contact. Hence, the list of the mentioned services is constantly evolving. The evolution of the services mainly follows the single and simple system that is composed of the six stages process (Zomerdijk & Voss, 2010). The simple service design process involves the combination of tools and techniques for the different stages. At the first place, the process requires collecting the insight pertaining to the service as a whole, its critical components and leakages etc (Berry, Zeithaml, & Parasuraman, 1994). For the purpose, various tools and techniques can be employed such as digitally captured notes, written content and other. Once the basic idea of the service is collected, the service design requires involving the users of the service. At this stage, aspects that are considered critical by the users are identified. These identifications help in interpreting the needs of the users in the current and future potential services by the organization. Sessions of brain storming and games are some of the direct and indirect ways to involve user in designing service (BS 7000-3: 2008). The third stage of the service design process required developing the blue print of the entire service. In a blue print the entire system of service is developed into a broken down components of jobs in a sequence (BS 7000-1: 2008). The blue print also incorporates the elements that are critical to the customers as well as service and then attempts to reduce the gap between the actually designed service and the aspects that provide satisfaction to the customer. The fourth stage is based on the conducting the analysis of the improvement ideas. This stage is concerned assessing various aspects such as quality of the service, speed of the delivery of service, dependability of the service, flexibility of the service and one of the most important dimensions include the cost of facilitating services (Slack, Chambers, and Johnston, 2004). The assessed idea is then prototyped for testing in the fifth stage and finally the tool the kit is developed. The tool kit provides the comprehensive information pertaining to the requirements to be met in order to implement the service design (Hart, 1996; BS 7373-3: 2005). The service design, also defined as choreography of the interaction between the customer and the company, claims to bring the many benefits to the business. The size of the benefits that service design discipline can bring to the customers as well as company is largely dependent on the success in effectively completing the service design which is complicated in nature (Larosa, 2012). Successful service design is based on the four principles, according to the article by Larosa (2012) which are as follows: The expectation set offered by the service shall not exceed the real set offered by the company. The right mix of people from the customer and service provider side. The customers are important in determining the factors which are more important to them while the service provider are critical in declaring the competencies and capabilities in financial, operational and other aspects. The service design shall ensure the integration of systems or components that have flexibility for the evolution and integration of future requirement. Finally, the service design shall offer the plan which can be implemented in reality. Service designs shall not propose the option that are extremely innovative yet are not possible due to any reason in reality. According to the Kytola and Pakkila (2012) studied the tourism industry with designing the tourism service for the Russian families. Kytola and Pakkila (2012) identified various factors that were considered critical by target market such as decision making ease, language and visual aid, planning and transportation etc. Among important dimensions to be considered by the while defining the design is the specification of the required product or service. Sudin, Ahmed-Kristensen, & Andreasen (2010), report that specification plays an important role in transforming the abstract into a full fledged and concrete product or service solution. Therefore, services design for the industry as well as companies within single industry are required to considered various factors that suit to the need of their respective target market. The importance of the service design has increased its importance since recent past; however, it is still limited. A survey in the recent past by the UK Design Council has revealed notable difference between the realizations of the role the service design plays in bringing competitive advantage to the organization (Tether, 2008). The results were as follows: (Tether, 2008) Hence, only one in ten financial firms while one in eight consumer firms were concerned about the importance of the design in the services of the firms respectively. There are many factors that play important role in the use of the service design. Tether refers that among the dominant factors that limit the use of the service design system in the service firms include lack of visible rewards, incremental costs and long procedures associated with it (Tether, 2008). Finally, the evolution of the technology has shown its reflection on the service design industry as well. Seidel (2000) reports that incorporation of technological equipment in the service design results not only in the optimum utilization of current potential, but at the same time also identifies the potential elements those are shadowed. Hargadon & Sutton (2000) has identified that experts of service designs are capable to leverage the industry requirement to the due level only by employing the technologically advanced systems. Hence, like every industry the service design can provide incremental results with the employment of technology in order to provide effective and efficient service design (Seidel, 2008). Hence, across the lifecycle of the service from service strategy, service design and service transition various elements are required to reflect continuous improvement (Taylor, Lloyd, & Rudd, 2007). Universities are on forefront in the deployment of these strategies due to increased competition as well as connectivity. The attendance monitoring system has been through range of interconnected services to the university administrator while the students can avail range of services at the university portals with the same attendance ID. Single system than facilitates the departments to review the position of the complete performance of the students such as using centrally devised attendance monitoring system the departments can identify the level of the students involvement in the university program requirement. Also the activities of the students can also be traced. For example, students in the masters and other professional degree programs also alongside do jobs. Such students are required to present at job while at the same time they are also required to have one to one meeting with the faculties for the course related issues. Therefore, the students are facilitated with the one to one meeting details on the attendance systems (The University of Sheffield, 2013; M3biometrics, 2013). METHODOLOGY FOR THE SECONDARY RESEARCH For developing the review of the service design for the attendance systems in the universities of UK, the underlying report has relied on the qualitative research. The qualitative research as developed in the above section has notified dimensions that are considered important from the service providers as well as service receivers. The literature is developed in specific reference to the considerations that are deemed critical on the practical grounds that in turn support in understanding the importance of service design. The qualitative based research benefits the in-depth understanding of the concept with rich explanations with them. The qualitative research also provides information that is not predicted by the researcher instead is accounts for the already established results (Patton, 2002; Sanders, Thornhill, and Lewis, 2009). Hence, the important attributes of the service design those are applicable for the attendance monitoring systems in the universities in UK are concretely identified through qualitative research. ANALYSIS OF THIS RESEARCH TO THE FIRST STAGE FINDINGS The comprehensive review of the service design literature reveals various aspects that are at work in the business today. As a matter of fact, it is well established in the management literature that employees of the organization are considered internal customers and it is also established that only satisfied employed serve the customers to their best. Therefore, in the service design domain the equal importance is being given to the service taker i.e. customer as well as service provider i.e. organization. Though literature review revealed that service design since recent past is not acknowledged in the service industry. However, the universities attendance systems appear to have significantly involved the considering the service design as the convenience, flexibility and ease are incrementally considered evident in the systems. Therefore, in reference to the survey reported in the literature review the universities can be accounted in the service firms that have realized the importance of service design and have been implementing it effectively and consistently. CRITICAL AND STRATEGIC CONTRIBUTION AND IMPLICATION OF SERVICE DESIGN SPECIFICATIONS AND IMPROVEMENT ON IT IN UK UNIVERSITIES The literature has emphasized the importance of considering the customer ease, convenience and other factors in service design. The following recommendation is developed in the light of the current ID based attendance systems in universities of UK for the increased value proposition: The university attendance systems are though providing effective service to customers; however, it is still required to consider the language barrier for students from abroad. Therefore, it is recommended that university attendance system or ID, around which the entire thread of information of students is developed, shall provide language option for the non-native students. This will provide them concrete understanding of the policies of the university available at portals. This will improve the service to the non-native customers of the university. LIMITATIONS OF THE RESEARCH AND OPPORTUNITIES FOR FURTHER REVIEW The paper has developed the review of service design in the information technology based attendance monitoring systems in UK universities. The paper has developed the review on the basis of the qualitative research as well as attributes developed by the service designers. Hence, the paper has the limitation that it does not account for the view of the customers as well as service providers of the service understudy. Hence, the important role the primary research which is not addressed in this paper results in the limitation of the study. Furthermore, the paper is also based on the qualitative research. This in turn results in lacking the potential benefit that can be derived for making recommendations through empirically assessed results. Hence, the paper has opened up avenues for future studies. These studies shall be aimed at determining empirically proven relationship between factors that result in increased efficiency and effectiveness in the attendance monitoring systems in the universities of UK. List of References Berry, L. L., Zeithaml, V. A., & Parasuraman, A. (1994). 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