The Service Industry - Research Paper Example

Abstract: This report is about the significance of academic research in the service industry focusing on the services like transportation, logistics and distribution. It focuses on the fact that the employees at every level in the service sector must be able to understand and conduct the academic research in order to analyze the surrounding environment so that they would be able to increase the accuracy of management decision making, as well as their academic thinking. The report focuses on the aspect that the industries, service and the academia must have a sound understanding of the overall research process in order to avail the competitive advantages. Innovation and competition have increased both in manufacturing and service industry which require the research process to be carried out frequently in order to capitalize on the available opportunities in quantitative and qualitative manner. Service industry like logistics has been most important and prominent in the use of research academics due to the continuous need of innovative integrated logistics for the timely delivery system. The researcher collected and analyzed the primary and secondary data. Primary data were collected through a sample questionnaire which was used for answering the following research objectives: To study the impact of research in the service industry To assess the mode of interaction between the research and service industries To identify the emerging opportunities and trends for the increase of academic research in service sector To find the understanding of academic research among the managers of service industry. After analyzing the data it is evident that the service industry has successfully established the close collaboration with the academic researchers in order to equip the management with research methodologies and processes. These collaborations have led to major breakthroughs, innovation and improvement in the service sector. Establishment of research centers has been recommended to give a chance to both service and researchers to communicate and work in the close collaboration to move forward to the technological advancements and innovation in the service sector. Content Contents 1 Content 3 Introduction In the modern technological and competitive business environment, the survival of manufacturing industry is not possible in the absence of the service industry. The dependency of these two industries to carry out the business has increased the need of research not only in manufacturing sector but also service sector. The innovation in the service sector is becoming more important which is why the academic research is now exploring and contributing in the development and sustainability of this sector. In the developed countries, service industry accounts for almost 80 percent of the gross domestic product. The service sector has employed large number of engineering and science workforce along with the users of information technology (Johnston and Clark, 2008). Manufacturing industry relies heavily on the service industry to carry out the procedures and have competitive advantage among the leading manufacturers. The leading services that are employed in the manufacturing companies are distribution, logistics and customers services. These have become the leading sources to achieve the competitive advantage in the global business. The level of productivity and rate of innovation in the major service infrastructures like transportation, finance, health care and communication had an enormous impact on the performance, innovation and productivity of all the segments of an economy. The contribution of academic research in the service industry has led to major development over the years. The employees in the companies at every level have been taught the importance of academic research in the delivery and innovation of the services sector. By using the different dimension of the academic research and following the procedures, the management has been able to change their policies and framework in order to adapt to the new findings. This is the reason that many countries now have bolstered the contribution of academic research in the service sector. Major competitive companies now have well established research and development departments in order to explore the advantageous competitiveness they can achieve with the help of their service sector improvement (Kotler, et. al., 2009). In addition to employing research oriented people, the management is being trained accordingly with academic literature and its processing in order to equip them with quick knowledge that would guide them to make decisions regarding their business. Academic research not only has been able to contribute towards the innovation but also has contributed towards shaping the regulatory environment. The studies of transportation service industry, financial service industry, distribution service industry, communication and network systems service industry and logistics service industry have shown that academic research is a major impetus not only for innovation but also for the management and employees of an organization in order to work towards the aims and objectives of the company. Both the employees of research and service sectors must have a complete knowledge of carrying out a research (Johnston and Clark, 2008). 1.1 Aims and objectives of the research: The aim of this research is to find the importance of being able to understand the research process by research and service sector employees and managers in order to ensure the competitive advantage and innovation in the business. Objectives of the research The following are the objectives of the research: To study the impact of research in the service industry To assess the mode of interaction between the research and service industries To identify the emerging opportunities and trends for the increase of academic research in the service sector To come to the understanding of academic research importance among the managers of service industry. 2. Literature review The research industry has been providing its services through universities and research oriented companies; however, the contribution in conducting the research has been higher from the universities. After the World War II, the research sector flourished in all the developing countries. From 1970 onwards, the need for research in service sector increased and comprised around 10 percent of the overall research and development being carried out in US. By 1998, the research in service sector had increased to 13%. In 2002, the total R&D expenditure through universities rose to about 22 percent as applied research (Johnston and Clark, 2008). In the United States the universities account for almost half of the research and development in the service sector (Johnston and Clark, 2008). From 2002 onwards, the service industry’s contribution towards funding the academic research has been increasing and has grown around 900 percent. The contribution of academic research increased in the services like transportation, logistics and distribution to rapid changes in the communication and computing technologies. The management of service industry sector like distribution, logistics etc. had to evolve according to the requirements from the manufacturing industries. As more and more manufacturing companies adopted work-in-progress and inventories reduction through just-in-time, the management of these service sectors also had to find innovative methods and integrated transportation system in order to maintain the supply-chain management by managing materials and distribution (Johnston and Clark, 2008). Over the time, the use and demand for integrated logistics and transportation service increased. This is why the providers of these services have become more sophisticated. Due to the increase in demand, the managers are now required to be equipped with the relevant knowledge regarding the technology and logistics innovation which has compelled both the service and academic managers to use the academic research and understand its procedure and depth. The competition in the service sector, especially logistics, has increases which have also created new incentives to improve the quality service and reduce the costs (Stettner, 2000). Competition in the manufacturing and retail sectors has forced these service sectors to reduce cost, the work-in-process amount, to resort to faster inventory turns and to operate in close collaboration with the suppliers. All of these landmarks have been achieved by training the managers of both service and academic research industries. The service providing sector works in close collaboration of the academic research world to find out the innovative and technologically advances methods to make the services as per the demands from different industries. The service sector manager can only apply the research skills if he/she has a sound understanding of the research (Kotler, et. al., 2009). The academic research has made a major contribution in the service sector by the significant work done in the artificial intelligence and computer usage. Academic research has been able to give thorough knowledge of decision support tools to the service sector. Usually, the managers in the service industry are not well aware of the technologies available. It is the academic research that helps them in exploring all the possible opportunities and technologies available in the market to earn the competitive advantage. The interaction between the service providing company and academic researcher is very important. The new entering workforce dedicated to research is allowed to apply their knowledge confidently. The management responsible for the application of the new technology and development can provide ample opportunities to the workforce. In order to increase the level of knowledge about the academic research and its findings, the management should work in close collaboration with the research workforce in a company (Stipanuk, 2006). Such process of knowledge transfer clearly indicates that the closer ties between the service company and researchers are very important to reap the maximum advantages from the academic research. This clearly focuses on the point that the managers of service sector need to be fully knowledgeable about the research processes (Stipanuk, 2006). Although the academic research has contributed to the emergence of sophisticated processes and management decision to reduce the operating costs and increased efficiency, the funds requirement is still the need of the academic research in the service sector. The major problem that usually persists between the managers at research and service sector levels is the conflicting objectives for collaborative projects. Usually an industry requires timely and quick solutions while the academics want to conduct a detailed and comprehensive research with publishable and valid results. This is the gap which can be filled by educating the management of both the sectors to understand the requirements and procedures in order to avoid the hindrance (Kotler, et. al., 2009). 3. Methodology For any research, research methodology and research design are very important as these two are integral to successful completion of every research (Kotler, et. al., 2009). This research was exploratory in nature. To answer all the objectives and questions of this research, exploratory research was conducted which not only gave a qualitative but quantitative depth analysis of the service industry and academic research interdependency. The research objectives required the collection of primary and secondary data as well. All the data collected in this research was kept safe and not misused. References were used with all the data collected from primary research and books etc. A questionnaire was made to gauge the knowledge of research among the service sector managers. The names of the participants were kept confidential. 3.1. Interview approach To discover the existing situation in the service and academic research industries, a questionnaire was developed to collect the primary data. Based on these questionnaires and secondary data, conclusions and findings were developed. 3.2. Data collection This research was conducted based on a lot of secondary research data which were collected through many published materials, both books and journals. This research has been divided into qualitative and quantitative halves. There are some aspects in the research objectives that were studied and analyzed under the qualitative study. This qualitative information was converted into statistical quantitative data to have a better comprehension of the persisting situation and final findings. 3.3. Limitations Due to the industry aspect, limited information was available in different services. Major information was available for logistics only as a service sector. The sample size was very large so limited companies were chosen for the research. 4. Findings and analysis From the primary and secondary data collected, following are the concluded findings: The sustained interactions between the service industry and academic research have resulted in the formulation of key ideas that were made base for technological advancement and innovation. The knowledge of what needs to be done and knowledge of the possible decision were fused to come up with breakthroughs. These breakthroughs and technological revolution are usually the result of cumulative efforts and actions by the people that move back and forth across the service industry and academic researchers. This shows that the management of the service sector is well equipped with the research tools and processes. The managers exactly know the research methodology along with the skills implementation within the industry. Due to strong consumer and market demand for technologies, commercial incentives to provide technology and innovation increase. This is why the requirement of the academic research has increased. A large number of research mechanisms and structures, both external and internal, provide multiple opportunities and pathways for the successful commercialization of new incentives and ideas. From the primary data analysis, it becomes clear that the new research graduates are welcomed in the service industry as this industry is flexible enough to acquire knowledge and capitalize on it in every capacity. The organizational environment is made conducive for the effective interaction of the managers and the academic researchers in order to avoid any hindrance between the acceptance of objectives and final results. The managers take keen interest in learning from these graduates in order to understand the methodologies and processes of research. The purpose behind this learning is to have a strong control over the changes taking place along with urgent changes as per requirement. The opportunity for the need of academic research will always be there as the service industry is always going to need information technology to move ahead. The need of continued diffusion, development and application of information technology will always provide opportunities to the academic research in fields like mathematics, computer sciences, life sciences, physical sciences, social sciences, as well as engineering and behavioral sciences. Due to such great need of academic research, the managers and employees at different levels will require to make themselves equipped and knowledgeable about the research, its criteria, processes and methodologies to work in close collaboration with the researchers and eventually meet the goals of the company. 5. Conclusion This study has concluded how the sustained and close collaboration of the managers at research and service industry levels have led to innovation, technological advancement and overall improvement. The research training of the management in both sectors has led to the conceptual breakthroughs. The implementation of the basic and applied research has helped in development of prototype, tools and marketable services and processes. Due to highly competitive business world, the service sector is in constant need to information technology. Academic research has become a central process for any organization to survive. The managers are willingly participating in learning the methodology of a research on order to contribute towards achieving the objectives of the company. The research clearly indicates the benefits academic research is providing to the service sector. It is helping in the development of long term plans along with positive impact on the performance of the industry. The service and research sector must ensure the cultivation of interactions between the managers of the service and research sectors along with training them to take the maximum advantage of the potential. Service industries and academic researchers must continue to work together to explore new pathways and mechanisms. Both of them should experiment new dimensions and approaches. Given the importance of personal interaction and relationships among the industry and academic researchers for knowledge transfer and product collaboration, research centers should be established to harness the close collaboration. References: Johnston, R. and Clark, G., 2008. Service Operations Management. 3rd Edition. New Jersey: Prentice Hall. Kotler, P., Bowen, J. and Makens, J., 2009. Marketing for hospitality and tourism. 5th Edition. New Jersey: Prentice Hall. Stettner, M., 2000. Skills for New Managers. New Jersey: McGraw Hill-Irwin. Stipanuk, D., 2006. Hospitality facilities Management and Design. 3rd Edition. American Hotel and lodging association. Read More