Innovations in Marketing Services Innovation
Innovation of services
According to Chang (2010), service-based concepts have traditionally lent themselves less easily to innovation than tangible products (Chang 2010:113). Service-based enterprises are said to suffer from the problem of immediate exposure or the fact, that unlike the launch of a new, technical device, there is no 'build-up' or secrecy regarding the released service. However, clearly innovative services have been generated. For example, the innovation of providing supermarket shoppers with home-based deliveries, ordered online, has recently begun to be a popular service. Service sectors have been identified as existing in the Wholesale and Retail, Business and Professional, Education, Government, and Finance sectors. The Goods Sector encompasses Manufacturing, Construction, Agriculture and Extraction services (Omachonu & Einspruch 2010: 110).
Services have been defined as deeds, processes, and performances after which no material object is generated (Omachonu & Einspruch 2010: 111). However, there is a clear grey area in defining services. For example, in the restaurant industry, although a tangible product in the form of food is produced, the customer is really paying for the service of having his or her food prepared. Conversely, even in what might seem to be the most obvious service sector, that of professional tutoring (such as the Princeton Review or Stanley Kaplan SAT preparatory programs), there is still often a physical element to the service, in the form of the books that are used as part of the course.
This is significant...
Mainly physically-based businesses can find ways to sell services. For example, a grocery store chain that sells food can also offer cooking classes. (Conversely, service-based organizations such as a restaurant that sells food preparation can also sell the entirely physical product of a cookbook). In general, innovation tends to fall into four primary market categories: product innovation, process innovation, marketing innovation, and organizational innovation. One way to generate new ideas to market services is to evaluate the type of services offered by the company, and to ask if it is possible to create an innovation that falls into one or two of these major categories.
The first and perhaps most obvious example of product innovation involves offering diversified services beyond the current range. For example, in the case of SAT tutoring, the desire of more affluent parents to have exclusive tutoring services has caused the major test preparation companies to proffer higher-priced personalized tutoring services, in addition the already fairly pricey courses (Omachonu & Einspruch 2010: 112). In the case of process innovation, the new type of delivery of the service is the innovation, such as offering monthly at-home massages vs. having to come to one of the 'chain' subscription massage parlors available in many areas like Massage Envy.
Marketing innovation involves the way that services are marketed to consumers rather than creating an innovative new product. Although this might initially seem like a dubious strategy, given that…
