Developing differentiated offerings

The packing of core and supporting service s is an essential aspect of market strategy. Service provider s should conduct a thorough analysis of the prevailing conditions in their business environment, the needs of the customer segments or types they serve, and the alternatives that are available to those customers. The decisions are strategic because they hold a long-term view for maintaining value for customers even as industry practices, norms, technologies and regulations change.

Bundling of supporting services with core services has implications for the design and operation of services. Decisions have to be made whether to standardize on the core or the supporting services. One can arrive at the same level of differentiation in a service offering taking different approaches to bundling (Figure 5.25). However, the costs and risk s involved may be different. Service Transition processes guide such decisions. The costs and risks for supporting services may be overlooked during initial stages of planning and development. Not only that, since supporting services are often shared by several core service s, there is often poor visibility and control over the demand for supporting services and their consumption.

Figure 5.25 Differentiated offerings

While service providers must focus on the effective delivery of value from core services, they should also devote enough attention to the supporting services. Satisfaction surveys show that user dissatisfaction is often with supporting services even where the core service is being effectively delivered.

Some supporting services, such as help desk or technical support services typically bundled with most service package s can also be offered on their own. This is an important consideration in strategic planning and review s. Service providers may adopt different strategies for core services and supporting services. For example, they can drive standardization and consolidation for supporting services to leverage economies of scale and to reduce operating costs, while developing core service package s specifically designed for particular customers. Or they may standardize the core service package and use supporting services to differentiate the offerings across customers or market segments. These strategic decisions can have enormous implications for the overall success of a service provider at the portfolio level. This is particularly important for service providers who need to balance the differing needs of, typically, not one but several enterprises or business unit s while trying to keep costs down across that portfolio to remain competitive.

Дата добавления: 2015-11-14