The Singapore Public Library system was transformed from being mediocre at best to world class using information technology, progressive human-resources management, and marketing approaches unusual for government agencies.
Supernova is the name given to a new way to manage client relationships that originated in the Merrill Lynch Indianapolis offices. During a trial period, Supernova generated very good results among financial advisers and their customers, but challenged the traditional ways in which financial advisers were rewarded and the nature of the relationship with their clients. The case protagonist needs to decide whether to recommend a national rollout for Supernova.
Putnam Investments uses technology to enable many of its frontline service providers to work routinely and permanently from their homes. This case explores issues related to this strategy, from conceptualization to implementation and highlighting continuous improvement.
Illustrates how Four Seasons manages hotels in countries with strong and distinct national cultures. Focuses on how the chain meets its exacting service standards in a variety of settings worldwide, with special attention on France.
Designed to familiarize students with the consolidation of highly fragmented labor-dependent service industries, offering insights into service firm growth and the ways services can, and cannot, increase their efficiency and effectiveness. Two frameworks are presented illustrating the sources of benefits and disadvantages of size in consolidations and the important decisions managers must make in designing and executing a consolidation strategy. Intended to give managers insights into the consolidation phenomenon, illustrating the problems plaguing large, labor-dependent service consolidations. These problems explain why so few labor-dependent service consolidations have been successful. A rewritten version of an earlier note.
Illustrates how various elements in a customer's encounter with Internet services relying on physical service (labor-intensive customer support and/or logistics) affect one another. Presents a framework that suggests: 1) that improving service quality in specific elements results in cost reductions in others creating a virtuous cycle and 2) that some elements of the service encounter provide superior sources of competitive advantage than others because of the difficulty competitors have replicating them. Both findings have implications for managers of organizations involved in the provision of most services over the Internet because they illustrate how those managers can simultaneously increase organizational efficiency and customer effectiveness.
Develops a framework for exploring the idea of, how service affects the economics of Internet organizations. Development of the framework requires an understanding of the different forms service takes in organizations that conduct business through the Internet. These forms are described as "virtual" (either pure information or automated) and "physical" (requiring some degree of human intervention). Because the nature and quantity of physical service necessary to deliver value to customers influence the quantity of human intervention required, they also influence a firm's ratio of variable to fixed costs, which alters its "scalability." A paradox occurs: many venture capitalists and proponents of Internet business view reduced scalability negatively; yet the cause of that reduction in scalability, human intervention, often helps a firm to differentiate its offering to customers, thus providing a source of competitive advantage. Also illustrates that scalability alone is insufficient to generate profit.
In 2001, Monster.com was an Internet site that, among other things, connected individuals seeking jobs with organizations wanting to hire. Its substitutes included help wanted classified advertising in newspapers. Monster was one of the few Internet companies that had weathered the bursting of the dot-com bubble and continued to grow both its revenues and profits at rates above 50% per year in 2001. This case examines why the company was able to prosper and discusses options for future growth. Also explores the question of how important focus is to an Internet company, asking how far from its core business Monster could diversify.
The Singapore Public Library system was transformed from being mediocre at best to world class using information technology, progressive human resources management, and marketing approaches unusual for governmental agencies.
ServiceMaster, a Fortune 500 supplier of home services such as Terminex, Trugreen (lawn care), and MerryMaids, has a 50% interest in an Internet start-up designed to attract new customers to its services and help service providers improve quality and lower costs. Should ServiceMaster buy the remaining 20% from VC Kleiner Perkins, or should ServiceMaster make WeServHomes.com even more independent?
Describes the power of word-of-mouth referral for service organizations. Illustrates a process to help students and/or managers calculate the value of word-of-mouth and develop ways to influence (i.e. increase) it.
Discusses the value of service recovery to service organizations working to enhance customer loyalty. Also provides practical advice to managers and examines strategies proven helpful to service organizations in their recovery objectives.
Describes the evolution of Wit Capital from its origins as a small brewery to an online investment bank advising both small technology-based companies seeking to raise capital and large companies seeking to acquire Internet companies, as well as offering retail brokerage services to individual investors seeking access to initial public offerings. Discusses Wit's continuing evolution in 2000, when it sold its retail brokerage unit and refocused on traditional corporate clients. Provides details of Wit's value propositions to its target clientele and some data regarding the value provided and service quality delivered. Written for a second-year MBA course in Service Management. Can also be used in courses focusing on the Internet, General Management, Entrepreneurship, Service Management, and Service Operations.
Four Seasons has a love/hate relationship with technology, including the best Web site in the industry. This case examines how a leading service delivers high-tech/high-touch, and looks at its progressive human resource strategy.
Sotheby's has taken 50% of its business by volume to the Internet. How do the economics change? How do logistics and customer support needs change? What leverage does the Internet provide this established bricks-and-mortar auction house?