Overcoming the service competition trap: How successful service provider compete on innovation

Most of the top executives would agree that innovation is one of the most critical challenges of service management today. Although the necessity to introduce a systematic innovation approach for services is understood, a lot of companies are still struggling to do so. In order to support service provider in one of the most difficult and at the same time one of the most crucial steps in service innovation: the generation of new service ideas, we have analyzed more than 150 successful examples of service innovation. Results of this investigation are five basic patterns of successful service innovation, which can help the companies to unleash their full service potential and out-innovate their competition.