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This book offers models and frameworks to analyze your service delivery systems as a whole. It presents the framework to solve customer problems by delivering the right knowledge at the right time to the right place and take advantage of the efficiency that technology and algorithms offer.
Why do so many brilliant plans fail to deliver in practice? Why can't your employees just do what you want them to do? In most cases, because the operations eco-system in which those plans must be deployed fails to fully understand the problem that needs to be solved.
The fourth industrial revolution is seeing advances in Artificial Intelligence industrialize the service sector. But, despite the cost-cutting that these advances offer firms are still struggling to stay competitive. That is because they think that cost-cutting delivers increased efficiency whereas it is the other way around: increased efficiency cuts costs. And the heart of efficiency in delivering services is people andtheir knowledge.
As industrialization drives ever more standardized offerings and ever little human contact it is in those rare moments of human interaction where the greatest opportunity to add or destroy value lies. It is human brains and the knowledge they contain that are best suited to problem-solving and individualizing client solutions. The real competitive edge will become the ability to foresee and individualize problem-solving.
To do this, firms must start thinking of knowledge as inventory - who knows what, who needs to know what and where and when do they need to know it.
List of contents
Chapter1 A scenario and the fascinating world of operations.- Chapter2 Basic ideas behind SPDM.- Chapter3 the mission, essence and flame red.- Chapter4 You have to walk the streets.- Chapter5 Cost-cutting does not lead to efficiency.- Chapter6 The main thing is not knowing what you know.- Chapter7 We work with brainpower, not manpower.- Chapter 8 Industrialization of service in order to unlock brainpower capacity.- Chapter9 Converting blocking factors into value-adding elements.- Chapter10 Making ideas happen.- Chapter11 One thousand $1,000 improvements.- Chapter12 Quality is a chorus girl cast as a prima donna.- Chapter13 Have you looked to see what is in your refrigerator yet.- Chapter14 Happy people are more productive.- Chapter15 The hallmark of mediocre managers is hiring people worse than they are.- Chapter16 Asking the right question at the right time.-
About the author
Beatriz Muñoz-Seca is Professor in the Operations and Technology Management Department at IESE Business School, University of Navarra. She obtained her PhD at the University of Navarra and holds an MA in Education (Organizational Behavior) from Harvard University.
Dr. Muñoz-Seca worked for over 15 years in national and multinational companies, in both the private and public sectors, in Mexico, the United States, and Spain. She joined IESE in 1990. She teaches Operations Strategy at IESE and at various business schools in Latin America.
She has been an advisor to the European Commission, and has participated in and led numerous international and national projects in her field. She also works as a part-time consultant in operations strategy, service design, and innovation.
