A systemic methodology for facilitating service innovations

In this paper we will present a methodology that provides a framework to facilitate service innovations and to develop services in business to business environments. Service innovations being systemic processes create ripples throughout the organization as well as over organisa-tional borders. Therefore, the complexity of this phenomenon needs to be subdivided into accessible parts of the whole in order to be effec-tively followed and managed. We have used a common three level model of organisations but based on our case studies identified ten focus areas to manage service innovation process. These areas are (at the strategic level) strategic positioning, co-operation patterning and value constellation, (at the business process level) business process drivers, collaborative business processes and value capturing, (at the opera-tional level) specification, organizing, task flow and value maximization. Business to business services often interconnect organizations’ core processes. Tuning this type of service to provide maximum value to the customer is an iterative and cyclic process. Using pilots to de-velop and test focus areas provides rapid evidence based knowledge and also experience about cooperation between organizations. Using both a focus area approach and pilots provides a systemic methodology to define the actions required to identify and create service business in supplier-customer collaboration.