How do you scale up and sustain successful service innovations?

1 Why is service innovation important?

Service innovation is important because it can create value and competitive advantage for service providers, as well as improve the quality and satisfaction of service users. Service innovation can also contribute to solving complex and wicked problems, such as poverty, inequality, climate change, or health care, by creating more accessible, inclusive, and sustainable services. Service innovation can also foster social and economic development, by creating new jobs, markets, and industries, or enhancing the productivity and efficiency of existing ones.

2 Examples of service innovation

Service innovation is a concept being implemented in various sectors, including education, health care, transportation, financial services, and hospitality. For example, online learning platforms like Coursera or Khan Academy enables access to high-quality courses and certificates from top universities. Telemedicine services like Teladoc or Babylon Health enable remote diagnosis, treatment, and monitoring of patients. Ride-sharing services such as Uber or Lyft offer flexible and convenient mobility options. Mobile banking services like M-Pesa or Venmo enable fast and secure transactions and payments. Home-sharing services like Airbnb or Couchsurfing offer alternative and affordable accommodation options.

3 Best practices of service innovation

When it comes to service innovation, there is no one-size-fits-all approach. However, there are some best practices that can guide and support service innovation efforts. Co-creation with users and stakeholders is essential to ensure the service innovation meets their needs and creates value. Experimentation and iteration through prototyping and piloting can help gather feedback and refine the service innovation. Adopting a service-dominant logic shifts the focus from a product-centric to a service-centric perspective. Leveraging technology and data should be done as enablers and enhancers, not as substitutes or drivers. Lastly, it's important to align the service innovation with the organization's strategy and culture, fostering creativity, collaboration, learning, and risk-taking.

4 How to scale up and sustain service innovation

Scaling up and sustaining service innovation is a challenging and complex task that requires careful planning, management, and evaluation. To ensure success, it's important to assess the potential demand and adoption of the service innovation by target users and markets. This includes identifying any barriers or enablers that might affect them, as well as developing strategies to increase awareness and usage. Additionally, you need to evaluate the resources and capabilities needed to scale up and sustain the service innovation, such as human, financial, technical, or organizational. Moreover, it's essential to establish clear roles and responsibilities for the different actors involved in scaling up and sustaining the service innovation. Lastly, you should monitor and measure the performance and impact of the service innovation at different levels and stages of scaling up and sustaining. Collect data from various sources and use the results to identify strengths and weaknesses of the service innovation so that changes can be implemented accordingly.