Defining and Understanding Service Chain Management

The growth of the services sector in recent times has been phenomenal with services displacing manufacturing as the main driver of western industrialised economies. However, a disproportionate part of the yearly productivity growth in OECD countries is still due to improvements in manufacturing (Wolfl 2005). In this context, Service OperationsManagement (Johnston and Clark 2001; Schmenner 1995) is becoming increasingly important for companies and government alike to achieve productivity growth and a cost advantage over their domestic and international competitors. This includes technologies and systems for automating and optimising service operations within and across companies which we will refer to them collectively as Service Chain Management.