Author Archives: Gary R Schirr

Looking for a Cinderella?

Posted on March 16, 2009 by Gary R Schirr

March Madness: Take a look at Radford University One of the delights of every NCAA tournament is the little or little-known school that makes its way into the “sweet sixteen” or even the final eight. Even if I weren’t a … Continue reading →

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Deloitte on Financial Service Innovation

Posted on March 16, 2009 by Gary R Schirr

This 2005 article from Deloitte is interesting…(but it is so 2005–premeltdown). A great quote: “Product innovation gives less than three months competitive advantage. Process innovation gives at least 12 months competitive advantage.”                            – Sir John Bond, Chairman HSBC, 2001 http://www.deloitte.com/dtt/cda/doc/content/DTT_DR_GlitteringPrize_May2005.pdf

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Cocreation: the core competency of innovation

Posted on March 6, 2009 by Gary R Schirr

I generally don’t post PR puff pieces on my blogs, but this announced research joint venture between Babson College and Venkat Ramaswamy’s consulting firm sounds important for service innovation. Next Practices in Value Creation aims to “demonstrate how organizations can co-create innovation…  The research … Continue reading →

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Hotel Innovation in focus

Posted on March 3, 2009 by Gary R Schirr

Avoiding group think from focus groups It should not be a surprise to readers of this blog that innovators in hotel service find focus groups and surveys “unreliable” and suggest actually observing customers using the services instead: http://www.hotelschool.cornell.edu/research/chr/events/roundtables/service.html

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Does Economic Turmoil Breed Innovation?

Posted on February 26, 2009 by Gary R Schirr

Back to the Garage Wired magazine recently included an essay suggesting that now is the time to innovate. Bootstrapping is a part of e-ship: lean production was developed in lean times. Many large firms such as Apple and Microsoft were … Continue reading →

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Otago Forum 2

Posted on February 25, 2009 by Gary R Schirr

 In a recent posting I discussed the issue of service dominant logic versus service science and cited a paper presented at the Otago Forum 2. The Forum has kindly posted ALL of the papers from the conference online. I am … Continue reading →

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All products are service

Posted on February 9, 2009 by Gary R Schirr

SDL in the real world An interesting story in The Economist about the success of Rolls Royce in aircraft engines reaffirms the SDL of marketing: all products are service. The article states that some of RR’s success is due to … Continue reading →

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Confessions of a focus group moderator

Posted on February 2, 2009 by Gary R Schirr

Fifty years of research has shown that relative to simply interviewing customers 1:1, group techniques for ideation — focus groups and brainstorming — are harmful, as they: Reduce the number of ideas generated, and Reduce the quality/originality of the ideas … Continue reading →

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Service Science vs. Service Dominant Logic

Posted on January 27, 2009 by Gary R Schirr

  SDL or Service Science: establishing standards or branding? IBM has been fostering “service science” as an approach to understand service and service innovation. Two academics who wrote the well known Journal of Marketing article have been promoting the “Service Dominant … Continue reading →

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Services Marketing

Posted on January 23, 2009 by Gary R Schirr

A while back MadTV took a hard look at marketing practices by the airlines. Frequent fliers will appreciate their insight into the evolving revenue models of the airlines. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76LP3suWgTw&NR=1

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