Tackling the Granularity Problem in Service Modularization

In the last few years, the principle of modularity has been increasingly applied to services as service providers seek to reduce time and cost of delivering customized services. Theoretically, the modularization process of a complex service system can be divided into three core steps: Analysis, module design, and architecture design. Practically, this process is much more complex and highly influenced by the degree of granularity of the considered service system elements. Depending on this degree, different interdependencies between the elements can be considered resulting in different modules. Therefore, we argue that diverse design decisions across the modularization process have to be made upfront from the end of the overall design process to the beginning of the service system analysis. Following this, we tailor a formerly proposed framework for service modularization by adding a framework calibration phase

Seven principles for managing IT solutions from a provider’s perspective

IT solutions are a way to differentiate between competitors and to meet new customer expectations. For organizations transforming into IT solution providers, it is still unclear how to manage IT solutions. Based on literature on IT solutions and a multiple case study, we derive seven principles for managing IT solutions from the provider’s perspective. Main principles include that IT solution providers should have a modularized offering portfolio in place to ensure cost-efficient IT solution delivery for each customer and that IT solution providers should learn from each customer engagement to attune their offering portfolio constantly to market needs. As a result from our management principles, we argue that becoming an IT solution provider requires more effort than just changing the offering portfolio to include service

Recombinant Service System Engineering

Although many methods have been proposed for engineering services and customer solutions, most of these approaches give little consideration to recombinant service innovation. In an age of smart products and smart data, we can, however, expect that many of future service innovations need to be based on adding, transferring, dissociating, and associating existing value propositions. The purpose of this paper is to outline what properties constitute recombinant service innovation and to identify if current service engineering approaches fulfill these properties. Based on a conceptual in-depth analysis of 24 service engineering methods, we identify that most methods focus on designing value propositions instead of service systems, view service independent of physical goods, are linear or iterative, and incompletely address the mechanisms of recombinant innovation. We discuss how these deficiencies can be remedied and propose a first conceptual model of a revised service system engineering approach

Lebenszyklusengineering und -management von Service Systemen: Ein Beitrag zur ganzheitlichen Betrachtung und logischen Beschreibung von Sach- und Dienstleistungssystemen

Während der (empirische) Bedeutungszuwachs von Dienstleistungen weitgehend unstrittig ist (Fließ 2009; Klodt et al. 1997), gibt es bei der theoretischen Fundierung, was genau eine Dienstleistung ist, Probleme. Eine dieser Schwierigkeiten besteht darin, Dienstleistung(en) überhaupt zu definieren (vgl. u.a. Richter 2012; Paal 2005; Klodt et al. 1997; Corsten 1985) , insbesondere bei der Definition durch eine sektorenbezogene Negativbestimmung von Dienstleistung . Allgemein gesprochen herrscht eine diffuse Definitionslage von Dienstleistungen. Es gibt sowohl prozess- als auch ergebnisorientierte Definitionen (Richter 2012) – welche sich z.T. gegenüberstehen. Weiterhin gibt es einen Dimensionierungsansatz, welcher die Dienstleistung in drei Dimensionen (Potential-, Prozess-, Ergebnisdimension) unterteilt (Böttcher 2009; Bullinger et al. 2006) und auf diese Weise ergebnisorientierte wie auch prozessorientierte Definitionen zusammenbringt. Jedoch geht auch diese Form der Definition von Dienstleistungseigenschaften aus, welche nicht unumstritten sind (Lovelock und Gummesson 2004)(Vargo und Lusch 2004). Verschiedene Schulen aus dem Service Engineering, dem Service Design, dem Service Management (Grönroos 2007, 1990)(Fitzsimmons und Fitzsimmons 2006) und des Marketings (SD-Logic) (Vargo und Lusch 2004) stoßen bei der Definition immer wieder aufeinander. Ziel der Arbeit ist die Schaffung einer digitalen Grundlage um die Digitalisierung von Service Systemen, sowie deren Engineering und Management, zu fördern. So liegt der Fokus auf der Verbesserung der Informationsverteilung innerhalb des Lebenszyklus von Service Systemen und in komplexen Wertschöpfungsnetzwerken. Gleichzeitig ist es Ziel der Arbeit, diese Erweiterung offen zu gestalten, sodass Informationsflüsse in andere Systeme ermöglicht werden. Es werden auf diese Weise die technischen Grundlagen geschaffen, um von den klassischen produktorientierten digitalen Unterstützungswerkzeugen zu hybriden Unterstützungswerkzeugen zu gelangen. Ergebnis der Arbeit ist ein Vorgehensmodell sowie eine Ontologie für das Lebenszyklusengineering und -management von Service Systemen basierend auf einem Vergleich und Konsolidierung von 26 Vorgehensmodellen bzw. -ansätzen und vier thematisch nahen Ontologien sowie auf vier realen Anwendungsfällen (u.a. Ersatzteilmanagement für Industrieanlagen) welche detailliert analysiert wurden. Für das Vorgehensmodell wurden 44 einzelne Phasenmodule (Methoden) erarbeitet und auf ihre Eignung in besonderen Kontexten (z.B. industrielle Dienstleistungen), der Einsatzphasen sowie der identifizierten Werkzeuge ausgearbeitet. Um die Beschreibung einer Ontologie zu fundieren, wurde der Wissensraum für das Lebenszyklusengineering und -management für Service Systeme mittels der Description Logic modelliert. Anschließend hieß es, diese Beschreibung in ein OWL und damit in die technische Anwendbarkeit zu überführen. Diese Ontologie wurde hierbei mittels Protegé modelliert und implementiert. Insgesamt wurden mehr als 50 Klassen extrahiert und formal beschreiben

DEVELOPING A RISK MANAGEMENT PROCESS AND RISK TAXONOMY FOR MEDIUM-SIZED IT SOLUTION PROVIDERS

To differentiate from competitors, some organizations are transforming their business models from offering single products or services to providing IT solutions. In an IT solution, the provider and the customer co-operate in integrating hardware, software and service components to fulfil customer-specific needs. The new business model, however, presents new risk management challenges. First, IT solution providers need to understand additional risks of IT solutions, e.g., risks engendered by operating the IT solution on behalf of the customer and by integrating modules from third-party providers. Second, risk management must account for special IT solution characteristics, e.g., supporting the whole lifecycle from planning to end-of-life and accounting for customer-specific risk profiles. In this paper, we present the results of our design science research with a medium-sized IT solution provider. We developed two artifacts. First, we cooperatively developed a risk management process that could be generalized to other solution providers of similar size. Second, we derived a taxonomy of IT solution risks to provide a foundation for the risk management process. We describe the process by which our research partner transformed the risk management and discuss implications for medium-sized IT solution providers

Modularization of Crowdfunding Services – Designing Disruptive Innovations in the Banking Industry

Crowdfunding represents a disruptive innovation in the banking industry by enabling the exploitation of market segments. Incumbents struggle to utilize this new phenomenon as crowdfunding is based on modules that have not been considered relevant for banking so far. Nevertheless, crowdfunding services are not entirely new compared to traditional banking. We argue that the modular design enables a bank to utilize crowdfunding. Thus, we started an action research project in order to investigate how modularization enables a bank to design crowdfunding services. Findings so far led to the identification of ten preliminary crowdfunding services and their interconnection within an ecosystem. Our expected contribution will increase the understanding of crowdfunding services by bridging research on modularization, service ecosystems, and crowdfunding, and highlight the handling of disruptive innovations in an established industry. For practice, we provide a way of designing crowdfunding services in an efficient manner while building on already existing competencies

Towards an Artifact Model for Requirements to IT-enabled Product Service Systems

The development of IT-enabled product service systems (PSS) – a combination of physical technological elements (products) and service elements – poses various challenges because of their complexity and the involvement of multiple domains. Classical requirements engineering (RE) addresses these problems only insufficiently. This paper proposes an artifact model for the requirements to PSS, which helps in overcoming these problems. The results generated by RE or the development activities are called artifacts. The artifact model defines different types of artifacts and their interrelations. This provides a structure which facilitates the handling of a large number of requirements. The applicability of the presented artifact model is demonstrated in an example where the artifact model is applied to a real-life product. We show that the requirements can be modeled using the artifact model, and that common problems of RE can be avoided in this way

Multikonferenz Wirtschaftsinformatik 2010 : Göttingen, 23. - 25. Februar 2010 ; Kurzfassungen der Beiträge

Dieser Band enthält Kurzfassungen der Beiträge zur MKWI 2010. Die Vollversionen der Beiträge sind auf dem wissenschaftlichen Publikationenserver (GoeScholar) der Georg-August-Universität Göttingen und über die Webseite des Universitätsverlags unter http://webdoc.sub.gwdg.de/univerlag/2010/mkwi/ online verfügbar und in die Literaturnachweissysteme eingebunden