Achieving Focus in Service Organisations

This article builds upon the work on focus found in both the manufacturing and service literatures. The theme of the study is that lack of focus is a fact of life for many service organisations but there are many ways in which organisations can achieve the advantages of focus. The author uses information from thirty service organisations and proposes that there are five distinct and hierarchical levels at which service organisations may choose to focus. The five levels are service concept, business, site, delivery system and service encounter: Each level is described and some of the operational implications are identified.