The Augmented Service Offering: A Conceptualization and Study of Its Impact on New Service Success

Unlike companies that produce tangible goods, service firms typically cannot rely on product advantage as a means for ensuring the success of a new service. Developing a competitive response to a tangible product may require significant investments of time and effort. In many cases, however, competitors can easily duplicate the core elements of a firm's new service. This fundamental difference between new products and new services means that managers who hope to find the keys to new-service success must look to factors other than sustainable product advantage. Chris Storey and Christopher Easingwood suggest that managers must understand the totality of the service offering from the customer's perspective. They explain that the purchase of a service is influenced not only by the service itself, but also by such factors as the service firm's reputation and the quality of the customer's interaction with the firm's systems and staff—in other words, by the augmented service offering (ASO). Using the results of a study they conducted in the consumer financial services industry in the U.K., they identify the components of the ASO, and they examine the relative contributions of these components to the success of new services. In their model, the ASO comprises three elements: the service product, service augmentation, and marketing support. The core of the ASO—the service product—includes such dimensions as product quality, product distinctiveness, and perceived risk. The study's results suggest that improvements in the service product open up new opportunities for the firm, but have only modest effects on sales and profitability. Rounding out the ASO model are service augmentation and marketing support. Service augmentation encompasses such dimensions as distribution strength, staff-customer interactions, and reputation. The customer recognizes and responds to these elements of the ASO, but they are not part of the product core. Marketing support involves those marketing and management actions that affect the quality of the product and its augmentation, even though customers typically are not aware of them. These elements include knowledge of the marketplace, training of contact staff, and internal marketing. Enhanced service augmentation has significant effects on profitability and sales for the firms in this study, but it does not offer enhanced opportunities. The marketing support elements contribute significantly to all aspects of performance for the firms in this study.     

What's in it for me? Capital,value and co-creation practices

Marketing research is increasingly concerned with the practices through which service providers and their customers interact and how these practices influence value co-creation.Applying S-D logic and drawing on practice theory developed in sociology research in past decades, we propose a definition of value in terms of the coexistence of diverse forms of capital and currency variations. We then develop a conceptual model to explain value co-creation in terms of service provider–customer interaction practices (SPCI practices). We employ an extensive, qualitative study in the context of professional service firms. Our findings reveal three general categories of SPCI practices (access to capital, capital exploitation and capital attrition) that affect value co-creation. These insights move forward business-to-business marketing theory and practice, advancing our understanding of how service provider–customer interaction practices can be used to define value propositions and assess the types and amount of value that are co-created.     

建筑业营销

建筑业营销是在营销学的基础上发展的。但营销学主要面向消费品制造业．适用于建筑业的营销教材和实务指导并不多．一些学注意到这个问题并开展了一些研究。营销是一项管理活动．内容包括搜集市场信息，确认服务机会，开发战略，建立优先次序和动员资源以实现销售。建筑业营销活动通常分为七类．即信息服务、广告，公共关系与公共宣传，公开出版物，企业形象计划、定价战略与额外服务，直接营销等。本就以这些研究成果为基础．整理出一些基本理论和概念．以帮助对建筑业营销活动的理解。     

Key trends in business-to-business services marketing strategies: Developing a practice-based research agenda

The marketing of B2B services has become an important field of academic enquiry. Industrial Marketing Management scholars have contributed to building a robust body of scholarship on the role of services as an indispensable aspect of company’s strategic performance process. However, with digitization, there is a clear need for theoretical concepts and frameworks that can guide companies in the development of contemporary and strategic roadmaps for their B2B service marketing strategies and performance practice. This position paper outlines an agenda and delineates issues in B2B service delivery that need to be addressed to close the gap between service marketing theory and practice and collaborate on the development of strategic service capabilities for the industrial marketing space. More specifically, we identify and discuss the impact of 5 important trends shaping B2B services: 1) gamification, 2) personalization, 3) Mixed Reality (MR), 4) data visualization, and 5) privacy. On the basis of these, we will offer a number of specific directions for future research by industrial marketing researchers.     

The structure of service firms and their marketing policies

There is a growing interest in understanding the way in which firms' marketing and manufacturing policies interact. The studies carried out so far have almost entirely concerned themselves with goods-producing organizations. However this paper suggests that these studies also provide useful insights into the problems faced by service firms in organizing themselves efficiently. Furthermore it suggests that a distinctive problem faced by such firms is that adaption of their organizations may have a significant effect upon consumers' perceptions of the service they offer. The paper first outlines some investigators' views of the link between marketing and manufacturing and follows this by discussing the concept of ‘production’, ‘delivery’ and ‘consumption’ of services. A brief consideration of the pressures for change which particularly impinge upon service firms precedes a discussion of the problems, and apparent contradictions, whch are linked with the concepts of standardization and personalization of services. The paper concludes with three examples of the issues discussed.     

Marketing's contribution to the implementation of business strategy: an empirical analysis

This paper describes a study that assesses the performance implications of matching marketing strategy to business strategy. In order to conduct this study we first reviewed the literature on marketing strategy to identify its key dimensions. We then conducted a survey of 1000 senior marketing executives about the strategic marketing practices adopted in their respective firms or business units, and developed scales to describe 11 strategic marketing activities. We next performed a K‐means cluster analysis using these scales to develop a taxonomy of marketing strategy types consisting of: Aggressive Marketers, Mass Marketers, Marketing Minimizers, and Value Marketers. We then observed that superior performance at the firm or SBU level was achieved when specific marketing strategy types were matched with appropriate Miles and Snow (1978) business strategy types. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Classifying a customer as a national account

A recent article [Stevenson and Page, Industrial Marketing Management 8, 94–100 (1979)] addressed the issue of how industrial marketers determine if their firms can use national account marketing. Once that decision is made, a next logical step is to determine which customers should be classified as national accounts. This article discusses appropriate classification criteria that industrial marketers can use to make such decisions. The information presented here is based on a study of national account marketing.     

Small Firm Marketing: A Comparison of Eastern and Western Marketing Practices

This article reports on the analysis of 110 published, undisguised stories about Chinese owner-managers in Hong Kong and determines whether Chinese small firms exhibit the same marketing activities and behavior as their Western counterparts. Content analysis suggests that Chinese small firms are production oriented, whereas small American firms are customer oriented. Chinese small firms are also found to have limited marketing expenditure while their owner-managers have limited marketing expertise. The findings also suggest that Chinese small firms do little strategic marketing planning. One possible reason for this may be that Chinese owner-managers apply innovative tactics and change their marketing planning techniques to suit the characteristics of their firms and their particular circumstances. Thus, it is not unusual to find that Chinese small firm marketing can be described as entrepreneurial and their marketing planning activities as unstructured.     

The New Approach to Assessing the Marketing Effectiveness of Korean Firms

This study attempted to revise Philip Kotler's marketing effectiveness model to diagnose and offer managerial implications for Korean marketing practices. Nineteen Korean firms, divided into ten manufacturing and nine service sectors, were examined to assess their level of marketing effectiveness. By industry, these firms were further divided into five categories; electronics, machinery, chemicals, finance, and service-oriented. The five marketing effectiveness attributes — strategy, organization, operations, personnel, and information system — along with accompanying factor components were incorporated into the measurement of the marketing effectiveness. The findings showed that manufacturing sector firms were less effective in marketing operations than the service sector firms. In both sectors, relative to the predetermined factor importance weights, the Korean firms were found to underperform in planning and controlling functions. Managerial implications regarding the underperforming marketing functions and future recommendations are offered.     

Sustainability and branding: An integrated perspective

Sustainability is increasingly drawing the attention of scholars, policy makers, and companies, as the latter are recognizing the necessity and opportunities of implementing sustainable practices in their operations. Marketing plays a substantial role in both applying such initiatives and promoting them, which can be greatly supported through brands. We suggest that firms can use their brands to promote the value of sustainability to their industrial customers, consumers, and other stakeholders. This may be achieved through branding activities that emphasize the firm's sustainability practices and their impact on stakeholders. Expressing sustainability actions as the measurable and relatable outcomes they yield and associating them with brands have the potential to further facilitate this integration of sustainability and branding. A framework and guidelines for sustainability practices that may be employed in this process of integrating operations and marketing are discussed.     

Teamwork Barriers in Japanese High-Technology Firms: The Sociocultural Differences Between R&D and Marketing Managers

Building and maintaining internal harmony is a fundamental concern for managers in many Japanese firms. Discussions of Japanese management practices often point to the intense socialization of new recruits, the rotation of employees through different functions, and the significant role of seniority in determining salary levels and promotions. Considering this emphasis on harmony, can we reasonably assume that the orientations of Japanese R&D and marketing managers do not differ in any ways that may pose significant barriers to teamwork between their departments? X. Michael Song and Mark E. Parry test this assumption by examining the sociocultural differences between R&D and marketing managers in Japanese high-technology firms. Using responses from both R&D and marketing managers in 223 firms, their study groups the respondents’ employers as either low- or high-integration firms. They examine the sociocultural differences between the R&D and marketing managers in the study along five dimensions: time orientation, bureaucratic orientation, professional orientation, tolerance for ambiguity, and preferences for high-risk, high-return projects. Contrary to expectations, the responses reveal several significant differences between the R&D and marketing managers in this study. Compared to their colleagues in marketing, the Japanese R&D managers in this study generally have a stronger preference for high-risk, high-return investments. The R&D managers in the study also have a longer time orientation than the Japanese marketing managers. However, marketing managers from the high-integration firms in the study have a longer time orientation than their counterparts in low-integration firms. Compared to the R&D managers, Japanese marketing managers in the high-integration firms studied have a greater tolerance for ambiguity. And relative to managers in low-integration firms, marketing and R&D managers in the high-integration firms in this study typically have a more bureaucratic organization. Perhaps most important, a significant number of R&D managers in this study perceive the marketing managers in their firms to have higher organizational status. Specifically, responses from R&D managers indicate that they perceive their marketing colleagues to have higher salaries, more power, and brighter career prospects. Such perceptions may foster morale problems among R&D professionals in these Japanese firms, and thus require management intervention to ensure that R&D performance does not suffer.     

The role of cocreation and dynamic capabilities in service provision and performance: A configurational study

The success of a professional service firm (PSF) relies on its capabilities for leveraging relationships with clients – i.e., cocreation capabilities (CCs) – and adapting to changing environments – i.e., dynamic capabilities (DCs). Previous research shows that the interaction of these two organizational capabilities and the multidimensional configuration of DCs. However, little is known about how CCs and DCs are jointly configured within PSFs and how trade-offs between these distinct capabilities relate to service provision and performance across different firms. This study explores the path dependent nature of higher- and lower- order capabilities and uses data from 279 marketing advisory firms to investigate how different configurations of higher-order CCs and DCs are associated with lower-order service provision capabilities (SPCs) and similar or different performance. We find that CCs can substitute for DCs, and that DCs and CCs can compensate for SPCs in achieving higher levels of customer-based performance. However, the same does not apply for financial performance in which CCs do not appear to overcome deficiencies in DCs and SPCs. Also, firms can have similar SPCs and experience similar financial performance while emphasizing the use of either DCs or CCs; suggesting DCs and CCs may substitute for each other.     

The effects of environmental focus and program timing on green marketing performance and the moderating role of resource commitment

Should firms adopt sustainable marketing policy and develop green products? Most popular press says yes, but industry remains slow to act upon such initiatives. Drawing upon recent research in the Industrial Marketing Management Sustainability Special Issue, this research investigates the impact of green initiatives on firm performance and how the related commitment of resources impacts the effectiveness of those initiatives. The goal of this paper is to explore the effectiveness of green marketing on firm performance, in terms of financial performance, market performance, and service quality. Further, resource commitment is examined as a possible boundary condition of these relationships. Using multi-source data, the findings suggest that the commitment of proper resources is critical to the success of any green initiative. This study also supports the notion that being the first firm in an industry to initiate a green program provides few tangible benefits. More importantly, even firms with an environmental focus neglect to realize superior performance unless the specific strategy is matched with consistent support from top management.     

The impact of value congruence on marketing channel relationship

Organizational values guide acceptable behavior and provide motivational dynamism. Marketing channel literature has yet to address the impact of values on interfirm exchanges. We propose that value congruence between cooperating firms can be an effective governance method. This research examines the impact of value congruence between manufacturers and their primary distributors. Survey data from 278 manufacturing firms demonstrate that perceived value congruence has a positive effect on distributors' performance. Moreover, information sharing and joint problem solving serve as mechanisms that partially mediate the main effect. This research calls for integration of organizational values into partner selection and marketing channel governance.     

Bidirectional Information Transfer: An Imperative for Network and Marketing Integration in a Canadian Telecommunications Firm

Market intelligence helps ensure that R&D efforts are focused on customer needs. In turn, R&D supplies the information necessary for gaining competitive advantage through advances in product and process technology. However, improved R&D–marketing integration means more than simply involving additional marketing personnel in product development. We must focus on identifying and achieving the desired level of integration. Jozée Lapierre and Brigitte Hénault present the results of a study examining the R&D–marketing interface in a large Canadian telecommunications company. Their study explores managers' perceptions of interfunctional integration during the planning and implementation of new services. The goal of this study is to identify the critical integration areas and managers' satisfaction with the organization's current level of integration. Network (i.e., technical) and marketing managers differ substantially in their perceptions of the required level of integration. However, they agree on the five most important areas of interfunctional integration: marketing involvement in establishing service development schedules; information transfer from marketing to network on competitors' moves; information transfer from marketing to network on customer requirements for new services; information transfer from network to marketing on network availability for providing evolved services; and information transfer from network to marketing on network restrictions affecting performance, after-sales servicing levels, and service pricing. In other words, network and marketing managers view information transfer between their groups as requiring the highest integration level. Both groups agree that their budgeting activities do not require as much integration as other activities. Managers from both groups are generally dissatisfied with the current level of interfunctional integration. Marketing managers are far more dissatisfied than network managers in most areas of integration explored in this study. However, network managers are more dissatisfied than their marketing colleagues in all areas involving the transfer of information from marketing to network.     

Toward a theory of professional service marketing

The existing marketing theory is inadequate in its attempts to explain service marketing. This paper contributes to both the theory of industrial marketing and service marketing through its treatment of the following two questions: What is a professional service? And what relevance has a generic definition of a professional service to the marketer of those services? These questions are dealt with in the broader areas of the current theories and models of industrial marketing and the emerging conceptual frameworks of service marketing.     

新疆移动服务营销策略浅析-以乌鲁木齐市场为例

本文以服务营销组合策略为依据,简述新疆移动通信有限公司概况,分析新疆移动乌鲁木齐市场服务营销组合现状并从中发现问题,然后以乌鲁木齐市消费者需求为出发点,提出新疆移动乌鲁木齐市场服务营销组合策略的改善意见,为提高服务水平、企业竞争优势提供可行性依据。     

Segmenting a business market for a professional service

This article uses benefit segmentation to analyze the structure of an industrial market for professional services— the market for CPA services among business firms. Data were collected from a random sample of U.S. business firms, stratified to include a broad cross section of the market for CPA services. Benefit segments were described by linking CPA selection criteria importance ratings with client firm characteristics such as business firm size. Examples of ways in which information about market structure can be used in marketing professional services are presented. The results provide evidence about the applicability of prior industrial marketing research and multilevel industrial market segmentation models to a professional services market.     

我国保健食品营销模式分析

本文阐述了我国保健食品行业三个发展阶段各自营销模式的特点,并归纳出了传统营销模式所存在的问题,提出保健食品企业应该在进行充分的产品特征、市场特征及企业目标和资源分析的基础上,采用以质量为产品根本、精准定位与差异化、诚信营销为主导、讲求实效的营销组合为内涵的新型“健康营销模式”,促进企业的健康发展,达到延长产品生命周期、树立企业品牌形象的目的。     

Nature of the R&D/Marketing co-operation in the design of technologically advanced new industrial products

Many studies have consistently reported that success in industrial new product innovation is linked with the degree of interfacing between R&D and Marketing in the early stages of the product development process. However, very little evidence of such an interface has been reported in advanced technology firms and the relevant literature provides little empirical material on the matter.
Based on a pilot study of 23 new product projects in ten firms in the U.K. it is argued that, in many instances, firms are missing a fundamental issue in the R&D/Marketing cooperation. Too often, the interface is limited to the identification of general market need for a particular new product idea.
The paper emphasises the fact that the interface should provide the means for an efficient product design procedure between R&D and Marketing. This design link should, in turn, profit both the engineering design of the product and its future marketability. The paper also outlines the advantages and the problems inherent in the exercise and proposes a framework for implementation.