1s t S u p e r v i s o r U n i v e r s i t y 2n d S u p e r v i s o r U n i v e r s i t y S u p e r v i s o r U M C G
ABSTRACT
This research focuses on the systematic design of a specific New Service Development process for the Sports Medical Centre. Through a theoretical and context analysis the functional requirements for the process are designed. Possible process and criteria solutions are synthesized in order to propose the best suitable configuration. The process is evaluated with the management and reveals a promising use.
KEYWORDS
Innovation, Service, NSD process, Criteria, Health Care.
University of Groningen Faculty of Economics and Business Msc BA – Business Development
2011
[A New Service Development process for the Sports Medical Centre]
Student Marthe Bosma
Student number 1571230
Adress Derde Kostverlorenkade 1-1
1054 TN Amsterdam
E-mail m.e.bosma.2@student.rug.nl
d r s . F . D . S t r e e f l a n d d r . W . G . B i e m a n s M e v r . J . K o o t s t r a
Table of Content
1 Introduction
1.1 Background Sports Medical Centre 4
1.2 Background on Innovation and Health care 5
2 Problem Diagnosis
2.1 Research Background 6
2.2 Problem Statement 7
2.3 Validation of the Business Problem 7
2.4 Research Objective and Research Question 9
2.5 Research Approach 9
3 Theoretical Analysis
3.1 Method 11
3.2 Foundation of Services 11
3.3 Models for Innovation 12
3.4 Models for NSD 13
3.5 Selection and Evaluation 15
3.5.1 Criteria NPD 3.5.2 Criteria NSD 3.5 Conclusion 17 4 Context Analysis 4.1 Method 18 4.1.1 Data Collection 4.1.2 Interview Content 4.1.3 Sample Size 4.1.4 Data Analysis 4.2 Competitive Strategy 20 4.3 Value Proposition 21 4.4 Target Market 21 4.5 Value Chain 21 4.6 Value Network 22 4.7 Revenue Mechanisms 22 4.8 Conclusion 23 5 Design Requirements 5.1 Functional Requirements 24
5.1.1 Performance and Evaluation of NSD 5.1.2 Support Customer and Market Orientation 5.1.3 Support Internal Process Organization 5.1.4 Support External Network
5.2 User Requirements 26 5.3 Design Constraints 27 5.5 Conclusion 28 6 Design 6.1 Synthesis 29 6.2 Detailed Design 32
7 Implementation
7.1 Test Situation 35
7.2 Result of Test 35
7.3 NSD process for the SMC 36
8 Discussion
8.1 Conclusion 40
8.2 Scientific Contribution 41
1
Introduction
1.1 Background Sports Medical Centre
The Sports Medical Centre (SMC) is a highly specialized medical centre for all sports related care. Athletes and starting athletes can come to the centre for all sorts of treatments, advice and medical examinations. Previously the department ‘”sports medicine” was part of the University Medical Centre Groningen (UMCG). But due to a lack of capacity and an increasing demand for this special care, the department got the opportunity to establish its own centre within the grounds of the UMCG. Three years ago the centre was founded as the SMC and capable to expand its offerings by including physiotherapists and specialized sports physicians. Figure 1.1 displays the current organizational chart of the SMC.
Organizational Chart SMC
Figure 1.1
The mission of the SMC is to build a recognizable multidisciplinary centre that can provide the full range of superior sports and physic related care. Therefore the centre must invest in research and obtaining expertise. Although the SMC falls within the ambit of the UMCG, the centre is approached as an independent centre. This means that there is no financing from the UMCG like in other departments, the SMC must by itself be profitable and prove to be a supplement for the UMCG. In the last years, the centre showed its potential through its increasing amount of treatments, which is an important issue for the SMC to survive in the future.
1.2 Background on Innovation and Health care
Through the increasing importance of the service sector, the introduction of new services is considered a vital source for superior performance and long-term survival (Jansen et al., 2006). Increasing customer expectations, competition and speed of development emphasize that organizations constantly look for opportunities of new service developments. This development also counts for the health care sector, which recently experienced an increasing attention and is considered an important subject to debate (Salge and Vera, 2009). Previously, health care providers were considered to be in a monopoly position with no competitive pressure to innovate. However, nowadays this perception is completely reformed by the introduction of the health insurance law of January 2006. Through the growth of spending on health care and growing waiting lists, the Dutch government questioned the supply-driven health system. The government discussed that patients should be more considered as customers like other sectors and allowed patients to make their own choice of health care providers. (Raad van Volksgezondheid en Zorg, 2006). The introduction of this new law replaced a previously supply-driven system by a more health care-demand system (van der Voort and Kerpershoek, 2010). This comprehends that health care providers are more encouraged to look at their patients needs. Also, the government wants to stimulate more competition resulting in better care and more efficient allocation of financial resources. An important prerequisite for this introduction is the transparency of quality in health care, because additional to price the information concerning quality is an important determinant for consumers choice (van der Voort and Kerpershoek, 2010).
2
Problem Diagnosis
In this chapter the problem of the SMC is diagnosed based on the approach of problem solving projects. Van Aken et al. (2007) explain that a problem-solving project typically starts with a problem mess consisting of issues, opinions, judgments, interests and power in the organization. The problem mess must first be structured and categorized in order to define the underlying problem in the problem definition phase. It is important that the organizations’ perceived problem is investigated to make sure that it is sufficient enough to be a real problem. In this chapter the research objective is presented that provides the basis for this research project.
2.1 Research Background
This research project started with an initiated problem by the SMC. The centre experienced a high rate of patients who did not show up at their appointment without cancelling. This perceived problem was focused on a solution right away to develop and improve the current service in order to overcome this high rate of “no show”. For a business problem research it is important to look for the underlying performance problem to prevent a research for designing a solution that is not a real problem (van Aken et al., 2007). Therefore an extensive internal orientation process was conducted to investigate whether this was a real problem. During this orientation phase a brief literature research on overcoming the “no show” problem through service improvements was executed and the perceived problem was discussed with important stakeholders of the problem. Several interviews were conducted with different employees of the SMC about their experience with the high “no show” rate and service improvements for this problem. The goal of these interviews was to get to the core problem and get a broad view of the initiated problem. This in-depth orientation resulted in the finding that the initial rate of 9% was based on a misconception and the real rate was even below 5%. The proposed problem of the SMC was apparently concentrated on an improper service improvement. Therefore, the focus of this research shifted to a more holistic point of view on service development in general.
2.2 Problem Statement
The research background already addressed some problems associated with service development efforts at the SMC. The fact that it focused on a needlessly service improvement without an analysis or preliminary investigation indicated that there is a current lack of structure within the centre. New service development (NSD) is considered an important aspect for the centre, as it wants to excel as a recognized centre in sports related care. Much attention is given to stimulate new ideas, but contrarily a clear approach how to execute those ideas that come into the centre is not yet available. During the interviews in the orientation phase it also became clear that employees perceived problems with regard to the realization of service developments. All employees endorsed that NSD is essential for the centre and that there were enough ideas among the employees. The main problem they encountered related to translating the ideas into actions. The employees express that they experience a lack of support with executing NSD efforts. Currently all service developments are performed ad hoc, informal and without documentation. Therefore, the ability to reuse knowledge or learn from those recent NSD efforts is impossible. The management team of the SMC reported that twice a year a brainstorm session is organized with all employees to gather new ideas. Only the ideas that are intuitionally perceived as the most potential are implemented. The manager admits that there are none or even few activities executed between idea and launch. Also, the management team questions whether the new service ideas are all successful after implementation; only new services that bring significant losses are evaluated or eliminated. The SMC engages to be innovative and to provide the most professional sports related care, but the extent to which the organization has institutionalized formal and structural approaches is not yet professionalized. Therefore, the opportunity arose to increase the structure in the NSD activities at the SMC in order to enhance a better performance with innovations.
2.3 Validation of the Business Problem
The proposed research opportunity needs further scoping and validation in order to design a research plan and determine the research objective. To check the validity of the need for a structured NSD more information is collected to understand the current situation. Figure 2.1 shows the growth of the SMC in the last years. From the start-up the SMC experienced a rapid rise of treatments and was able to expand by hiring more physicians and new service offerings. Through a lot of effort the SMC evolved into a growing and profitable business. From 2009 the growth has established a more stable character, which indicates that the SMC has come into a more mature phase. The establishment of an organization is inevitably accompanied by more structure in general, because managing growth and people requires organizational structure and business processes to provide internal control and external accountability (Freeman and Engel, 2007). Structure through processes benefits organizations to remember and reuse knowledge rather than reinvent unnecessarily. Moreover, these
findings for general processes are parallel to innovation processes (Marsh and Stock, 2003). Therefore bringing structure to the NSD efforts is validated by the organizational development the SMC is currently in. Concurrent with its growth the SMC experiences an increasing pressure to compete with new services. As the SMC aims to excel at being the best in its field, it realizes that there is a strong need for developing its services. NSD is considered one of the core-value creating capabilities that drive
organizational performance to achieve a superior competitive advantage (Bitner and Brown, 2008). The management of NSD is an important concern for the SMC, especially related to the current developments in health care. The ability of patients to choose their care provider, growing expectations, knowledge of patients and the ease to switch to a competitor have emphasized that health care providers should look for ways to continuously improve their service (Smith et al., 2007). Until now the current NSD efforts are primarily infrequent and informal at the centre. However, research shows that a structured NSD process is considered as one of the key success factors in NSD (Menor and Roth, 2007; de Jong et al., 2003; Zomerdijk and Voss, 2010). A NSD process enhances the existence of a formalized process for conducting NSD efforts, which allows simplicity and repetition that fosters greater NSD efficiency and effectiveness (Smith et al., 2007). De Jong et al. (2003) designed a conceptual model where the importance of a NSD process is put at the centre of NSD (appendix 2). A NSD process is considered as a set of activities, actions, tasks and evaluations for developing new service offerings (Cooper et al., 1994; Johnson et al., 2000). But the use of a NSD process can be complex, time consuming, costly and often unsuccessful (Smith et al., 2007). That is why scholars argue that it is essential that the unique features of an organization must be adjusted to certain specifications to make the NSD process successful (Papazoglou and van den Heuvel, 2006).
Number of treatments (x1000)
Figure 2.1
Conceptual model of innovation in service firms
2.4 Research Objective and Research Question
By identifying the gap between the ideal situation (i.e. theory) and the actual situation at the SMC (i.e. practice), the research objective is set. The problem statement together with the validation of the problem revealed that there is indeed the opportunity to design a NSD process for the SMC. The goal of the NSD process is to realize a performance improvement for the NSD efforts. The design of a NSD process will provide more control and structure for the SMC, which will result in a more efficient and effective launch of new services. The objective of this research is defined as:
Advise the SMC in the design of a New Service Development process in order to enhance more structure to achieve a better performance in developing its services.
Since the process should be suitable for the SMC, the research should focus on the specific context instead of generalities. The research question should underline the effort of making a general NSD process applicable for SMC practice. Therefore the research question is defined as:
How should the New Service Development process be configured for the SMC?
2.5 Research Approach
For applied research one should conduct a certain method to design the solution to the identified problem (van Aken et al., 2007). The objective of this research to design a NSD process resulted in the use of a general design process as a method for this research. The design process proposed by van Aken et al. (2007) offers a systematic approach for designing entities. The process of designing contains an analysis, developing requirements, synthesis, evaluation and ends with the actual design. This research comprises eight chapters according to the phases of the design process. The research starts with a theoretical and contextual analysis. Chapter 3 contains a theoretical analysis on available NSD processes and its related components, which can provide as solution designs to
Design Process
construct the proposed NSD process (e.g. variant design). After the theoretical analysis it is important to make the available theoretical solutions adaptable in the specific context of use. In applied research theory can never be the sole source. Therefore the available theoretical design should always be contextualized for actual use (van Aken et al., 2007). Chapter 4 presents the context analysis of the SMC that will present the important characteristics of the SMC affecting the design of the NSD process. After the analysis the logical order is to go from specification to solution (van Aken et al., 2007). Designing starts in chapter 5 with setting the performance requirements for the NSD process. After setting the requirements the synthesis of the solution designs is conducted in chapter 6. In chapter 7 the NSD process is implemented and adjusted to the results of a user-test. Last, chapter 8 encompasses a discussion and will present the conclusion, scientific contribution and limitations of this research.
3
Theoretical Analysis
In this chapter the available theory on NSD processes is analysed. For the design of a NSD process it is important to uncover general principles and understand the current available processes. The goal of this chapter is to find the variant design solutions of NSD processes and gain insight from already conducted research to highlight the gap between theory and practice. It is important to explore alternative NSD processes for the eventual selection of the most desirable solution. First, the difference between NSD and new products development (NPD) is made to understand the distinctive characteristics of services for development. Next, the available innovation processes are discussed. Because NSD is still not a fully understood topic (Droëge and Hildebrand, 2009), the analysis incorporates the more elaborated field of NPD. This chapter especially concentrates on the understanding of the more practical use of NSD processes in order to fulfill the need for utility (Heyner, 2004). Therefore the configuration and decision-making aspects are the main focus. The results of this chapter provide the understanding of the current NSD process for practical implementation for the SMC. Moreover, the theory will provide a solid base for the use of relevant subjects in the following analysis of this research.
3.1 Method
For the theoretical analysis several scientific journals and books were used. The databases searched were Web of Science, EBSCOhost and RUG Combine. Besides NSD other similar terms were also used to identify relevant articles. A number of broad terms were: “new service development, NSD management, NSD process, service innovation and service innovation model”. After the initial search the focus shifted to new themes: “measurement, metrics, evaluation criteria”. The relevance of articles was based on the type of journal as well as the publishing date to make sure notable and recent articles were used. Literature reviews provided a considerable input through their reference list. Also the web of science was a useful toll for cited reference search.
3.2 Foundation of Services
There are four distinctive characteristics of services compared to products that are important to understand for the development of services and ultimately the development process. Services are defined with intangibility, heterogeneity, inseparability and perishability (Lovelock and Gummesson, 2004; Vermeulen, 2001). The intangibility of services tends to be the most common feature. As a
Differences between services and products
Services Products
- Intangible
- Simultaneous production and consumption - Heterogeneous
- Perishable: cannot be kept in stock
- Tangible
- Separation of production and consumption - Homogeneous
- Can be kept in stock
Figure 3.1
consequence services cannot be displayed in advance which makes it harder for customers to know in advance what they exactly purchase (Hipp and Grupp, 2005). The nature of services enhances a high degree of customer involvement. Therefore the interaction of the customer and the service provider is essential, because services are often delivered by people. Also, because customers are directly involved in the service, the perceived quality of a service depends on how the customer experiences the delivery (Avlonitis et al., 2001; van der Aa, 2000). The management of these service characteristics is useful to consider during the development of services (Pullman and Gross, 2004; Akamavi, 2005; Hipp and Grupp, 2005). The development of services refers to the overall process of developing new service offerings (Johnson et al., 2000). Service innovations can have multidimensional characteristics. The different
dimensions enhance new service concepts, new client interaction, renewal of the service delivery system, or new technological options (den Hertog, 2000). A new service innovation is rarely limited to a change in the service concept itself (Vermeulen, 2002; de Jong et al., 2003). It is important to consider that NSD often involves changes in the other dimensions as well (figure 3.2). Therefore NSD enhances not only ‘what’ is offered, but also ‘how’ it is offered (Menor, 2000).
3.3 Models for Innovation
Models for innovation try to describe how innovations should be managed. All innovations start with different ideas or opportunities that come to the organization. Those ideas or opportunities get into the funnel of an organization and as a result a new product or service will come out of that funnel to be launched. The use of a development process should support that the innovation successfully happens. This topic has been depicted and discussed by numerous researchers (Cooper, 2000; Crawford and Di Benedetto, 2003; Ulrich and Eppinger, 2004). The first research on innovation A four-dimensional model of service innovation
processes came from the field of NPD (Booz, Allen, Hamilton, 1982; Cooper, 1994; Cooper and Kleinschmidt, 1995). Most models in NPD are described as activity stage models, which mean that the process is broken up into a number of clear activities. This approach of stages led to a linear conception of the development that flowed logically from the initial idea to launch. The most well-known NPD processes are designed by Cooper (1990; see figure 3.3) and Booz et al. (1982). The process of Booz et al. identifies six stages; (1) Idea screening, (2) Concept development and testing, (3) Business analysis, (4) Prototype development, (5) Test marketing and (6) Commercialization. In these approaches development proceeds from one stage to the next through approval gates. The use of those stages and gates benefits the way of a more effective and efficient development.
NPD process
preliminary investigation
detailed investigation
development full production & launch Testing & validation initial screen second screen decision on business case post-development review pre-commercial analysis post-implementation review Idea Figure 3.3 3.4 Models for NSD
With the growing importance of services more scholars started to concentrate on specific innovation models for NSD. In general the developed NSD processes seem simpler and less formal compared to NPD (Griffin, 1997; Menor, 2000; Roth et al., 1997). Another difference for NSD processes is that it cannot involve physical prototypes or detailed technical drawings like in product development. The available NSD processes emphasize the dominant role of creating tangible evidence through the focus on the design and delivery aspects of a service to manage the customer experience (Fitzsimmons and Fitzsimmons, 2001; Menor et al., 2002; Zomerdijk and Voss, 2011). The understanding and involvement of the customer is considered a vital part in all NSD processes (Zomerdijk and Voss, 2011; de Jong, 2003; Alam and Perry, 2002). In addition, the use of cross-functional team work in new service development receives much support for making the process for service development more efficient (de Bretani, 1991; Johne and Storey, 1998; Storey and Hull, 2010). Several studies have proposed models that incorporate the specific features of services. Predominant studies have focused on the design of a NSD process based on the familiar NPD processes (Booz et al., 1982; Bowers, 1989). In those early models the stages are comparable to the NPD process: idea generation, service design, process development, testing and introduction. These studies exploit the stages of the NPD process while providing new extensions that incorporate the distinctive characters of services. They adapted
the NPD process by incorporating ‘service design’ and simplifying the process (Scheuing and Johnson, 1989). Besides the modified NPD model surprisingly few scholars started to design more specific NSD models (Alam and Perry, 2002). One attempt to design a specific NSD model is the two-stage approach of de Jong et al. (2003). This model is far less strict than the general proposed NPD models. The main goal of this process is making the right
decisions and selections during the NSD process. This model contains two stages: a search stage and an implementation stage, and include six activities (see figure 3.4). Still in this model the actual activities are not very different from the NPD process, only the more overlapping activities. This NSD process defines the stages as a continuous process, which makes it less sequential than the NPD processes.
A comparative study of Johnson and Menor (1997) examined the existing NSD processes. The results of their study indicated that most NSD processes differ and phases were more detailed in certain models while more succinct in others. They found four general phases found in all processes; design, analysis, development, and launch. Johnson et al. (2000) are one of the few scholars that developed a new NSD process based on the four stages. This model is one of the few processes that is really service-specific and different compared to NPD processes. Johnson et al. tried to integrate all the characteristics of services in their NSD process cycle (see figure 3.5). This model emphasizes a simpler and less structured model for NSD compared to NPD. The nonlinearity in NSD, like de Jong et al. also propose, is incorporated by the continuous cycle. This model underlines the importance of enabling factors like teams, tools and organizational culture. By integrating the enablers NSD can be
NSD process cycle - Johnson et al. 2000
Fgure 3.5
Two-Stage NSD process
seen as a rather complete method covering all phases of the cycle. Although much effort is made to make general NSD processes, few attempts are made to make the process more practical for real use (van Riel and Lievens, 2004). Only a recent NSD process is developed by Song et al. (2009) with the proposition of a staged service innovation model. Song et al. integrate a NPD approach with the service quality (SERVQUAL) literature. The proposed model includes the SERVQUAL dimensions at the gates during the development to support the decision-making perspective of NSD. Its results indicate that through the adoption of those dimensions NSD is more practical and enhances a better performance.
3.5 Selection and Evaluation
The proposed development stages and activities in the innovation processes seem relatively simple. However, an important issue for the use of those processes is how firms should select from the ideas and effectively invest their resources. Therefore decisions between each stage in a development process must be made (Ordanini and Maglio, 2009). The gates between the stages can provide as checkpoints to measure the development. At these checkpoints criteria are set to make the decision whether to “go” or “kill” the development. Those criteria provide efficient means to make the decisions to select en evaluate the best ideas for implementation (Oke, 2007). Selecting those criteria is important for making the right decision, especially given the costs and commitment of the organizational resources (Conway and Stewart, 2009). A successful innovation process must incorporate a design of metrics and selection criteria specific to the characteristics of an organization (Johne and Storey, 2000). Fewer studies have focused on the specific criteria for the evaluation during the process (Conway and Stuart, 2009). That is why the more extensive knowledge on NPD will first be discussed.
3.5.1 Criteria NPD
An important aspect for successful innovations are the criteria employed to evaluate new products to make go/kill decisions during the NPD process (Schmidt et al., 2009). Within NPD several studies have focused on selecting evaluation criteria between the development stages (Hart et al., 2003; Tzokas et al., 2004; Carbonell-Foulquié et al., 2004; Cooper, 1994). One of the first attempts for practical decision-making is designed by Cooper (1994) in his stage-gate model. This model incorporates six criteria which can be used for each gate review or check during the project. As the NPD studies further extended, several scholars stressed the relative importance of some criteria during different gates in the process. Hart et al. (2003) identified specific evaluation criteria for product development and its relative importance in each specific phase in the process (see figure 3.6). The results state that the evaluation criteria used per gate should reflect the different tasks and competences required at the corresponding stages. Tzokas et al. (2004) and Jimenez-Zarco et al.
(2006) confirm the result that the importance of evaluation criteria diverse among different gates in the development process. In addition, the strategy of the organization is considered an important input for selecting the appropriate measurements during the gates (Griffin and Page, 1996; Jimenez-Zarco et al., 2006; Carbonell-Foulquié et al., 2004).
3.5.2 Criteria NSD
In the field of NSD there is less known about specific measurements that should be used during the development process (Johne and Storey, 1998; Zomerdijk and Voss, 2011). Comparable to NPD the strategy is important to guide the way the NSD should be measured (Griffin and Page, 1996; Johne and Storey, 1998; Storey and Hull, 2010). NSD should be considered from different perspectives, therefore most companies and research use multidimensional measures to obtain a balanced view (López et al., 2005; Prieto and Revilla, 2006). However, there is little agreement on which measures are most appropriate (Zomerdijk and Voss, 2011). Several general measurement criteria are adapted in NSD: financial, competitive, customer, quality, cost and market criteria (Voss et al., 1992; Kelly and Storey, 2000; Tatikonda and Montoya-Weiss, 2001; Kirca et al., 2005). Song et al. (2009) are one of the few scholars who integrated specific service criteria in their innovation model. They incorporate the scale for measuring service quality (SERVQUAL). The SERVQUAL model is a specific service measurement proposed by Parsuraman et al., (1988). This model presents a robust measurement specifically designed to measure the quality of services. This model has received a lot of criticism in literature and using the SERVQUAL model still brings mixed results. Nevertheless this the SERVQUAL remains one of the few and preferred model for measuring service quality. This model is considered to be one of the first attempts in developing explicit service criteria. Although most criteria are derived from NPD, most recent studies address the importance of specific service metrics (Zomerdijk and Voss, 2011). Although some attempts are made, measuring services is still beset with problems (den Hertog et al., 2011). The evaluation after launch has reached far more attention than the criteria during the development process. There is no consensus reached about which measurements should
Most Frequently Used Evaluation Criteria at NPD Gates
be adopted during the development process. The findings of this analysis indicate that NSD criteria are still an area that needs further exploration.
3.5 Conclusion
Services have important distinctive features that influence the configuration of NSD processes compared to NPD processes. In literature various NSD processes are available, because scholars still not reached an agreement on whether there is one best way for service development. Mac-Cormack and Verganti (2003) argue that a possible reason for the diversity on NSD processes could lie in the fact that services can extremely differ from each other. Therefore NSD carried out in a different type of context might require a different development approach. This calls for research to explore NSD processes to increase the understanding in a specific context and taking into account the specific characteristics of services (Zomerdijk and Voss, 2011). An important finding is that very little effort is made to make the proposed models applicable in practice. Most research on NSD processes discusses the scientific relevance and putts effort in making a general model. Although it is agreed that NSD processes should be context specific, little is known about how to make a general NSD process work in practice. Particularly relevant for the practical use of a NSD process are the selection and evaluation moments during the process. Appropriate criteria for evaluation are considered significant for the implementation of a successful NSD process. Yet, in this area there is a current lack of appropriate and established metrics for services. Studies try to compel general performance measurements, but these are less meaningful for practical use, which leaves the developers without clear methods to take purposeful decisions in between the process (Stevens and Dimitriadis, 2005). An important finding for selecting the right criteria is that it should be constructed from a multidimensional view that should reflect the strategy and goals of an organization. The aim of this analysis was to look for NSD processes to use as variant designs for the SMC. Whether there is one best configuration of a NSD process is still subject to debate. The theoretical analysis implies that there are multiple alternatives available and there is no dominant variant design available for the SMC. One of the challenges for the design of a specific NSD process relies in selecting the right criteria for the SMC, because in this area still little research is done. The NSD processes for the SMC must enhance performance with respect to its strategy and value creation and requires the design of reliable and valid criteria. The theoretical analysis implies multiple solutions that should be evaluated against the specific context of the SMC.
4
Context Analysis
In this chapter the context of the SMC is analysed regarding NSD. In general, for any design to work theory can never be the sole source. Theory always has to be contextualized in order to be meaningful (van Aken et al., 2007). In addition, from the theoretical analysis the understanding is reached that the design of a NSD process should be adapted to a specific context of use (Menor and Roth, 2007; Smidt et al., 2007; Zomerdijk and Voss, 2011). Therefore this chapter provides the information to make a general NSD process specific. The analysis will identify insights in the form of objectives, contextual factors, and requirements that affect the design.
4.1 Method
The SMC is a young organization that lacks any documentation or reports on its current situation. Therefore the needed information on the current and future NSD topics must be gathered from the employees. Employees are considered a valuable source, because NSD efforts are performed by its service providers (Ottenbacher et al., 2006). The employees of the SMC will be the users of the new designed NSD process and they are the primary providers of specific user information and needs (Goodman-Deane et al., 2010). They should also be encouraged to be involved in the design of the NSD process, because implementing a complete new process inevitably enhances change and involving the users during the design supports overcoming resistance (Goodman-Deane et al., 2010). Therefore a significant part of this analysis is based on the knowledge and input of the employees.
4.1.1 Data Collection
In order to collect the information about the current and future situation on NSD, semi-structured interviews were conducted with employees of the SMC. Semi-structured interviews provide the opportunity for the interviewees to give additional information (van Aken et al., 2007; Flick 2006). Gathering information through interviews is considered a common method to identify user requirements (Courage and Baxter, 2004; Ulrich & Eppinger, 2008). The personal nature of interviews encourages people to express their views and needs in detail. Furthermore, Goodman-Deane et al. (2010) state that the involvement of the organization in the design is important for the adoption of the new process.
4.1.2 Interview Content
The interviews explored the current and future NSD efforts of the SMC to provide information to make the NSD process specific. The interviews consisted relevant topics directly related to the NSD process (appendix 2). A selection of relevant themes was derived during the theoretical analysis (Stevens en Dimitriadas, 2005; de Jong et al., 2003; Johnson et al., 2000; Johne and Storey, 1998). The interviewees were challenged to provide insights about important issues of a NSD process and to exchange their needs for the use of a NSD process. The user needs are particularly important because a process is more likely to be adopted when there is an understanding of the preferred practical use (Goodman-Deane et al., 2010). The design of the NSD process is not a redesign of an existing NSD process at the centre, but a complete new NSD process for the employees. This makes it hard to ask questions directly aimed at needs, because employees are unfamiliar with NSD processes. Therefore general questions were asked for understanding preferences on the envisioned functionality of the needed procedures and desired goal in relation the designed solution (Young, 2007). At the start of the interview the project was introduced within its background. Explaining unknown concepts and themes was especially meaningful because the knowledge of NSD processes was absent. To ensure that the employees understood the interview content, the first interview was tested with one of the employees. Afterwards the schedule was adjusted to make sure that the other interviews provided enough information.
4.1.3 Sample Size
The interviewees were selected based on their position in the organization. The interviews were conducted with seven selected employees from different functions and various hierarchical levels in the organization (appendix 3). The reason to incorporate all departments of the organization was the required holistic approach of NSD (Smith et al., 2007). Especially in health care innovations are frequently driven by different employees and cover all hierarchical and functional areas (Salge and Vera, 2009). The interviews took place in a neutral area and lasted approximately one hour. They were audio recorded to ensure no time and attention was lost on making notes during the interviews.
4.1.4 Data Analysis
After the interview took place the audio recordings were listened back to derive identical and similar senses. Because qualitative data analysis aims at bringing meaning to a situation (Moring, 2001), the findings from the interviews were clustered by the elements of a business model. The use of a framework, like a business model, offers an efficient method to structure the large amount and complex nature of qualitative data (Green & Thorogood, 2004). Moreover, the use of a business model offers a meaningful tool to understand a specific organization (Amit and Zott, 2001; Chesbrough and Rosenbloom, 2002). A business model can provide as a useful starting point for designing processes and structures because it considers a holistic configuration of an organization (Zott and Amit, 2007).
It can support achieving consistency between an organization and its processes (Galbraith, 2002). In this research the business model is adapted from Chesbrough (2007; see appendix 3). According to Chesbrough (2007) this specific business model is especially meaningful to integrate innovation processes into an organization. The goal of this business model is to articulate where the value is created in an organization. Besides the strategy the model provides a major input for the design of the NSD process, because it expresses the value proposition, identified the market, the value chain, the cost structure and the value network. Those features identify important attributes for innovations and emphasize the unique character of the SMC. At the same time it can support designing a far more advanced and valuable process, because the elements can provide as building blocks in designing the NSD process (Chesbrough, 2007). This is especially beneficial because the designed NSD process is completely new for the SMC. In the following section the results of the interviews are presented according to the proposed model.
4.2 Competitive Strategy
The goal of the SMC is to build an acknowledged centre where excellent service, quality, expertise, and committed care are the essential focus. The organization concentrates on a narrow market segment: the sportsman. The strategic choice of the SMC is based on a balance between product leadership and customer intimacy (Treacy and Wiersema, 1993). The centre wants to excel as an expert through the delivery of a superior service by highly specialized and skilled doctors. In addition, it aims to provide an exceptional service to its patients. Value is thus created through innovative service offerings as well as focusing on understanding the patients and meeting their specific needs. For the realisation of this strategy the SMC sets several objectives:
◊ Building a recognizable multidisciplinary institute that can provide the full range of sports- and physic-related care.
◊ The development of the current policlinic outpatients department of sports medicine with multidisciplinary office hours to satisfy the growing customer needs.
◊ Gaining a stronger and leading position by building further to be the centre of excellence of a prominent institute.
◊ The development of a new market by building a "performance sports” center, in cooperation with HIS (Hanzehogeschool, Instituut voor Sportstudies), for the supporting care and treatment of professional athletes.
◊ The further development and market positioning of sports medicine research in cooperation with different other institutes concerning ‘sports performance’.
◊ The accomplishment of awareness and implementation of “healthy aging” for employees and health care providers of the UMCG.
4.3 Value Proposition
The SMC delivers a high quality and specialized health care service. The current service portfolio consists of the full range of sports related care; injury consultation, sports medical check up and examination, multidisciplinary consultation, shockwave therapy, fitness and sports physiotherapy. The SMC delivers a professional service (Lovelock and Wirtz, 2004), which is characterised by extensive customization, process-orientation, and a relatively long contact time. The employees primarily deliver the service, because most treatments involve tangible actions to the patients’ bodies.
This special type of health care delivery is characterized by the uniqueness of every patient and therefore a customized treatment is required. As a consequence this enhances the accent regarding personal service delivery. Also the involvement and participation of the patients is extremely high. The patients need to be physically and mentally present throughout the whole service delivery in order to receive the desired benefits of the provided care. Thus the value of the SMC relies on the physical process by executing physical procedures with a high amount of participation of the client (see figure 4.1). The value of the SMC is based on the quality of the knowledge, judgment, and skill of the physician and other employees. This is typical for the health care sector, because the sole object of value creation in medical care is essentially the work of physicians (Djellal and Gallouj, 2011; Wu and Hsieh, 2011).
4.4 Target Market
The target group of the SMC if defined as clients with chronically and/or recurrent sports related injuries. For the most part the patients consist of young adults. The employees experience the patients as well-informed, demanding a quick and adequate high quality care. They are marked by a high drive, motivation for the treatment and very flexible. Unlike other health care providers where the patients are very loyal, the physicians discover that the patients easily switch to competitors when they feel dissatisfied with the provided care or can receive a better treatment elsewhere.
4.5 Value Chain
The SMC gains its competitive advantage from a superior execution within its internal value chain. As the value proposition also indicates, the value chain of the SMC is one of the most important considerations. The competitive advantage is accomplished through the direct collaboration and cooperation with the different medical specialism and sports physicians. The value chain of the SMC
Health service delivery
lies in the multidisciplinary service of combined expertises. Compared to other health care providers the lines of interdisciplinary consultation are quick and short. It is important for the SMC to select doctors that work effectively and collaboratively with the other physicians and members of the health care team.
4.6 Value Network
Health care providers are complex service organizations with a lot of interdependencies. The SMC possesses a rich and valuable network of complementary partners. The current institutions that are essential in its network are the University of Groningen, Hanze Hogeschool, LOSO, HIS, CTO and the UMCG, but also the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sports. These parties have strategic interest in the realization of the scientific research within the SMC, where social responsibility is the main goal. The employees underline the importance and diverse possibilities of this network. Networks are essential in health care, because they offer opportunities for NSD cooperation and innovative network structures (Djellal and Gallouj, 2007; Salge and Vera, 2009).
4.7 Revenue Mechanisms
Revenue mechanism is distinctive for the health care sector compared with any other sector. The employees raised the important issue that the centre is an independent treatment centre (in Ducth: zelfstandig behandel centrum), which means that the SMC is primarily funded by its own revenues and does not receive the same funding as hospital settings. Financing is received from the health insurers and their ex-budget treatments, which are physiotherapy and sports medical examinations. The current financing system is based on the DBC-system, DBC standing for Diagnose (Diagnosis) Behandeling (Treatment) Combinatie (Combination). A DBC can be defined as a predefined average packet of care (treatment), which in most cases has a fixed price and is applied when a specific diagnosis occurs. This DBC-system lived up to the expectations, but turned out to be fairly complex in daily use. This led to the new development of DOT, an improved DBC-system that is easier to work with and is also more closely related to international standards. Due to the fall of the Dutch Government in 2010 the introduction of this second-generation case mix system has been postponed until January 2012. This revenue mechanism is of great influence for the development of new services at the SMC. When a new service is developed, the pricing must be based on the current DOT-system. This requires a lot of effort during the development of a new service. Therefore a new service for the SMC should not only design the service concept and delivery, but also design the cost-structure.
4.8 Conclusion
The context analysis provided information about the SMC and its current and future situation related to NSD. This information is needed to make the NSD process specific for the context of use. The strategic orientation of the SMC is to excel as an expert in its business to become a recognized centre that provides a professional and excellent service for every sportsman. The NSD process must fulfil the strategy through developing high quality and professional services. In addition, the centre wants to achieve a leading market position in sports related care. Therefore it needs to expand its value creating ability to deliver the most complete service to its patients, which is accomplished by the involvement of multidisciplinary departments at the centre. This strong collaboration of different disciplines is an important concern for developing new service offerings that should also be adopted in the NSD process. The perceived quality of its service mainly depends on the knowledge, expertise and skills of the employees. And the involvement and participation of the patients is extremely high. Specific attention should be given to interaction of the employees and patients in the development of new services in the SMC. The findings of this analysis provide an important input for setting the requirements to make the NSD process specific for the SMC.
5
Design Requirements
In this chapter the requirements for the NSD process are designed. Those requirements determine the preferred performance of the process (van Aken et al., 2007; Cross, 2008). The requirements will be created based on the findings of the theoretical and context analysis. In general the NSD process must result in more successful, efficient and effective service developments for the SMC. In this chapter the requirements are designed more specific. They are structured by the various categories proposed by van Aken et al. (2007):
◊ “Functional requirements”: These form the core of the specifications and specify the required performance of the design.
◊ “User requirements”: These are the demands that are important from the users’ point of view. ◊ “Design constraints”: These are boundary conditions and design restrictions to the solution space.
5.1 Functional Requirements
Functional requirements are considered the most important requirements in order to depict the performance of the design (van Aken et al., 2007). In this research the functional requirements comprise the demands on the performance of the NSD process for the SMC. Literature highlights a number of requirements a NSD process design should enhance. However it is important to consider those general requirements against the context to examine whether they are relevant to the SMC.
5.1.1 Performance and Evaluation of NSD
A general requirement from the theoretical analysis addresses the need for selecting appropriate evaluation and performance criteria in the NSD process. These measurements need to become an integral part of the process. Selecting performance indicators is important for the SMC in order to decide whether a new service idea is relevant to the organization. To secure and optimize strategic alignment, customer intimacy and product leadership must be reflected in the NSD process as well as the specific performance criteria. The NSD process must develop innovations with a high quality and expert employees in order to excel as an acknowledged and excellent centre. In addition, the adopted criteria should also support this outcome during the process. The understanding of quality is indispensable when designing measurements that incorporate quality. Quality definitions tend to focus on customer requirements and how well service providers meet their expectations (Butt and Run, 2010). Quality in health care is considered unique, because of the assumption that patients lack the ability to properly gauge clinical service quality aspects such as skills of the physicians, or
practitioners’ diagnostic abilities (Bakar et al., 2008; Ramsaran-Fowdar, 2005). Health service quality is measured in technical terms that customers may not understand, making it difficult for them to properly respond. Nevertheless patients are considered adequately qualified to measure functional quality (Bakar et al., 2008; Devebakan and Aksarayli, 2003). Thus, the adopted quality criteria in the NSD process should be meaningful to both customer and practitioners (Colton, 2007).
5.1.2 Support Customer and Market Orientation
From the theoretical analysis the recognition is derived that for a successful NSD process customer and market orientation is required. Involving customers is seen to be a central part in NSD (Carbonell et al., 2009; Sandén et al., 2006). Customers can provide an important input for idea generation, service design and testing (Alam and Perry, 2002; Melton and Hartline, 2010). Especially the incorporation of patients is seen to be applicable to complex and high value services such as health (Sawhney, 2006). Despite this great emphasis in research the outcome of the involvement still remains inconsistent; this makes it not a straightforward requirement (Ordanini and Maglio, 2009). However, the context analysis emphasizes the involvement of patients during the service delivery and the need for tailored and patient-centred developments. Because the SMC follows a customer intimacy it is important that the patients are already involved during the development to ensure that patient values guide the clinical decisions. In that way the centre is able to respond to preferences, needs, and values of patients. This is especially important because the physicians experience that their patients easily switch when they are dissatisfied. Involving the patient is therefore considered an important requirement in the NSD process.
5.1.3 Support Internal Process Organization
Literature highly emphasizes the adoption of cross-functional teamwork as a requirement to make the process more effective and to increase the available amount of knowledge and information during the development (Smith et al., 2007; Jimenez-Zarco et al., 2006; Zomerdijk and Voss, 2011). This requirement is most important for firms that depend on human interactions and practices (Storey and Hull, 2010) and is therefore considered exceedingly important for the SMC. The context analysis reveals that competitive advantage and value is created through the close collaboration of the multidisciplinary specialism. Thus the whole service of the SMC revolves around cross-functional teamwork. The physicians must see themselves working in an integrated comprehensive team and not as solo practitioners.
The adoption of training is also considered to be an important requirement in successful NSD (Kindström and Kowalkowski, 2009). Because new services often enhance a new way of delivery, this requires a change of skills and job design that must be supported by training (Ordanini and Maglio, 2009). For the SMC, the delivery of the services depends on the skills and knowledge intensity of the employees. The goal to become an acknowledged centre requires more specialization and complex
skills that place greater demands on the expertise of physicians and other employees. For the development of new treatments physicians are expected to participate in extensive education and training. According to Alden et al. (2004) there is no other sector that should put more emphasis on training than the health care sector.
5.1.4 Support External Network
Innovation is related to the ability to obtain and use knowledge, which is available inside as well as outside the organization (Swan et al., 1999). The use of networks can support cooperation and information sharing. Possible external stakeholders are suppliers, institutes, competitors and customers. From the context analysis can be derived that the SMC and its external network is considered a valuable asset. Most physicians work closely with different institutes and universities. To follow its strategy of product leader, constant innovation and development through the acquisition of new collaborations is beneficial. Adopting the value of its network explicitly in the NSD process it will stimulate and support the SMC in its ability to be innovative.
5.2 User Requirements
The requirements of the various users are important for the adaption of the eventual design and utility of the process (van Aken et al., 2007). In this research the designed NSD process has to fulfill a certain function for the employees of the SMC. The specific requirements of the employees are gathered together with the conducted interviews on the context analysis (see chapter 4.1). From the interviews with employees of different functions it was clear that they all agreed upon an easy, short and simple process. The centre is a young, small and informal organization, where quick actions are taken. The employees express the preference of easy and simple procedures and expect that a detailed handbook useless in the organization. The employees feel that the NSD process should be practical and should not enhance a time-consuming process.
“We all work with our hands and are practical-minded. Therefore, we could do without endless processes and procedures.”
In the current situation it performs all service developments ad hoc and without any documentation. The ability to reuse and learn from previous developments is very low. The manager recognizes the need for more recording and documentation. Some employees also express the need for the process to be documented to make it easily accessible for every employee. With an easily accessible document, the employees have a guideline how to manage their ideas.
“It would be beneficial if there is one clear approach for all the creative ideas. In that way it is easier for everyone to actually know what to do with his / her idea.”
In their daily work the employees express that they enjoy their work because of the high interaction with patients, cohesiveness and cooperation with different disciplines. The employees believe that the multidisciplinary collaboration is their greatest strength. However, some of the employees experience a commitment problem with specialists who do not work fulltime at the centre. Those specialists are not perceived as dedicated to the development of the centre as the employees that work fulltime. The employees believe that an integration of different functions should be incorporated in the development process to overcome this commitment problem.
“Everybody works together and is therefore very dependent on each other. Collaboration is our greatest strength.”
A problem that is experienced by all employees is the lack of resources. All employees believe that innovation is important to the centre, but the lack of time is a major issue. Only once or twice a year all employees come together and brainstorm about improvements and new ideas. Paying attention to NSD in their daily work is considered too time-consuming. Additionally the financing provides a huge obstacle in the SMC. The centre is not funded by the UMCG, like other wards, but mostly depends on medical insurance companies and external investment financing.
“We would love to continuously improve our service. But our biggest barrier is the available time and finance.”
5.3 Design Constraints
Designing a new business process without considering the current business is not an appropriate solution. Therefore the process is constrained by certain boundary conditions and design restrictions. One condition is that the NSD process should be implementable and comply with the culture of the SMC (Johnson et al., 2000). There must be a fit between the current elements of the SMC and the new NSD process. Although innovation is important, the NSD process should not harm the performance of other organizational activities. The NSD process should enhance structure, but should not influence the productive present creative process. One important design restriction concerns the costs of developing and using the NSD process. The management team stated that the design as well as the implementation of the NSD process should not enhance any costs. Due to a lack of resources there is no room available for extra expenses. The design solution should be based on scientific literature, but the practical use for the SMC should also be incorporated.
5.5 Conclusion
Despite the obviousness, the functional requirements are considered against the context of the SMC. The functional requirements for the SMC included a strategic alignment, patient involvement, cross-functional teamwork, training and external focus. The user requirements all resulted in the focus on the practical use of the process. The constraints of the design show that it is important that the design is implementable in the SMC and thus should comply with the current elements and processes. The design requirements are summarized in figure 5.1.
Design Requirements
Functional Requirements User Requirements Design Constraints
- Stimulate product leadership - Stimulate customer intimacy - Focus on high quality service - Focus on expertise/training - Enhance multidisciplinary teams - Patient-focused
- External-focused
- Simple
- Easy for users to operate - Practical
- No extensive training - Stimulate collaboration
- Implementable in SMC - Comply with culture - Fit with the current elements - Give structure but not influence - Cost-neutral
- Academic, but practical
6
Design
In this chapter the NSD process for the SMC is proposed. Within the remaining design space several solutions for a NSD process will be synthesized. The design is determined by evaluating the requirements against the possible solutions. After the evaluations the NSD process will be worked out in detail.
6.1 Synthesis
In the synthesis different alternatives are evaluated against the established performance requirements (Cross, 2008). During this evaluation the value of the available solutions is assessed. A method for synthesizing is a matrix assessment, which is a very simple and effective way of choosing among different alternatives. This method is appropriate for any type of decision in which options have to be selected against requirements (Freeman-Bell and Balkwill, 1996). Therefore this two-dimensional representation is used to evaluate the design requirements of chapter 5 against the NSD processes found in the theoretical analysis. Because empirical support for what kind of process outperforms the other is lacking in the NSD literature (Ordanini and Maglio, 2009), all possible NSD processes are included in the evaluation. Some requirements could be regarded as more important than others (Cross, 2008). Because of that the weighted objective method is used to assign the importance of each requirement. The requirements are ranked and assigned with a weighting on a scale 1 - 100 (see appendix 5). Through the use of qualitative performance parameters adapted from Cross (2008) the different NSD processes are evaluated. Table 6.1 shows the calculated and compared NSD processes. The overall weighted value (OWV) is calculated by the unweighted value (OV) * weight (W). Thus, the assigned weighted score multiplies each overall score. From the matrix can be derived that the first two NSD processes are both negatively valued. The proposed model is therefore based on the NSD process cycle of Johnson et al. (2000) with the adoption of the more recent staged service innovation model developed by Song et al. (2009). The combination of both models enhances synergy through the combination of both strengths. The greatest benefit from the NSD process cycle lies in the basic need to prefer a simple four-stage process. Above all this process explicitly emphasizes the holistic approach for the SMC through the presence of the enablers. The staged innovation process of Song et al. provides a practical guide for service development at the centre. The adoption of the SERVQUAL model and explicit gates in the NSD process helps the SMC to indentify strengths and weaknesses in developing high quality services. The explicit gates to evaluate
Evaluation of NSD processes Solutions
Design Requirements
BAH NSD Process (de Jong et al)
NSD Process cycle (Johnson et al)
Staged NSD process (Song et al)
- Stimulate product leadership - Stimulate customer intimacy - Focus on high quality service - Focus on expertise/training - Enhance multidisciplinary teams - Patient-focused - External-focused - - - - - - 0 - - - - - - 0 - + 0 + ++ + + ++ + ++ + - + 0 Sum of + Sum of 0 Sum of - 0 1 6 0 1 6 6 1 1 7 1 1 F u n c ti o n a l re q u ir e m e n ts
Net score (OV) Overall value (OWV)
-6 - 5.6 -6 - 5.6 5 2 6 2.4 - Simple
- Easy for users to operate - Practical
- Easy to operate/no extensive training - Stimulate collaboration + + + - - + - - - - ++ + + - ++ + ++ ++ - - Sum of + Sum of 0 Sum of - 3 0 2 1 0 4 6 0 1 5 0 2 U s e r n e e d s
Net score (OV) Overall value (OWV)
1 0.3 -3 -2.7 5 1.5 3 0.9 - Implementable in SMC - Comply with culture - Fit with the current elements - Give structure but not influence - Cost-neutral
- Academic, but practical
+ - 0 + + - + - 0 + + - + + 0 + + + + + 0 + + 0 Sum of + Sum of 0 Sum of - 3 1 2 3 1 2 5 1 0 4 1 0 D e s ig n C o n s tr a in ts
Net score (OV) Overall value (OWV)
1 0.3 1 0.3 5 1.5 4 1.2 Overall value -5 -8 5 4.5 Table 6.1
the performance during the process make the NSD process more practical. Besides the NSD processes, the criteria and performance measurements for the NSD process should be selected. The possible measures from the theoretical analysis (appendix 6) are weighted against the performance requirements of the SMC. For this evaluation the requirements of the user and design constraints are omitted, because the criteria are all equally evaluated against those requirements. Each criterion of the functional requirement is given the same weight, because the SMC emphasizes equally the product leadership as well as a customer intimacy strategy. From table 6.2 can be derived that service quality, innovativeness/uniqueness and customer-based measurements are appropriate criteria for SMC to achieve its strategy and objectives. A scale for service quality is the SERVQUAL model, but the theoretical analysis implies that the SERVQUAL model should be carefully evaluated and modified in a specific setting. The solution to this problem is to use an adapted SERVQUAL model for health care (Butt and Run, 2010; Ramsuran-Fowdar, 2005; Dagger et al., 2007). Besides the specific criteria for the SMC, theory implies that there are general measurements that are important and therefore will also have to be included in the process.
Evaluation of criteria Solutions Design Requirements M a rk e t c ri te ri a F in a n c ia l m e a s u re s C o m p e ti ti v e a d v a n ta g e T e c h n ic a l fe a s ib ili ty In te rn a l p ro c e s s C u s to m e r p e rs p e c ti v e S e rv ic e q u a lit y Q u a lit y M e a s u re s P ro c e s s b a s e d P ro d u c t-b a s e d K n o w le d g e -i n te n s iv e In n o v a tiv e n e s s / U n iq u e n e s s
- Stimulate product leadership - Stimulate customer intimacy - Focus on high quality service - Focus on expertise/training + + + - - - - - ++ + + + - - - - - - - - + ++ + + + + +++ + + + ++ + - - - - - - - - + 0 + ++ +++ + + + Sum of + Sum of 0 Sum of - 3 0 1 0 0 4 5 0 0 0 0 4 0 0 4 3 0 2 6 0 0 5 0 0 0 0 4 0 0 4 5 1 0 6 0 0 F u n c ti o n a l r e q u ir e m e n ts Overall value 2 -4 5 4 4 5 6 5 4 4 4 6 Table 6.2
The final selection considers the appropriate criteria during the different phases in the process. Knowledge on NSD in this area is not yet available and therefore the only choice is to base the selection on the knowledge available on NPD. Tzokas et al (2004) propose the only solution in this area and therefore this will be adopted in the NSD process (see figure 6.3). This figure indicates that in the early phase of the process the emphasis relies on additional indicators and service performance. During the business analysis financial and market performance criteria play an important role. For the development and testing phase the service performance criteria are remarkably important. After the launch market-, financial- and service-based criteria should be used.
