ServEx – discovery and integration of multipurpose business service solutions

The project´s starting point is to find Business Service Solutions for back-office challenges and integrate them into the company. If the solutions have proved to be successful within the company they get externalized, which means they are entirely or partly provided to customers, suppliers or partners of the company. In the first step problems as well as ideas are identified and a comprehensive, IT driven solution is developed. Thereby this new Business Service Solution has to contribute to the company’s business success. In the second step the extent to which the Business Service Solution can be externalized is analyzed, so that the business relationships with the customers, suppliers and partners can also profit from the solution.

Motivation and objectives

Due to growing internal and external complexity companies increasingly have difficulties identifying and using potentials for optimization. On the one hand internal business processes often are improvable and there is a lack of expertise on how to design appropriate support more efficiently. On the other hand many companies try to sustain their competitive advantage with customer orientated approaches. Customer satisfaction is a well-known concept today and there are many approaches on how to achieve customer loyalty with capable, customized products or services. Companies expect a competitive advantage through this. But a customized creation of products and services is more expensive than a standardized one. To counterbalance these additional costs new revenue models must be generated. In many cases, especially in the case of e-commerce, this is very complicated.

The research project aims at the design and development of a process model, which detects, integrates and externalizes Business Service Solutions. It also includes an analysis of the most important drivers for the identification of ideas and problems. This analysis is based on the explanation of how to develop a Business Service Solution. Single Business Solutions are viewed separately in order to find out for which Business Relationships which types of solutions can be externalized.

Research tasks

• Identification of problems and ideas: The task is to identify drivers, which play a decisive role in the emergence of problems and ideas within a company. The emergence of problems is influenced by different factors: For example events happen (e.g. a new environmental regulation), which require a change of the production procedure. Or a business process is found to be suboptimal, which causes reduction in quality or temporary shortfalls in the production of services and goods. The same principle applies for idea generation, which is also influenced by different drivers: For instance, if a new technology becomes more market-ready, the extent to how reasonable this technology is to the company is analyzed.

• Development and internal implementation of Business Service Solutions: On the basis of the identified problems and ideas an IT-driven Business Service Solution is developed. Its economic efficiency is examined and implemented, if the result is satisfactory for the company. With cross-functional solutions the focus is especially centered on the integration of all participating company units.

• Externalization of Business Service Solutions: If Business Service Solutions have proved to be successful within the company there is a crucial next step: The extent to how parts can be externalized for certain target groups is analyzed. Thereby additional value for customers, partners and suppliers is created, which aims at satisfaction, loyalty and efficiency.

Related work - applied theories

• Service Lifecycle Management
• Service Engineering
• Web 2.0 Services
• Technologies (e.g. RFID)

Project Management: Dipl.-Kff. Carolin Löffler

Students (working on their diploma thesis, a research project or their seminar paper as well as graduate assistants)

Diploma Theses and Result Papers

• Christian Zagel - Virtuelle Produktfotografie - Technisches Konzept zur Service Externalization von virtuellen Prototypen. Diplomarbeit 2008.
• Philipp Körber - Virtuelle Produktfotografie – Change Management Konzept zur Service Externalization von virtuellen Prototypen. Diplomarbeit 2008.
• Silke Siegel - Externalisierung interner Dienstleistungen. Diplomarbeit 2008.
• Lucia Schleifer - Internet-driven After Sales Services im Automobilbereich - eine empirische Untersuchung. Diplomarbeit 2008.
• Katharina Hamel - Neuorganisation der In- und Outbound-Prozesse am Beispiel eines Automobilwerkes. Diplomarbeit 2008.
• Bastian Barthelmann – Web 2.0 driven service innovations. Diploma thesis 2008.
• Maximilian Witt – E-customer satisfaction and customer retention in the automobile after sales. Diploma thesis 2008.
• Andreas Badelt – Success factors and design options for service ecosystems. Master thesis 2008.
• Markus Renner – Virtual market research. Student research project 2008.
• Myriam Bartel, Robert Weise, Dingsheng Ye, Tian Zhang – Product data management at adidas. Project thesis 2008.
• Christian Zagel – Virtual photography for products. Case studies in the industry of sporting goods with focus on sports wear. Student research project 2008.
• Philipp Körber – Virtual photography for products. Case studies in the industry of sporting goods with focus on sports shoes. Student research project 2008.
• Sarah Ehmann, Katharina Hamel, Jan Hofmann, Silvia Meyer – Green Services: Integration of systems and processes to enhance environmental sustainability. Project thesis 2007.
• Konstantinos Dougais, Sebastian Popp, Markus Renner, Michael Schottenhammer – Virtual illustration of an airport enviroment as testbed for new services. Project thesis 2007.

• adidas group
• Psyma Research+Consulting
• Siemens Airport Center

Related Student Reports (excerpt)