Aligning Value and Implementation in Service Design: A Systemic Approach

The promise of service design is to enable a service supplier to prosper by delivering continuous value to customers. This prosperity is of strategic value to the service supplier. There is value in a service for both the service supplier and its service customers. We call these two values, service supplier value and service adopter value. When designing a service it is necessary to align both value propositions with the service components and service features. To this end, we propose to use a systemic method where whole (i.e. black box) and composite (i.e. white box) reasoning are interleaved on both the organizational and functional dimensions. We begin by producing an as-is model that describes how the value is created for the customer and how it is captured by the service supplier. Service improvement opportunities are identified in terms of value to both service adopter and service supplier. A to-be model is built that specifies the new interaction between actors and their new responsibilities and thereby, new service components and features. The method is illustrated with an example based on the service offering and implementation of Amazon.com in Amazon Marketplace.