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The study of the service management process at the Hotel Pinar del Río revealed that the animation is carried out based on the fulfillment of independent objectives and functions, which does not contribute to the adequate integration between the functional and business units, while affecting the effectiveness and efficiency of business management in general. Hence, the following research problem was formulated: How to contribute to the improvement of the entertainment service in the area of a Pinar del Río hotel as a city hotel? The objective of the research was to design a procedure to improve the entertainment service that contributes to the adequate integration of functional and business units and the optimal performance of Pinar del Río hotel. To achieve this purpose, methods were used that include analysis and synthesis, the system approach, and other empirical diagnostic techniques, including brainstorming and checklists, surveys, and documentary analysis. As results of the research, opportunities for improvement were identified in the management of the animation service, which by adopting a tendency to focus on processes contributed to the increase in customer satisfaction and the improvement of management styles and methods in the entity, as well as to the significant decrease in complaints and claims and the favorable evolution of the facility's economic and financial indicators., O estudo do processo de gestão de serviços no Hotel Pinar del Río revelou que a animação é realizada com base no cumprimento de objetivos e funções independentes, o que não contribui para a integração adequada entre as unidades funcionais e de negócio, ao mesmo tempo que afeta a eficácia e eficiência da gestão empresarial em geral. Assim, formulou-se o seguinte problema de investigação: ¿Como contribuir para a melhoria do serviço de animação na zona do Pinar del Río hotel como hotel urbano? O objetivo da pesquisa foi desenhar um procedimento para melhorar o serviço de entretenimento que contribua para a integração adequada das unidades funcionais e de negócios e para o ótimo desempenho dos hotel Pinar del Río. Para atingir esse objetivo, foram utilizados métodos que incluem análise e síntese, abordagem sistêmica e outras técnicas empíricas de diagnóstico, incluindo brainstorming e checklists, pesquisas e análise documental. Como resultados da investigação foram identificadas oportunidades de melhoria na gestão do serviço de animação, que ao adoptar uma tendência de foco nos processos contribuiu para o aumento da satisfação dos clientes e a melhoria dos estilos e métodos de gestão na entidade, bem como à diminuição significativa das reclamações e reclamações e à evolução favorável dos indicadores económicos e financeiros do estabelecimento., El estudio del proceso de gestión del servicio en el Hotel Pinar del Río reveló que la animación se realiza basado en el cumplimiento de objetivos y funciones independientes, lo que no contribuye a la adecuada integración entre las unidades funcionales y de negocios, al tiempo que afecta la eficacia y la eficiencia de la gestión empresarial en general. De ahí que se formuló el siguiente problema de investigación: ¿Cómo contribuir a la mejora del servicio de animación en el ámbito del Hotel Pinar del Río como hotel de ciudad?. El objetivo de la investigación fue diseñar un procedimiento para la mejora del servicio de animación que contribuya a la adecuada integración de las unidades funcionales y de negocio y al óptimo desempeño del Hotel Pinar del Río. Para el logro de este propósito se utilizaron métodos que incluyen el análisis y la síntesis, el enfoque en sistema, otras técnicas de diagnóstico empírico entre las que se pueden citar la tormenta de ideas, listas de verificación, la encuesta y el análisis documental. Como resultados de la investigación se identificaron oportunidades de mejora en la gestión del servicio de animación, que al adoptar una tendencia al enfoque a procesos contribuyó al incremento de la satisfacción del cliente y al perfeccionamiento de estilos y métodos de dirección en la entidad, así como a la disminución significativa de las quejas y reclamaciones y a la evolución favorable de los indicadores económicos y financieros de la instalación

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to investigate the potential of Large Language Models (LLMs) in transforming technical customer service (TCS) through the automation of cognitive tasks. Design/Methodology/Approach: Using a prototyping approach, the research assesses the feasibility of automating cognitive tasks in TCS with LLMs, employing real-world technical incident data from a Swiss telecommunications operator. Findings: Lower-level cognitive tasks such as translation, summarization, and content generation can be effectively automated with LLMs like GPT-4, while higher-level tasks such as reasoning require more advanced technological approaches such as Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) or finetuning ; furthermore, the study underscores the significance of data ecosystems in enabling more complex cognitive tasks by fostering data sharing among various actors involved. Originality/Value: This study contributes to the emerging theory on LLM potential and technical feasibility in service management, providing concrete insights for operators of TCS units and highlighting the need for further research to address limitations and validate the applicability of LLMs across different domains.

In 2019, the Covid-19 pandemic brought a substantial change to the world. As good as everyone was affected and several sectors in the economy were impacted. Service businesses had to adapt their servicescape as a consequence. One services industry in Sweden which had to change their servicescape was airports, who had people arriving and departing from the entire world. Furthermore, the servicescape has a direct link to employee behavior and when changes in the servicescape are made, changes in employee behavior may arise. In addition, a changed employee behavior could impact the service quality. The purpose with this thesis is to add to the understanding regarding what changes the covid-19 pandemic brought to airports servicescape, if these changes affected employees and consecutively their ability to provide service quality. The purpose was fulfilled by conducting a qualitative study with semi-structured interviews. These interviews were held by employees representing different airports and analyzed through the Gioia Methodology. Our finding from this thesis suggests that the servicescape at the airports changed greatly as a consequence to covid-19 and the implementation of different measures. Employees had to use facemasks, plexiglas became the new normal and the intense climate at the airports disappeared. The findings in the thesis further propose that these changes in turn caused the employees to respond with feelings of discomfort, dissatisfaction, and stress. In addition, some of the changes triggered positive employee responses such as satisfaction and the feeling of security. The thesis has further discussed how these changes in the servicescape and the responses they brought, could trigger employees to behave in certain ways and how this could have affected the airports services quality during covid-19.

Customer satisfaction is a determinant of business success due to factors such as the entry of new compatible products, ease of access to information, buyer demands, elasticity of demand, and consumers' growing concern for issues such as health and environmental care. The purpose of this manuscript is to evaluate the factors incident to customer satisfaction from a theoretical approach with empirical evidence from postulates on the measurement of customer satisfaction and service quality. The method follows a conclusive study with a quantitative and cross-sectional approach. The collection of primary information was carried out by means of a structured and validated instrument administered in three cities of Colombia. Descriptive statistics were used for data triangulation through Excel and SPSS programs. It is estimated that the factors affecting customer satisfaction focus on aspects such as installed capacity, infrastructure, implementation of sanitary measures, customer service, and institutional philosophy. It is also concluded that it is necessary to implement mechanisms for measuring customer satisfaction, which should be adapted to the culture of each region, the customers' needs and the supermarkets' characteristics., La satisfacción del cliente es determinante en el éxito empresarial debido a factores como la entrada de nuevos productos compatibles, la facilidad de acceso a la información, las demandas de los compradores, la elasticidad de la demanda y la creciente preocupación de los consumidores por temas como la salud y el cuidado del medio ambiente. El propósito de este manuscrito es evaluar los factores incidentes en la satisfacción del cliente desde un enfoque teórico con evidencia empírica a partir de postulados sobre la medición de la satisfacción y calidad del servicio al cliente. El método sigue un estudio concluyente con un enfoque cuantitativo y transversal. La recolección de información primaria se realizó mediante un instrumento estructurado y validado que se administró en tres ciudades de Colombia. Se utilizó la estadística descriptiva para la triangulación de datos a través de los programas Excel y SPSS. Se estima que los factores que inciden en la satisfacción del cliente se enfocan en aspectos como capacidad instalada, infraestructura, implementación de medidas sanitarias, atención al cliente y filosofía institucional. Asimismo, se concluye que es necesario implementar mecanismos de medición de la satisfacción del cliente, los cuales deben adaptarse a la cultura de cada región, las necesidades de los clientes y las características de los supermercados.

This thesis is an investigation of how cognitive computing system initiatives in the public sector can contribute towards creating public value. It focuses specifically on public service delivery through service channels that are supported by chatbots and proposes recommendations to ensure that the important public service value dimensions are supported. The thesis builds upon the discussions around public value creation and draws upon the interpretation of how chatbots can facilitate public value creation during chatbot-mediated service interactions from both the users of the chatbots and designers of the chatbots.

Denna uppsats fokuserar på att undersöka vilken påverkan digitaliseringen har på servicemöten inom turismrelaterade verksamheter och vilken betydelse eventuella förändringar av digitalisering har för besökares upplevelser av service. Studien ämnar också att få svar på hur servicemöten har förändrats i takt med digitaliseringen, vilka digitala verktyg som används inom turismverksamheter samt hur förändringar som en följd av digitaliseringen har påverkat besökares upplevelser av servicemöten. En tematik har byggts upp i problemformulering, syfte och frågeställningar som sedan följer samma riktning i det teoretiska ramverket. Temana är digitaliseringens utveckling, digitala verktyg och servicemöten. Med utgångspunkt i teorin och dessa teman förklaras digitaliseringens framväxt, hur digitala verktyg används inom turismverksamheter, hur besökare blir medskapare av upplevelser samt ges en förklaring av huvudämnet servicemöte. Avsikten är att skapa en uppfattning om upplevelsen av servicemöten och hur de har förändrats i och med den digitala utvecklingen, som nämnts ovan. För att undersöka detta har kvalitativa intervjuer använts som datainsamling för studien. Studien tar utgångspunkt i ett konsumentperspektiv, men delvis också ett producentperspektiv där intervjuer med både turister och hotellaktörer har genomförts. Genom intervjuer har intervjupersonerna tillhandahållit sina upplevelser av digitalisering inom turismverksamheter och dess inverkan på servicemöten. Empirin som sedan har analyserats visar att utvecklingen av digitaliseringen har medfört att digitala verktyg införts på de intervjuade hotellverksamheterna och hur turister bokar vistelser och tar del av recensioner online. Vidare indikerar empirin att turisters upplevelser av hur digitala förändringar har påverkat besökares upplevelser av servicemöten och betydelsen av det fysiska mötet. Sammandraget visar denna studie på att digitala verktyg har implementerats till viss del på turismverksamheter, This following essay addresses the digitization and its impact on service encounters that occur at various touristic facilities. In addition, the importance any possible digital changes have for tourists’ experiences of service is also emphasized. The aim is to obtain an idea about experiences of service encounters, how they change as a result of the digital development in society, and what kind of digital tools are used by tourism organizations. Consequently, the way the potential digital changes have affected tourists’ experiences of service encounters is furthermore studied. A thematization has been defined in relation to the problem statement, purpose of the study, and research questions, which follow the same direction into the theoretical background. The themes are the development of digitization, digital tools, and the service encounter. With the theory and these themes as a starting point, the digital development, along with the usage of digital tools within tourism organizations and how visitors become co-creators of experiences, explain the main subject service encounter. The intention is to attain comprehension about experiences of service encounters, as stated above. In order to examine this, qualitative interviews have been applied as a method. This essay studies the phenomena from a consumer perspective, as well as a producer perspective. By interviewing both tourists and hotel businesses, the informants have shared their experiences of, and views on, digitization at touristic facilities, as well as how it impacts service encounters. The analyzed results from the collected data indicate that the development of the digitization has resulted in adopted digital tools at the interviewed hotel businesses, and that tourists book and engage in reviews online. Moreover, the empirical results highlight the interviewed tourists’ perceptions of how digital changes have affected visitors’ experiences of service encounters, and the significance of the physical enc

Blockchain has become the most revolutionary technology in the 21st century. In recent years, one of the concerns of world energy isn't just sustainability yet, in addition, being secure and reliable also. Since information and energy security are the main concern for the present and future services, this thesis is focused on the challenge of how to trade energy securely on the background of using distributed marketplaces that can be applied. The core technology used in this thesis is distributed ledger, specifically blockchain. Since this technology has recently gained much attention because of its functionalities such as transparency, immutability, irreversibility, security, etc, we tried to convey a solution for the implementation of a secure peer-to-peer (P2P) energy trading network over a suitable blockchain platform. Furthermore, blockchain enables traceability of the origin of data which is called data provenience. In this work, we applied a secure blockchain technology in peer-to-peer energy sharing or trading system where the prosumer and consumer can trade their energies through a secure channel or network. Furthermore, the service management functionalities such as security, reliability, flexibility, and scalability are achieved through the implementation. \\ This thesis is focused on the current proposals for p2p energy trading using blockchain and how to select a suitable blockchain technique to implement such a p2p energy trading network. In addition, we provide an implementation of such a secure network under blockchain and proper management functions. The choices of the system models, blockchain technology, and the consensus algorithm are based on literature review, and it carried to an experimental implementation where the feasibility of that system model has been validated through the output results.

Faced with the rapid increase in smart Internet-of-Things (IoT) devices and the high demand for new business-oriented services in the fifth-generation (5G) and beyond network, the management of mobile networks is getting complex. Thus, traditional Network Management and Orchestration (MANO) approaches cannot keep up with rapidly evolving application requirements. This challenge has motivated the adoption of the Zero-touch network and Service Management (ZSM) concept to adapt the automation into network services management. By automating network and service management, ZSM offers efficiency to control network resources and enhance network performance visibility. The ultimate target of the ZSM concept is to enable an autonomous network system capable of self-configuration, self-monitoring, self-healing, and self-optimization based on service-level policies and rules without human intervention. Thus, the paper focuses on conducting a comprehensive survey of E2E ZSM architecture and solutions for 5G and beyond networks. The article begins by presenting the fundamental ZSM architecture and its essential components and interfaces. Then, a comprehensive review of the state-of-the-art for key technical areas, i.e., ZSM automation, cross-domain E2E service lifecycle management, and security aspects, are presented. Furthermore, the paper contains a summary of recent standardization efforts and research projects towards the ZSM realization in 5G and beyond networks. Finally, several lessons learned from the literature and open research problems related to ZSM realization are also discussed in this paper.

The Handbook of Service Management has a broad scope and includes different perspectives of the diverse and complex service management field. The book is structured in five broad themes: service management, service strategy, service leadership and transition, service design and innovation, service interaction, quality and operation and technology in service. We have included contributions for different academic disciplines such as marketing, management, human resources, service operations management, informatics, and computer science to secure different perspectives. More than 100 service scholars from around the world have contributed with a total of 47 chapters. This introductory chapter provides a brief summary of each chapter and a definition of service management.

A transformation that takes place in complex environments demands the engagement of different types of stakeholders from different organizations and domains, which impact the whole service management that integrates both the organization and the customer. Service management is not only for micro and meso processes. It need also to meet global challenges of complexity and wicked problems. In this chapter, we go back to the roots of service management with a societal aspect; to serve someone with the insight that business and ethics are intertwined and cannot be separated. The main focus is to highlight on using service management for going from firm-centric to a broader sustainable stakeholder view, and societal perspective for business societal transformation.

Im DFG-Forschungsprojekt FDNext arbeiten sechs Universitäten aus Berlin und Brandenburg zusammen, um im Verbund ein nachhaltiges institutionelles Forschungsdatenmanagement mit der Entwicklung verschiedener Tools für Fachbereiche, Rechtsberatung, Policies und Service Management auszubauen. In der dreijährigen Förderphase werden Werkzeuge und Konzepte für Fachbereiche, Rechtsberatung, Policies und Service-Management im engen Austausch mit Projektpartner*innen aus Fakultäten, Fachbereichen und der Forschung erarbeitet, (weiter-)entwickelt und abschließend mit Akteur*innen der bundesweiten FDM-Community evaluiert. In dem Artikel werden die sechs Arbeitsschwerpunkte und ihre Zwischenergebnisse nach Ablauf der ersten Hälfte der Projektlaufzeit vorgestellt., The DFG-funded research project “FDNext” is a regional network comprising six universities in Berlin and Brandenburg focusing on jointly developing different tools for academic departments, legal advice offices, policies and service areas to ensure sustainable institutional research data management. During the three-year funding phase, tools and concepts to address the special needs of different disciplines, legal advice services, policies and service management will be further advanced in close cooperation with partners from different faculties, disciplines and research groups, followed by an in-depth evaluation by the RDM community across Germany. The article presents the six special focus areas and preliminary results at the end of the first half of the current funding phase., Peer Reviewed

While the hospitality sector always has had the service aspect high on the agenda, several factors now indicate that less attention is put on this, for the sector, so vital characteristic. Albeit devastating, the prevailing pandemic is presenting a unique opportunity for the whole sector to go back to the drawing board and adjust its set-up, its offerings, its business models to be better prepared for the future. This process would require a thorough analysis of the fundamental parts of the offering, i.e., what matters to the customers and consequently what the customers are willing to pay for. In this paper the aim is to identify the service aspects in a restaurant context to gain necessary understanding for future development with clear directions for practical applications within the field of service and service management by putting the service concept within the framework of Resource based view of the firm (RBV).

The recent evolution of service design, both as a sub-field of design studies and as an approach that is adopted and practiced by multiple actors in organizations, has led to multiple identities and roles of service design practitioners. This chapter uses the theoretical construct of professional identity to study this evolution through a qualitative study with key experts and practitioners. Results highlight the professional development of service designers in organizations from more operational and tactical roles to more strategic and leadership positions; the ongoing hybridization of service design practice and potential future scenarios; the transversal and vertical trajectories and strategies to develop design capabilities in organizations.

Since the shift from an industry-based view to an economy-based view, the customer has been positioned at the centre of every business transaction. Therefore, the service industry in particular has become more important than ever as the number of service offerings continues to increase, leading to customers becoming more demanding. There are several channels through which an organisation can interact and build an effective relationship with its customers. Perhaps the most important is the direct service interaction between frontline employee and customer. In this context, an employee’s verbal as well as non-verbal expertise plays a significant role. Unfortunately, there are only a few studies that examine the influence of both the verbal and non-verbal communication of the employee on customer behaviour. The present study investigates the influence of an employee’s facial expression and verbal content on the customers’ perceived positive emotions and thus on their behaviour. To examine these effects properly this thesis conducted an experiment by the means of a 2 (smiling vs. non-smiling employee) x 2 (friendly vs. neutral verbal content) between subject design. The results of the study indicate that the employee’s facial expression as well as verbal content significantly influence the customer’s perceived positive emotions. Additionally, it is found that the customer’s perceived positive emotions mediate the effect of the employee’s facial expression and verbal content on the customer’s perceived service quality, revisit intention and word of mouth. Therefore, this study helps to understand the importance of an employee’s verbal and non-verbal communication as well as the effect of emotions during dyadic service interactions. Moreover, theoretical and managerial significance of the results are elaborated., Arbeit an der Bibliothek noch nicht eingelangt - Daten nicht geprüft, Innsbruck, Univ., Masterarb., 2021

IT services are one of the important factors in business operations in the technical document control division. The document control technical division is a division that has a vital role in supporting the construction, production and maintenance processes. This study aims to design a service catalog management using the ITIL V3 framework. The stages in designing this catalog are problem identification, data collection, data analysis, domain mapping based on the ITIL version 3 framework, domain determination, and e-catalog management design. And this research produces an e-catalog management application that contains information about the service descriptions in the technical division of document control and management of incidents that occur., Layanan IT adalah salah satu faktor penting dalam operasional bisnis yang ada pada divisi teknikal dokumen kontrol. Divisi teknikal dokumen kontrol adalah salah satu divisi yang memiliki peran vital dalam mendukung proses construction, production dan maintenance. Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk merancang service catalogue management dengan menggunakan framework ITILV3. Tahapan dalam perancangan katalog ini berupa identifikasi masalah, pengumpulan data, analisa data, pemetaan domain berdasarkan framework ITIL versi 3, penetapan domain, dan perancangan e-catalog manajemen. Dan penelitian ini menghasilkan sebuah aplikasi manajemen e-catalog manajemen yang berisi informasi tentang deskripsi layanan yang ada di divisi teknikal dokumen kontrol serta manajemen pengelolaan insiden yang terjadi

El texto completo de este trabajo no está disponible en el Repositorio Académico UPC por restricciones de la casa editorial donde ha sido publicado., The maintenance service sector shows continuous growth since the incorporation of machines for the development of operations. However, in Peru, the type of service they provide does not meet certain essential aspects to satisfy the demand, due to the excess time in the attention of the services and arrival at the wrong time for the attention. That is why the main objective of the project is to reduce the lead time to comply with the annual schedule, since there is a loss of 33.44% of the billing of the maintenance service for the year 2019. For this reason, a model is designed of maintenance service management that includes the assignment of the route by the Vehicle Routing Problem through the Euclidean distance and the standardization of processes through the study of times. Finally, it has been possible to reduce lead time and comply with the maintenance schedule.

peer-reviewed, The purpose of this paper is to investigate how information and communication technologies are used for service standardisation, customisation, and modularisation by knowledge-intensive service firms through the development and empirical validation of a knowledge-based framework. This paper uses 59 in-depth interviews, observational data, and document analysis from case studies of three service-related departments in high-technology, multinational knowledge-intensive business services (KIBSs). Prior research does not conceptualise the relationships between service customisation, standardisation and modularisation. This paper seeks to overcome this gap by integrating insights from research on the role played by both knowledge and information and communication technologies (ICTs) to construct and validate a framework to deal with this gap. It outlines the implications for service firms' use of ICT to deal with increasing knowledge intensity as well as indicating the circumstances under which service knowledge is best customised, standardised and modularised. Further testing in other industries would prove useful in extending the usefulness and applicability of the findings. The originality of the paper lies in developing and validating the first framework to outline the relationship between how service knowledge is customised, standardised or modularised and indicating the associated issues and challenges. It emphasises the role of knowledge and technology. The value of this framework increases as more firms deal with increasing knowledge intensity in the services they provide and in their use of ICTs to reap the benefits of appropriate knowledge reuse., ACCEPTED, peer-reviewed

This article presents the results of an analysis of the planning and controlling of the service operations in the hotel industry of a historical city. Studies on the application of Planning and Controlling have traditionally focused on the industrial sector. However, provision of services has a high economic and social importance and must be regarded. A historical city in the state of Minas Gerais was chosen for its relevance in a meaningful tourist route in Brazil. This analysis has an exploratory nature based on the literature of operation and service planning. The theoretical framework begins with the definition of services, followed by the characterization of the hotel industry. Relevance of the provision of services to the economy and the perception of quality in this sector are addressed. The concept and the main characteristics of planning in hotel services are also presented. A qualitative analysis was used by way of a tailored and applied questionnaire about operation management. Thereby it was possible to gather the main information for the analysis of service planning and controlling in the hotel industry of a historical city. The results pointed out the need for higher investment on the staff training as well as on the hospitality service chain of the region. Poor strategic planning and arrangements in the analyzed lodging facilities, as well as their idle capacity in low season were also noticed in this research., Este artigo apresenta os resultados de uma análise do planejamento e controle das operações de serviços no setor hoteleiro de uma cidade histórica. Tradicionalmente, os estudos sobre a aplicação do Planejamento e Controle são voltados ao setor industrial. Porém, a importante participação da prestação de serviços na economia viabiliza a abordagem deste tema. Uma cidade histórica de Minas Gerais foi escolhida como foco deste estudo por fazer parte do roteiro turístico do país e por mostrar-se uma boa fonte para pesquisa. Esta análise teve caráter exploratório embasado na literatura de operação e planejamento de serviços. O referencial teórico inicia-se com a definição de serviços, seguida da caracterização do setor hoteleiro. Também, são abordadas a relevância da prestação de serviços para a economia e a percepção da qualidade neste setor. Apresenta-se ainda o conceito e as principais características do planejamento em serviços hoteleiros. Uma análise qualitativa foi utilizada por meio da elaboração e aplicação de um questionário acerca da gestão das operações, o que possibilitou a coleta de informações necessárias para a análise do planejamento e controle de serviços nos meios de hospedagem de uma cidade histórica. Os resultados evidenciam a necessidade de maior investimento no preparo e treinamento dos funcionários e de outros serviços que, juntamente com a hospedagem, constituiriam a cadeia de suprimentos do setor hoteleiro da região. O planejamento estratégico é uma das carências observadas nos meios de hospedagem analisados, bem como, a necessidade de planejamentos para a capacidade ociosa em períodos de baixa temporada.

Learning performance models for cloud services is challenging due to the dynamics of the operational environment stemming from scaling and migration decisions. This requires exchange or adaptation of the models in order to maintain prediction accuracy over time. Approaches that incorporates previously acquired knowledge using transfer learning is a viable technique for timely and robust model adaptation, especially when the training data is limited. In this paper we quantify the impact of different source domains on the accuracy of a target model in another domain. The evaluation is performed using data traces collected from a testbed that runs a Video-on-Demand service and a Key-Value Store under various load conditions. We find that the choice of source domain can yield a transfer gain, and sometimes a substantial transfer penalty.

Samtidigt som fokuset på hållbarhetsarbete inom organisationer har ökat, har det även resulterat i frågor om hur företag skapar ett hållbart värde. Hållbarhet har definierats utifrån tre grundpelare: miljömässig-, ekonomisk- och socialhållbarhet. Inom tjänsteteori har intresset för hållbarhetsteorier ökat, men relationen mellan dessa områden är relativt outforskade. Detta är förvånansvärt då många organisationer är beroende av hållbart värdeskapande. Således är syftet med studien att alstra förståelse för hur aktörer skapar värden inom ett hållbart tjänsteekosystem. Studien utgår från ett makroperspektiv eftersom viktiga implikationer för värdeskapande kan upptäckas då hållbarhet genererar värde för flera aktörer. Det teoretiska ramverket omfattar tre delar; teori om tjänsteekosystem, hållbarhet och en sammanföring mellan dessa områden. Eftersom värdeskapande inom hållbara tjänsteekosystem är relativt outforskat valdes en kvalitativ och explorativ ansats för att undersöka hur hållbart arbete inom ett tjänsteekosystem bidrar till att skapa värde. Analysen förankras i nio semistrukturerade intervjuer som genomfördes med respondenter från olika organisationer som tillhörde företagsklustret Paper Province. Intervjuerna kombineras med teori för att skapa en koppling mellan ett empiriskt fall och teori. Deltagande respondenter hade hög befattning inom respektive organisation, vilket var viktigt för att förstå organisationens struktur. Studien visar att hållbarhet inte bara ligger till grund för organisationers värdeskapande logik utan även skapar en grund för arbetsstrukturer. Genom att utgå från tjänstedominant logik ger analysen ett nytt sätt att se på hållbara aktörers värdeskapande. Inom det hållbara tjänsteekosystemet skapar aktörer förutsättningar för ett högre samhällsvärde till följd av hållbar resursintegration., At the same time as the focus on sustainability work within organizations has increased, it has also resulted in questions about how companies create sustainable value. Sustainability has been defined based on three pillars: environmental, economic, and social sustainability. In service theory, interest in sustainability theories has increased, but the relationship between these areas is relatively unexplored. This is surprising as many organizations are dependent on sustainable value creation. Thus, the study aims to generate an understanding of how actors create value within a sustainable service ecosystem. The study is based on a macro perspective because important implications for value creation can be discovered as sustainability generates value for several actors. The theoretical framework comprises three parts; theory of service ecosystems, sustainability, and a merger between these areas. Since value creation in sustainable service ecosystems is relatively unexplored, a qualitative and exploratory approach was chosen to investigate how sustainable work in a service ecosystem contributes to creating value. The analysis is anchored in nine semi-structured interviews conducted with respondents from various organizations that belonged to the Paper Province cluster. The interviews are combined with theory to create a connection between an empirical case and theory. Participating respondents held senior positions within each organization, which was important for understanding the organization's structure. The study shows that sustainability forms the basis for organizations' value-creating logic and creates a basis for work structures. Based on service-dominant logic, the analysis provides a new way of looking at sustainable players' value creation. Within the sustainable service ecosystem, actors create conditions for a higher societal value because of sustainable resource integration.

Purpose: The study aims to explore the benefits of service productisation to provide further understanding on the productisation concept as support for business processes and service management. The concept has been deficiently discussed regardless of the potential significance to the whole formed by service products, business processes, information technology (IT), people and data. Design/methodology/approach: In the study, the exploratory empirical evidence is presented from 16 cases, 4 of which are from companies that are globally well-known. Findings: The key findings of the paper include an overview of the benefits of service productisation and the relation to service offering, service processes and related resources. The concept links to the management of the whole formed by service products, business processes, IT, people and data. The noted benefits seem to be applicable to productisation of different service types, whilst some service characteristics may affect the specific emphasis. Research limitations/implications: The limitations involve using secondary data, which, however, makes the cases less biased regarding the aims. Primary data are required to gain further insights into the phenomena and the identified benefits. Practical implications: The findings provide support for issues that are commonly discussed by practitioners on a concept that is less studied by the scientific literature. Practitioners can work towards organisational efficiency and effectiveness by understanding the benefits of productisation. Understanding service productisation can support the effective management of business processes and work towards prosperity in the service business. Originality/value: The study is the first one to analyse the benefits of service productisation by exploring the issue through multiple cases and attempting to identify aspects for further attention by the academic community.

The study that guided this article was done with the purpose of evaluating different service approaches that are articulated as part of the strategies that guide the philosophy of eight organizations. To achieve this, different theoretical perspectives about the service are used, and with the method of case study eight successful companies from Antioquia that developed their organizational structures for service management are studied. The review using models obtained by the literature and the comparison of each case study approaches, allowed to find similarities that can set some guidelines to follow in formulating a service structure, considered as a strategy of differentiation and success factor. The study gives an idea of how to implement models to analyse and evaluate the performance of service, which in future can also be studied from clients / customers. The limitations are related to the recent use of the concept of ``servitization'' practices which are still subject of discussion.

The rapid development of the Internet-of-Things (IoT) makes it convenient to sense and collect real-world information with different kinds of widely distributed sensors. With plenty of web services providing diverse functions on the cloud, the collected information can be sufficiently used to complete complex tasks after being uploaded. However, the latency brought by long-distance communication and network congestion limits the development of IoT platforms. A feasible approach to solve this problem is to establish an edge-cloud collaboration (ECC) system based on the multi-access edge computing (MEC) paradigm where the collected information can be refined with the services deployed on nearby edge servers. However, as the edge servers are resource-limited, we should be more careful in allocating the edge resource to services, as well as designing the traffic scheduling strategy. In this paper, we investigated the edge-cloud cooperation mechanism of service provisioning in ECC systems, and to that end, proposed an energy-consumption model for it; we also proposed a performance model and balancing model to quantify the running state of ECC systems. Based on these, we further formulated the energy-effective ECC system optimization problem as a joint optimization problem whose decision variables are the resource allocation strategy and traffic scheduling strategy. With the convexity of this problem proved, we proposed an algorithm to solve it and conducted a series of experiments to evaluate its performance. The results showed that our approach can improve at least 4.3 % of the performance compared with representative baselines.

Due to the rapid and unplanned urbanization, urban acclimatization problems arise, for which alternative solutions were developed based on the Smart City concept. In this research, the focus is on the problems of managing the production and distribution of electricity in Parintins/AM. For energy issues, the concepts of Smart Grid are used, which through technology optimizes energy production and distribution systems, making them more efficient, effective, and sustainable. The objective of this work is to analyze, based on the developed theories about Smart Cities and Smart Grids, which are the aspects that must be considered for the intelligent and sustainable management of the production and distribution of electric energy in Parintins/AM. The research paradigm is the functionalist one, through qualitative research, with descriptive and analytical design. Data were collected through literature review, document analysis and semi-structured interviews, triangulated and analyzed using the content analysis technique. The results obtained were: 1) scientific development in the area of Smart Cities and Smart Grids, under construction, through an empirical study in the interior of Amazonas; 2) identification of driving and limiting factors for the implementation of Smart Grids in Parintins/AM., Devido à rápida e não planejada urbanização surgem problemas de aclimatação urbana, para os quais alternativas de soluções foram desenvolvidas a partir do conceito de Smart City. Nesta pesquisa, o foco é nos problemas da gestão da produção e da distribuição de energia elétrica em Parintins/AM. Para a problemática energética são utilizados os conceitos de rede elétrica inteligente, Smart Grid, que por meio da tecnologia otimiza os sistemas de produção e distribuição de energia, tornando-os mais eficientes, eficazes e sustentáveis. O objetivo deste trabalho é analisar, com base nas teorias desenvolvidas acerca das Smart Cities e das Smart Grids, quais são os aspectos que devem ser levados em consideração para a gestão inteligente e sustentável da produção e distribuição de energia elétrica em Parintins/AM. O paradigma de pesquisa é o funcionalista, por meio de pesquisa qualitativa, com delineamento descritivo e analítico. Os dados foram levantados por meio de revisão bibliográfica, análise documental e entrevistas semiestruturadas, triangulados e analisados mediante técnica de análise de conteúdo. Os resultados obtidos foram: 1) desenvolvimento científico na área das Smart Cities e Smart Grids, em construção, por meio de estudo empírico no interior do Amazonas; 2) identificação dos fatores impulsionadores e limitantes à implantação de Smart Grids em Parintins/AM., Debido a la urbanización rápida y no planificada, surgen problemas de aclimatación urbana, para lo cual se desarrollaron soluciones alternativas basadas en el concepto de Smart City. En esta investigación, la atención se centra en los problemas de gestión de la producción y distribución de electricidad en Parintins/AM. Para temas energéticos se utilizan los conceptos de red inteligente, Smart Grid, que a través de la tecnología optimiza los sistemas de producción y distribución de energía, haciéndolos más eficientes, efectivos y sostenibles. El objetivo de este trabajo es analizar, a partir de las teorías desarrolladas sobre Smart Cities y Smart Grids, cuáles son los aspectos que deben tenerse en cuenta para la gestión inteligente y sostenible de la producción y distribución de energía eléctrica en Parintins/AM. El paradigma de la investigación es el funcionalista, a través de la investigación cualitativa, con diseño descriptivo y analítico. Los datos fueron recolectados mediante revisión de literatura, análisis de documentos y entrevistas semiestructuradas, triangulados y analizados mediante la técnica de análisis de contenido. Los resultados obtenidos fueron: 1) desarrollo científico en el área de Smart Cities y Smart Grids, en construcción, a través de un estudio empírico en el interior de Amazonas; 2) identificación de factores impulsores y limitantes para la implementación de Smart Grids en Parintins/AM.

Co-creating services has inspired great enthusiasm among both researchers and practitioners, making it a widely applied concept and an ideal cited by many. However, amid all the hype about co-creating services, there also is increasing recognition that not every co-creation effort leads to a successful outcome. People intuitively perceive the value of collaborating during the design, development, delivery, and consumption of services, yet understanding of how co-creation truly works remains limited. This dissertation clarifies, empirically validates, and advances understanding of the benefits and process of co-creating services. Its interdisciplinary, multi-method approach explicitly integrates the interrelated disciplines of service management/marketing, service design, and service innovation.

Samtidigt som klimatkrisen konstaterats har också hållbarhetsarbete i företag ökat, vilket kan användas som ett redskap för att anta de utmaningar som följer av ett mer komplext och transparent företagande. Tidigare forskning har haft ett huvudsakligt fokus på de monetära fördelarna med hållbarhetsarbete, men eftersom finansiella aspekter nödvändigtvis inte är den enda nyckeln till ett företags framgång är det intressant att även finna andra värden. Således är syftet med studien att skapa förståelse för vilka icke-monetära värden som kan skapas genom hållbarhetsarbete i företag. Det teoretiska ramverket omfattar fyra hållbarhetsteorier samt värdeskapandeteorin service-dominant logic. En kvalitativ metod har valts då området är relativt outforskat och studien syftar till att studera hållbarhetsarbete i olika sociala kontexter och tolka samband. Analysen har gjorts med utgångspunkt i åtta semistrukturerade intervjuer som genomförts med respondenter i olika företag, kombinerat med det teoretiska ramverket. Studien visar att triple bottom line-rapportering varit ett initialt steg för att få företag att implementera hållbarhetsarbete, men inte tillräckligt för att hantera de utmaningar samhället står inför, där sättet att bedriva verksamhet kan behöva förändras. Med service-dominant logic som utgångspunkt för analysen har ett nytt sätt att se miljön som en aktör i ekosystemet genererats, då alla aktörer ska gynnas av tjänsteutbyten. Genom ömsesidigt värdeskapande inom ramen för de planetära gränserna kan doughnut-ekonomi uppnås, där fokus ligger på att långsiktigt frodas snarare än att expansivt växa. För att uppnå ett hållbart företagande är studiens respondenter eniga om att alla företag måste ta ansvar för miljön och argumenterar för att hållbarhetsarbete inte enbart medför marknadsmässiga fördelar, utan också värdesätts av anställda som upplever sitt arbete som betydelsefullt. Ett företag som tar ansvar genom hållbarhetsarbete och erbjuder en arbetsplats där anställd, At the same time as the climate crisis has been noted, sustainability work in companies has increased, which can be used as a tool to meet the challenges posed by a more complex and transparent way of doing businesses. Previous research has mainly focused on the monetary benefits of sustainability work, but since financial aspects necessarily are not the only key to business success, it is of interest to find other values as well. Thus, the purpose of the study is to create an understanding of the non-monetary values that can be created through sustainability work in companies. The theoretical framework consists of four sustainability theories as well as the value creation theory service-dominant logic. A qualitative method has been chosen, since the field is relatively unexplored and the purpose is to study sustainability work in different social contexts and interpret relationships. The analysis has been conducted with starting point in eight semi-structured interviews with respondents from different companies, combined with the theoretical framework. The study shows that triple bottom line reporting was an initial step to get businesses to implement sustainability work, but not enough to handle the challenges the society are facing, where the way to conduct business might need to change. With service-dominant logic as a starting point for the analysis, a new way of viewing the environment as an actor in the service ecosystem has been generated, since all actors should gain from service exchanges. Through mutual value creation within the frame of the planetary boundaries, doughnut-economy can be achieved, where the focus is on thriving rather than expansive growing. In order to achieve sustainable business, the respondents of the study agree that all companies must take environmental responsibility and argue that sustainability work do not only entail advantages on the market, but also to bring value to employees who experience their work as meaningful. A business

Relational Capacity as a Business Mobilizer for Event Tourism. The present study analyzes how relational capacity can generate business opportunities for the agents involved in event tourism. Qualitative research was applied by an exploratory strategy. Under the case study method, observation techniques, interviews with 15 tourism agents, and content and documentary analysis of the object of the study were performed: The Dance Festival of the city of Joinville (Brazil). The interviews revealed opportunities on several fronts, especially when considering the direct and indirect agents involved in the Festival's relational network, the results indicate that the interactions allow the mobility of their resources and capacities, in order to modify, amplify and change the existing bases, generating opportunities. The value of employing the use of strategic relational capacity and the construction of informal relationship networks as an enabler for events tourism strategies was confirmed, El presente estudio analiza cómo la capacidad relacional puede generar oportunidades de negocios para los agentes involucrados en el turismo de eventos. Se partió de una investigación de naturaleza cualitativa, de estrategia exploratoria. Siguiendo el método de estudio de caso, se realizaron entrevistas a 15 agentes de turismo, y se aplicaron las técnicas de observación y análisis documental y de contenido del objeto de estudio: el Festival de Danza de la ciudad de Joinville (Brasil). Las entrevistas revelaron oportunidades en varios frentes, principalmente al considerar a los agentes directos e indirectos participantes en la red relacional del Festival. Los resultados indican que las interacciones permiten la movilidad de sus recursos y capacidades para modificar, ampliar y alterar las bases existentes, generando oportunidades de negocio. Fue posible identificar el valor de emplear el uso de la capacidad relacional y la construcción de redes de relación informal como movilizadoras de negocios en el turismo de eventos

The development of smart cities becomes increasingly reliant on leveraging modern technologies such as Internet of Things (IoT), big data, cloud computing, and Artificial Intelligence (AI). While the importance of applying such technologies has been widely recognized, they might not have been effectively discussed in the early design phase. As a widely applied planning and architecting tool, traditional Enterprise Architecture Frameworks (EAF) are not always able to meet requirements of urban development in an expected way. This might be alleviated by applying a smart city-oriented EAF which supports discussion of modern techniques in the early design phase. In the EU smart city project +CityxChange, an EAF was proposed to address such issues. In this article, we focus on an initial evaluation of the EAF proposed in the +CityxChange project according to the Design Science Research (DSR) method. We discuss how the EAF has enhanced the widely used EAF (i.e., The Open Group Architecture Framework, TOGAF for short) by extending its layer-based Enterprise Architecture (EA). We also present a sample scenario demonstrating how the EAF can be used.

Learning a performance model for a cloud service is challenging since its operational environment changes during execution, which requires re-training of the model in order to maintain prediction accuracy. Training a new model from scratch generally involves extensive new measurements and often generates a data-collection overhead that negatively affects the service performance. In this paper, we investigate an approach for re-training neural-network models, which is based on transfer learning. Under this approach, a limited number of neural-network layers are re-trained while others remain unchanged. We study the accuracy of the re-trained model and the efficiency of the method with respect to the number of re-trained layers and the number of new measurements. The evaluation is performed using traces collected from a testbed that runs a Video-on-Demand service and a Key-Value Store under various load conditions. We study model re-training after changes in load pattern, infrastructure configuration, service configuration, and target metric. We find that our method significantly reduces the number of new measurements required to compute a new model after a change. The reduction exceeds an order of magnitude in most cases., QC 20190626

In incident management for optical networks, when a fault or event occurs, a network element will often send a notification, in the form of an “alarm”, to operators and managers. Alarms contain valuable information to support the fault management process at the operating level, because it is a persistent indication of a fault. Alarms usually clear only with the triggering of the solution for its cause. To mitigate business risks related to faults in optical networks, service managers need to estimate the impact of a network fault in relation to business needs. In optical networks, identifying redundancy points of high-impact on the network is still a challenge for managers. They often rely on their own experience to prioritize points that possibly need to have redundancy in those networks. This work presents a simulation model capable of locating suitable points for the application of asset redundancy to reduce optical network disruptions, based on business risk. The model is implemented in a software tool and then used in a case study of two reference networks, whose elements may fail according to a realistic failure scenario. Results of the study allow face validity with preliminary evidence that the model is useful to support incident management in optical networks., En la gestión de incidentes de redes ópticas, cuando ocurre una falla o evento, generalmente un componente de la red envía una notificación a los operadores y gerentes. Las alarmas contienen información importante para respaldar el proceso de gestión de fallas a nivel operativo, porque es una indicación persistente de una falla que se borra solo con la solución de condición de disparo. Para mitigar los riesgos comerciales relacionados con las fallas en las redes ópticas, los administradores de servicios deben estimar el impacto de una falla de red en relación con las necesidades del negocio. En las redes ópticas, la identificación de puntos de redundancia de alto impacto de red todavía es un desafío para los gerentes. Usualmente, estos gerentes confían en su propia experiencia para priorizar puntos que posiblemente deban tener redundancia en esas redes. En este trabajo, presentamos una evaluación de un modelo de simulación, capaz de localizar puntos adecuados para la aplicación de redundancia de activos y así reducir las interrupciones de la red óptica, en función del riesgo comercial. El modelo se implementó en una herramienta de software y se procedió a un estudio de caso que incluye dos escenarios de simulación de redes de referencia, con resultados prometedores.

The student group is an emerging target with high potential for both the service industry and municipalities. However, previous studies scrutinizing this segment have been limited despite its significance. The aim of this study is to provide a deeper understanding of how domestic and international students perceive Helsingborg city and to offer insight into the key factors influencing students’ perceptions towards Helsingborg. The methodological design of this study involved two semi-structured focus groups and online document analysis where the purposive sampling was served in. To analyze data, six categories of city brand image attributes developed by Brandt and De Mortanges (2011) were adopted in this study. Empirical findings revealed that students perceived Helsingborg according to the six attributes; “activities and facilities”, “physical environment”, “people”, “accessibility”, “economy”, and “brand and reputation” (Brandt & De Mortanges, 2011). In addition, there were shown differences between domestic and international students’ perceptions especially in terms of “Swedish national brand image” which was newly added in the six categories by the researcher. Perceptions were also different depending on the ethnic and cultural backgrounds of participants even in the same domestic student group. For branding Helsingborg, therefore, both physical and socio-cultural attributes need to be integrated and those key attributes should be personalized and customized in accordance with students’ nationalities, ethnic backgrounds, and cultural proximity that will contribute to the optimization of the positive city brand image formation.

I denna fallstudie undersöks och analyseras frågeställningen utifrån chefers upplevelser inom ett internationellt tillverkande bolag i industribranschen. Sättet att hantera både kunder och medarbetare blir allt mer betydelsefullt för att konkurrera med service. Chefernas roll blir i samband med detta avgörande för att uppnå organisatoriska mål och god extern serviceleverans. Syftet med studien är att öka kunskapen, förbättra förståelsen och belysa betydelsen av HRM inom fältet för service management och tjänstevetenskap. Ambitionen är att ytterligare förstärka sambandet mellan fälten Service Management och Human Resource Management. Studien visar att chefer upplever att de har en betydande roll i skapandet av ökad kundinriktning genom personalrelaterade aktiviteter som överensstämmer med verksamhetens inre och yttre faktorer. Förutsättningar för det är i detta fall att cheferna innehar kundförståelse, uppmuntrar serviceinriktade beteenden, rekryterar in värdefull kompetens, utvecklar rätt serviceförmåga och skapar förståelse för serviceprocessens helhet. Genom detta, vilket kan benämnas som kundinriktat HRM, ökar förmågan till god extern servicekvalitet levereras. Service är dock ett komplext ämne då värde av servicen är subjektivt, vilket kräver att aktörer inom verksamheten innehar kunskap om vad den specifika kunden behöver och förväntar sig. Därefter kan chefer utföra specifikt anpassad kundinriktad HRM., In this case study essay, the issue is examined and analyzed on the basis of managers' experiences within an internationally manufacturing company in the industrial industry. The way to handle both customers and employees is becoming increasingly important to compete with service. The role of the managers becomes associated with this for achieving organizational goals and delivering external service. The purpose of the study is to increase knowledge, improve understanding and illustrate the importance of HRM in the field of Service Management and Service Science. The ambition is to further strengthen the relationship between the fields of Service Management and Human Resource Management. The conclusions of the study is that Managers feel that they have a significant role in the creation of increased customer orientation through staff-related activities that agrees with the internal and external factors of the business. In this case, the prerequisites are that the managers have customer understanding, encourage service-oriented behaviors, recruit valuable skills, develop the right service capacity and create an understanding of the service process as a whole. By this, which can be referred to as customer-oriented HRM, increases the ability to good external service quality is delivered. However, service is a complex subject then value of the service is subjective, which requires operators in the business to obtain the knowledge of what every customer needs and expects. Then managers can perform customized customer-focused HRM.

In this paper, the notion of a smart service community is proposed to address the grand challenge of a huge number of the Internet-of-Things (IoT) devices providing similar services in a smart city environment (e.g., parking, food, healthcare, transportation, and entertainment). We propose that a smart service community be built as a cloud utility accessible via a mobile application installed in user-owned IoT devices, such as smartphones. The cloud utility provides cloud-based interfaces, including registration, service satisfaction reporting, recommender credibility reporting, and service recommendation, with the goal of recommending the best service providers based on a user's specified service performance criteria. The trust-based service management techniques, utilizing the IoT-assisted technology, are developed to automatically measure service ratings and recommender credibility ratings, and compute one-to-one subjective trust scores to allow a user to select the best service providers among all. The feasibility of the proposed approach is demonstrated over contemporary service ranking systems using a smart food service community for which the major performance metric is the service wait time.

This article aims to present a methodological proposal for the construction of a strategic IT plan aimed at customer service management for a mipymes of the Internet and telecommunications services sector. The design is based on the best practices of ITIL Version 3 (IT Infrastructure Library) which is considered a reference framework which describes a set of best practices and recommendations for service management focused on process management and customer management. This project provides a solution to problems of mipymes where there is a lack of a strategic plan that defines their processes and activities related to customer service. The methodology defined within the project is an applied research, in which a process of investigation and characterization of the information is made, generating the design of a strategic plan and other actions oriented to the improvement of quality in the rendering of the services of the IT area in a micro and SME of the technological sector in the department of Arauca, Este artículo tiene como propósito presentar una propuesta metodológica resultante de un proyecto de investigación que permitió la construcción de un plan estratégico de TI orientado a la gestión del servicio al cliente para una mipymes de las telecomunicaciones, fundamentado en las buenas prácticas de ITIL Versión 3 (IT Infrastructure Library o biblioteca de infraestructura de TI). Lo que permite dar solución a problemáticas de las mipymes en las cuales existe una carencia de un plan estratégico que defina sus procesos y actividades relacionadas con el servicio al cliente. La metodología definida dentro del proyecto es una investigación aplicada en la cual se realiza un proceso de indagación y caracterización de la información, de forma que genera el diseño de un plan estratégico y demás acciones orientadas a la mejora de calidad en la prestación de los servicios del área de TI en una mipymes del sector tecnológico en el departamento de Arauca.

In incident management for optical networks, when a fault or event occurs, a network element will often send a notification, in the form of an “alarm”, to operators and managers. Alarms contain valuable information to support the fault management process at the operating level, because it is a persistent indication of a fault. Alarms usually clear only with the triggering of the solution for its cause. To mitigate business risks related to faults in optical networks, service managers need to estimate the impact of a network fault in relation to business needs. In optical networks, identifying redundancy points of high-impact on the network is still a challenge for managers. They often rely on their own experience to prioritize points that possibly need to have redundancy in those networks. This work presents a simulation model capable of locating suitable points for the application of asset redundancy to reduce optical network disruptions, based on business risk. The model is implemented in a software tool and then used in a case study of two reference networks, whose elements may fail according to a realistic failure scenario. Results of the study allow face validity with preliminary evidence that the model is useful to support incident management in optical networks., En la gestión de incidentes de redes ópticas, cuando ocurre una falla o evento, generalmente un componente de la red envía una notificación a los operadores y gerentes. Las alarmas contienen información importante para respaldar el proceso de gestión de fallas a nivel operativo, porque es una indicación persistente de una falla que se borra solo con la solución de condición de disparo. Para mitigar los riesgos comerciales relacionados con las fallas en las redes ópticas, los administradores de servicios deben estimar el impacto de una falla de red en relación con las necesidades del negocio. En las redes ópticas, la identificación de puntos de redundancia de alto impacto de red todavía es un desafío para los gerentes. Usualmente, estos gerentes confían en su propia experiencia para priorizar puntos que posiblemente deban tener redundancia en esas redes. En este trabajo, presentamos una evaluación de un modelo de simulación, capaz de localizar puntos adecuados para la aplicación de redundancia de activos y así reducir las interrupciones de la red óptica, en función del riesgo comercial. El modelo se implementó en una herramienta de software y se procedió a un estudio de caso que incluye dos escenarios de simulación de redes de referencia, con resultados prometedores.

Quality Perceived in a Luxury Hotel in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil). Contrasts between Managers Perspectives and Spontaneous Customer Evaluations. The diffusion of the practice of sharing moments experienced by users offers significant impacts to hotel management in terms of reputation and perceived value. Therefore, the identification of essential requirements from the customer`s perspective and the capacity of both learning and response of hotel managers have become relevant factors in this sector, particularly for the high luxury segment. This research aimed to establish a confrontation between quality attributes perceived by customers on spontaneous online evaluations, after experiencing the services of a five-star hotel, and the perception of the establishment's, La difusión de la práctica de compartir las experiencias vividas por los usuarios provoca sensibles impactos en la gestión hotelera, en términos de reputación y valor percibido. Así, la identificación de los requisitos esenciales, bajo la perspectiva del cliente, y las capacidades de aprendizaje y de respuesta por parte de los gestores de hoteles se tornan factores relevantes en este sector, particularmente para el segmento de alto lujo. Esta investigación tuvo como objetivo establecer una confrontación entre los atributos de calidad percibidos por los clientes en evaluaciones online espontáneas, después de experimentar los servicios de un hotel categoría cinco estrellas, y la percepción del equipo gestor del referido establecimiento acerca de los requisitos de calidad. En términos metodológicos, para la captura de la percepción de los clientes se adoptó la investigación y análisis de los datos de 571 evaluaciones sobre el hotel estudiado, disponibles en el portal TripAdvisor, mientras que en la investigación con los gestores se hicieron entrevistas individuales a 6 profesionales que actúan directamente en la administración del establecimiento. Entre los resultados, se observaron brechas entre las percepciones de los clientes y los gestores, especialmente en lo referente a las dimensiones físico/estructurales, los procesos operativos y la capacitación de mano de obra, lo que señala la necesidad de acciones orientadas a estrechar los mismos.

The ability to predict conditional distributions of service metrics is key to understanding end-to-end service behavior. From conditional distributions, other metrics can be derived, such as expected values and quantiles, which are essential for assessing SLA conformance. Our demonstrator predicts conditional distributions and derived metrics estimation in real-time, using infrastructure measurements. The distributions are modeled as Gaussian mixtures whose parameters are estimated using a mixture density network. The predictions are produced for a Video-on-Demand service that runs on a testbed at KTH., QC 20190625

Companies considering a shift from manufacturing and selling physical products to selling services face several questions on service structure and repeatability. The current and potential offerings should be compared in the light of commercial and technical portfolio. The commercial offering visible to the customer needs to be productized and linked to the technical structure for services, including the needed processes and resources. From the financial viewpoint, the cost of delivering the offering should be known to be able to set a profitable price. Productization through a common product structure that acknowledges the commercial and technical views could be used as a tool to clarify the current and potential offerings and transform them into systematic and repeatable form that is comparable. The present study provides an example of using this kind of product structure to model a physical product offered as part of product-oriented, use-oriented, and result-oriented product-service systems. The presented product structure logic enables companies to clarify the offering, describe the processes and resources needed for delivering the offering, and evaluate its profitability.

Today, telco operators have vast amounts of data collected from numerous data sources. To prepare themselves for the future, to be able to operate and maintain the upcoming 5G network and to meet the expectations of the new generation of the customers, operators must use these data in the best possible way. Due to the complexity, variety, and volume of the data, the artificial intelligence is inevitable in this process. In the first part, this paper portrays the possible applications of artificial intelligence in the telecommunications and the relevant engagements of mobile operators worldwide. The second part of this paper outlines a possible application of AI which should boost customer satisfaction and improve telco assets utilization.

In this paper, the notion of a smart service community is proposed to address the grand challenge of a huge number of the Internet-of-Things (IoT) devices providing similar services in a smart city environment (e.g., parking, food, healthcare, transportation, and entertainment). We propose that a smart service community be built as a cloud utility accessible via a mobile application installed in user-owned IoT devices, such as smartphones. The cloud utility provides cloud-based interfaces, including registration, service satisfaction reporting, recommender credibility reporting, and service recommendation, with the goal of recommending the best service providers based on a user's specified service performance criteria. The trust-based service management techniques, utilizing the IoT-assisted technology, are developed to automatically measure service ratings and recommender credibility ratings, and compute one-to-one subjective trust scores to allow a user to select the best service providers among all. The feasibility of the proposed approach is demonstrated over contemporary service ranking systems using a smart food service community for which the major performance metric is the service wait time.

Aktuell vollzieht sich ein Paradigmenwechsel von einer kundenzentrierten Denkweise zum humanistischen Marketing sowohl in der Praxis als auch in der Wissenschaft. Das Wohlbefinden von Individuen, Gemeinschaften und Gesellschaften spielt dabei eine entscheidende Rolle. Im Dienstleistungsmanagement hat sich das Themengebiet Transformative Service Research etabliert, das als Ausgangspunkt eines sozialen Wandels im Hinblick auf die Verbesserung unserer Gesellschaft und Umwelt dient. Die zentrale Zielsetzung der vorliegenden Arbeit besteht darin, sowohl einen wissenschaftlichen Forschungsbeitrag zum Thema Wohlbefinden im Dienstleistungskontext zu leisten, als auch Praxisimplikationen für Dienstleistungsmanager, Unternehmen und politische Entscheidungsträger im Hinblick auf die Gestaltung von Dienstleistungen zu geben, um das Wohlbefinden von Individuen und Gesellschaften positiv zu beeinflussen. Im Anschluss an die Einleitung erfolgt im zweiten Kapitel die Untersuchung von Wohlbefinden im internen Dienstleistungsmarketing. Ziel dieses Beitrags ist es, zu untersuchen, welche Auswirkungen die Digitalisierung im Arbeitsumfeld auf das Mitarbeiterwohlbefinden hat. Die Ergebnisse zeigen auf, dass die Erfüllung der Grundbedürfnisse nach Kompetenz, Autonomie und menschlichen Beziehungen bei einem hohen Grad der Digitalisierung im Arbeitsumfeld abnehmen im Gegensatz zu einem mittleren Grad oder keinem digitalen Arbeitsumfeld, die Mitarbeiterzufriedenheit aber nicht direkt beeinflusst wird. Diese Erkenntnisse lassen darauf schließen, dass der Einbezug des psychologischen Mitarbeiterwohlbefindens über Mitarbeiterzufriedenheitsindikatoren hinaus einen Mehrwert als neue Erfolgsgröße im Dienstleistungsmanagement liefert. Dementsprechend können durch die Erhebung des Mitarbeiterwohlbefindens weitere Stellschrauben identifiziert werden, um die Reaktion und das Verhalten von Mitarbeitenden weiter zu erklären. Im dritten Kapitel wird Wohlbefinden als neue Erfolgsgröße im externen Dienstle, Currently, a paradigm shift from a customer-centered mindset to humanistic marketing takes place in science and practice. Thereby, individual, collective and social wellbeing plays a significant role. In service management, the subject area of transformative service research, which serves as a starting point for social transformation with regard to improving our society and environment, has been established. However, current research about wellbeing as a new success factor in the service context is very limited or incomplete. The present study’s central aim is therefore to make a scientific contribution to the topic of wellbeing in the service context, and to give practical implications for service managers, companies and political decision-makers with regard to service design, in order to create a positive impact on individual and social wellbeing. Subsequently, chapter 2 includes an analysis of wellbeing in the context of internal service marketing. This article aims to analyze the effects of digitalization in the work environment on employee wellbeing. The results show that with a high degree of digitalization in an employee’s work environment, the fulfilment of the basic needs competence, autonomy and human relationships decreases, as opposed to a work environment with a medium or low degree of digitalization. Mediation analysis reveals that employee satisfaction is not only influenced by digitalization in the work environment. These findings suggest that looking beyond indicators for employee satisfaction and taking psychological employee wellbeing as a new success factor into account benefits service management. Thus, by surveying employee wellbeing, additional determining factors can be identified in order to further explain employees’ reactions and behavior, and to create a pleasant work environment that serves employees and their individual needs. In the third chapter, wellbeing is considered as a new success factor in external service marketing. The study

As modern societies become more dependent on IT services, the potential impact both of adversarial cyberattacks and non-adversarial service management mistakes grows. This calls for better cyber situational awareness-decision-makers need to know what is going on. The main focus of this paper is to examine the information elements that need to be collected and included in a common operational picture in order for stakeholders to acquire cyber situational awareness. This problem is addressed through a survey conducted among the participants of a national information assurance exercise conducted in Sweden. Most participants were government officials and employees of commercial companies that operate critical infrastructure. The results give insight into information elements that are perceived as useful, that can be contributed to and required from other organizations, which roles and stakeholders would benefit from certain information, and how the organizations work with creating cyber common operational pictures today. Among findings, it is noteworthy that adversarial behavior is not perceived as interesting, and that the respondents in general focus solely on their own organization., QC 20190404

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to study the impact of back-office (BO) service capability and front-office (FO) service capability, and how firm age influences the impact of these service capabilities on small and medium size enterprise (SME) performance. Design/methodology/approach: Based on the prior literature on servitization and firm operational capabilities, hypotheses were developed on the impact of service capabilities on firm performance. These hypotheses were tested using a survey and externally sourced financial data on 224 SMEs in the software industry. Findings: FO service capability has a positive impact on firm performance of SMEs. The effect of BO service capability was weaker and partly contrary to expectations, showing a negative effect on firm performance for young SMEs. As hypothesized, the impact of both BO and FO service capability is moderated by firm age. Young SMEs benefit more from FO service capability. For older SMEs, BO service capability becomes increasingly more important. Practical implications: As different capabilities lead to different outcomes, SMEs need to carefully consider which service capabilities to invest in. As the relative importance of capabilities changes over time, SMEs need to be ready to change their strategic focus over time toward BO capabilities to attain optimal outcomes. Originality/value: The findings suggest that factors such as industry, firm size, and firm age affect the optimal servitization path, and that current understanding of servitization does not necessarily apply to all servitized firms. The study also provides further evidence of the impact of service capabilities on firm performance.

Titel: Säsongsanställda i tjänsteföretag: En kvalitativ studie i hur man överför servicekultur till säsongsanställda. Kurs: Företagsekonomi III - detaljhandel och service management, examensarbete (kandidat) – 15hp - VT18 Syfte och forskningsfrågor: Vad har säsongsanställd servicepersonal för betydelse för ett företag i paketresebranschen och hur kan den interna servicekulturen överföras till de säsongsanställda? Följande delsyften har analyserats och klargjorts: 1. ... vad säsongsanställda i frontlinjen bidrar med för ett företag i paketresebranschen. 2. ... hur man med hjälp av intern marknadsföring och internal brand strategy kan överföra ett företags interna servicekultur till säsongsanställda. Metod: Studien har använt sig av en kvalitativ metod i form av semistrukturerade intervjuer med människor inom paketresebranschen som anses har haft insikt i fenomenet säsongsanställda. Uppsatsen har utformats i ett växelspel mellan deduktion och induktion vilket resulterat i en abduktiv forskningsmetod. Slutsats: Studiens slutsatser har visat att säsongsanställda bidrar med flera faktorer för att berika kundernas upplevelse och har således en stor betydelse för ett företag i paketresebranschen. Förutom den direkta kontakten med kunden är säsongsanställda även viktiga för att kunden själv skall kunna skapa mervärde för sin resa. Det har visat sig att kombinationen av att anställa rätt människor och att behålla de erfarna anställda är de största faktorerna för att överföra den interna servicekulturen ett företag har. Även ledningens exempel har en effekt på hur servicekulturen upptas av nyanställda. Nyckelord: säsongsanställda, intern marknadsföring, service management, servicekultur, Title: Seasonal employees in service companies: A qualitative study in how to transfer service culture to seasonal employees. Course: Business Administration III - Retail and Service Management, Degree Project (Bachelor) - 15hp – VT18 Purpose and research questions: What importance do seasonal service employees have for a company in the package travel industry and how can the internal service culture be transferred to seasonal employees? To answer the research question the following parts have been analyzed and clarified... 1. ... what do seasonal employees contribute with to a company in the package travel industry 2. ... how can you with the help of internal marketing and internal brand strategy transfer a company’s service culture to seasonal employees Method: This study has used a qualitative method in the form of semi structured interviews with industry people knowledgeable of the phenomena. The study has alternated between deduction and induction, which has resulted in an abductive research method. Conclusion: The conclusions show that the seasonal employees contribute with several factors to enrich the customers experience. Therefore, the seasonal employees are of a significant importance for a company in the package travel industry. Besides the actual interactions with the customers the seasonal employees also play an important part in enabling the customer to create value for their trip themselves. The study has shown that the combination of hiring the right people and getting experienced employees to stay with the company are instrumental in transferring the service culture of the company. Along with this the example set by the management of the company also plays a part. Keywords: seasonal employment, internal marketing, service management, service culture.

Enligt Musiksverige.se är konserter och liveframträdanden den del av musikindustrin som på senare år generar allra mest pengar per år. Live har alltid varit en stor del av musikbranschen och för artisterna som står på scen. Genom historien har live konserter används för marknadsföringssyfte för att marknadsföra en artists nya skiva eller annat. Idag har album blivit allt en allt mindre del av en artists inkomst och anledningarna till att genomföra en livekonsert har ändrats. Idag så är marginalen på att genomföra konserter betydligt högre än att sälja album så att genomföra konserter anses vara en av det viktigaste momenten för en artist för att tjäna pengar. Bakom konserten finns det en rad olika aktörer som på olika sätt är delaktiga i en värdekedja och som tillsammans arbetar för att en konsert kan arrangeras. Vilka är dessa aktörer och vad är det de egentligen gör? Det är denna fråga som studien ska försöka besvara på bästa möjliga sätt samt att försöka hitta samband mellan de olika värderna som kan genereras mellan aktörerna samt vad som anses värderas högt. Syftet med studien är att undersöka hur nätverket av dessa aktörer ser ut och vilka insatser aktörerna bidrar med i värdekedjan bakom en arrangerad konsert. Studien baseras på kvalitativa intervjuer med nio aktörer som är idag är aktiva inom livebranschen i Sverige. Vi har utifrån en intervjuguide diskuterat och samtalat med respondenterna och av dessa samtal utformat empiri som vi analyserat. Vad vi i denna studie har kommit fram till är att förmågan att ha öppen kommunikation, att vara tillgänglig, pålitlig och att ha stor kunskap inom branschen är vad aktörer på marknaden värdesätter högt. Är det något som fallerar i värdekedjan kan detta ofta härledas tillbaka till brist av någon av dessa attribut., The main topic that this study will examine is the correlation between the individuals or organisations that together create a music concert. With the extent of parties that are involved in this process are there bound to be some sort of value exchange that the parties exchange in their services that they provide. The actors that are involved are independet from one and other but in the process of creating a concert they work toghether to achive their goal. Which actors that are involved in this process of creating a music concert and how the value exhange works are the main areas of this study. With the extent of the music business this study chose to focus on diffrent individuals and organisations that are not performing during the concert, so the artists point of view has not been analyzed during this study. The organisations in question are for example booking agencies, promoters and venues. It is with people from these kind of organisations that we have conducted interviews with and have used as research material for this study.

Purpose This paper introduces the special issue of the Journal of Service Management dedicated to the Thought Leadership in Services Conference held in Brisbane Australia in 2017. The paper also explores the disruptive and transformative role that technology is set to play over the next 30 years. Design/methodology/approach The paper provides a brief summary of the papers within the special issue. The paper also introduces a conceptual framework identifying four quadrants that reflect different combinations of human touch and technology. This framework is used to examine the treatment of technology in the eight papers. Findings While it is clear that technology is having a profound impact on service, and is contributing to major changes within the eight service domains captured by the papers in the special issue; there were significant differences observed across the papers. From the associated discussion, it is evident that the humanistic paradigm is still dominant within services, even though there is preliminary evidence that a shift may be occurring. Originality/value This paper extends earlier work exploring the infusion of technology within services to highlight the progress from a humanistic paradigm to a technology-centric paradigm.

Purpose: This paper aims to review FM research in Switzerland with a focus on recent research projects at the Institute of Facility Management of the Zurich University of Applied Sciences. Design/methodology/approach: The paper provides a summary and review of research projects. Findings: FM research in Switzerland has grown in the past few years and is now well rooted in the Swiss FM industry. The focus is on service management, workplace management and FM in health care. FM research in Switzerland has been driven collaboratively by the Institute of FM and the industry. Research limitations/implications: Research at the IFM is very much oriented towards application and many collaborative projects between industry, public administration and universities have been conducted. However, some fields of FM have received little attention yet. Practical implications: FM research in Switzerland has been driven collaboratively by the Institute of FM and the industry. The focus is on application, e.g. management tools, benchmarking systems or the relationship of FM services, organisational outcomes, and customer satisfaction. Many research results contribute to the development of Swiss FM industry. Originality/value: In this article the authors summarize FM research in Switzerland and their research approach. With this they contribute to transparency and further development of FM research.

In tourism and the hotel sector standardisation is sometimes an advantage and other times a disadvantage, though it has been mentioned several times. This research explores the topic of standardisation in the Hungarian hotels. The paper determines the level of standardisation in hotels and the extant of the relationship between the level of standardisation and the hotel affiliation, the Hotelstars Union membership, the number of rooms and the star rating. There are 81 questionnaires filled out by hotel general managers of those hotels which belong to the Hungarian Hotel and Restaurant Association. Only the three-, four- and five-star hotels were questioned by this survey.The results show that the level of hotel standardisation depends on the hotel chain membership but only weakly by 5%. There are also proven significant relationships with the Hotelstars Union membership, the number of rooms and the star rating of the hotels., No turismo e no setor hoteleiro a padronização é, por vezes, uma vantagem e outras vezes uma desvantagem, embora tenha sido mencionada várias vezes. Esta pesquisa explora o tema da padronização nos hotéis húngaros. O documento determina o nível de padronização em hotéis e o relacionamento existente entre o nível de padronização, a afiliação hoteleira, a associação do Hotelstars Union, o número de quartos e a classificação em estrelas. Conseguimos 81 questionários preenchidos pelos gerentes gerais dos hotéis que pertencem à Associação Húngara de Hotéis e Restaurantes. Somente os hotéis de três, quatro e cinco estrelas foram questionados para esta pesquisa. Os resultados mostram que o nível de padronização do hotel depende da adesão à cadeia hoteleira, mas apenas ligeiramente em 5%. Também há relações importantes comprovadas com a adesão da Hotelstars Union, o número de quartos e a classificação em estrelas dos hotéis.