Supply Chain Management (SCM) is a set of operations that facilitate the effective integration of suppliers, manufacturers, distributors, and sellers. Considering customers’ service requirements, SCM allows providing all operations related to the product with minimal costs. Within SCM, designing services are essential as they aim to implement a new product and affect all aspects related to the process, thereby, creating a competitive advantage for the company.
The article is directly related to the course studied as it aims to consider modern methods of service design, steps, and factors influencing the process. It is pointed out that a holistic consideration for the design of services is necessary because it optimizes the efforts of the designers, taking into account the characteristics of all other steps. The paper defines services as multi-step processes that are important to consider when developing a product and valuable to learn as part of a course.
The main advantage offered in the paper is design thinking. This approach makes it possible to go beyond individual product attributes towards a holistic and human-centered focus on the needs and actions of the product’s users. The core values that define the spirit of service designers are based on a holistic approach and customer focus, focus on empathy for the end-user (Bellos & Kavadias, 2017). The desire to improve and facilitate the clients’ environment, adjusting to their needs, is fundamental. Observation of all stages of the use of services makes service design the highest quality and most effective. Designing services will be beneficial to such industries as healthcare, hospitality, and catering as they aim to improve the quality of service. In health care, the approach to the provision of health care, in general, can be changed and simplified due to the more effective implementation of IT at its various stages. In the hotel business, access systems can be improved, and in the catering sector, emphasis can be placed on automating the processes associated with taking orders.
Reference
Bellos, I., & Kavadias, S. (2017). Service design for a holistic customer experience: A process perspective. Working Paper.