The aims of the module are to:

Provide students with an understanding of the importance of services and the implications of service logic on the customer relationship;

Enable students to gain a broad understanding of the operational principles and practices through which services are delivered and supported;

Introduce students to the key service concepts including value, servitisation and service dominant logic.

(LO1) Students will be able to describe the difference between services and business processes.

(LO2) Students will be able to demonstrate acquired knowledge of service delivery principles applied to practical contexts.

(LO3) Students will be able to demonstrate acquired knowledge of service support principles applied to practical contexts.

(LO4) Students will be able to demonstrate reading and acquired knowledge gained from academic texts of key theoretical concepts in service management, such as: SDL, value and servitisation.

(LO5) Students will be able to discuss wider social and environmental consequences for service management in real-world contexts.

(S1) Problem solving skills
Developed throughout the module through exercises, case-studies and questionnaires in lecture sessions and the bi-weekly seminars.

(S2) Commercial awareness
Developed through a week dedicated to cost, price and value of services, plus ongoing discussions of efficiency especially in matching capacity to demand.

(S3) Organisational skills
Students will be encouraged to plan and organise their research, analysis and writing for assessment one, as well as their revision strategies ahead of the examination.

(S4) Communication skills
Class tasks will be set each week, and seminar sessions run fortnightly. These tasks are all undertaken in small groups to encourage discussion and interaction. Verbal feedback to the wider group is encouraged at the end of tasks. Written communication is enhanced through pre-assessment discussions and post-assessment feedback. Technology based interaction is encourage through the use of poll-everywhere quizzes and polls.

(S5) Lifelong learning skills
Students will be directed in how to research, retrieve, and analyse both academic and non-academic sources and to put these into practice in their self-directed reading/learning and especially in tackling assignment one. The module throughout, is based around applied learning, with opportunities each week, for students to reflect on how new theoretical principles should be applied to real-world contexts.

2 hour lecture x 10 weeks
1 hour seminar x 5 weeks
125 hours self-directed learning

Self-directed learning hours will be used for carrying out assignment and self-study topics covered in lectures, including guided reading.

Introduction to Service Operations:
Definitions and the nature of services;
Increasing importance of services;
The people dimension, attitudes of staff, customers and managers; The significance of time.

Service processes:
Delivery channels and service design;
Brand and the volume verses variety trade off;
Process mapping and process improvement.

Capacity and demand management:
Planning and capacity;
Ensuring that peaks in demand are predicted and managed cost-effectively;
Matching of capacity and demand;
Demand management;
Consequences of excess demand.

Service availability:
Availability and continuity management.

Service support:
Day to day support operations: service desks; incident and problems management through which customer issues are reported, rectified and then preventing from reoccurring.

Service improvement:
Service levels: defining, measuring, meeting service levels, SLAs and OLAs;Change management processes through which service upgrades are planned and managed.

Value and cost management:
Delivering services effectively and efficiently;
Perspectives on value: from value chains to value-in-use;
The impact of service dominant logic on value delivery, and the pre-eminence of customer perceptions of value;
Value co-creation through service delivery;
Managing costs without compromising value.

Supply chain perspectives on services:
Sub-contracting and outsourcing of services;
Operational interfaces with suppliers and with business owners.

Public and third sector service operations:
Drawing on contemporary research, real world examples are used to illustrate challenges facing managers in these sectors where increased demands need to be met with reduced budgets.

Extended services and future trends;

Effects of sustainability and broader stakeholder groups on service management;

Environmental and soci al impacts from service operations;

The future of service delivery and the potential of new technology.