Knowledge Nuggets - Part 4 - Product Development in Service Sector

Product development is generally a weak area for Service Sector in the whole value chain with exception of few businesses value chain unlike in manufacturing sector. Service sectors give lot of importance in execution / delivery than focusing on the Product Development.


The following are some of the Challenges / Weaknesses in Product Development in Service / Transactional Sector:

1. Lack of product development structure
2. Lack of Product development life cycle process
3. Lack of skill sets within the organization
4. Little or no information about the Customer touch points, pain areas and linkage with internal processes/ systems
5. Service product designer not having enough visibility or clarity of processes which deliver the product / service to the customer post product launch.
6. Lack of product innovation in delivering value to the customer
7. Lack of digitization in the customer offerings (except few sectors like banking, insurance etc.,)
8.  No or little clarity on the stages of product development
9. Lack of engagement with internal stake holders (especially the internal stake holders) and their requirements affecting the product
10. Finally, Lack of clarity between What is a Process?  and What is a Product?  Itself.  

There can be many and finer list of challenges / weaknesses in service sector one may wish to add. I have listed the above challenges based on my experience and exposure to process design both in Service and Manufacturing Sectors. Certainly, the challenges are very different in the service sector.

In my next post I wish to share the best practice in product development process.

Please leave your comment and experience in the comments section for the benefit of readers and learning from your experience