Service Innovation: A Multi-Disciplinary Approach
Bart Nieuwenhuis
University of Twente, School of Management and Governance
Enschede, The Netherlands
Abstract. The market service share in Western European economies is growing
at cost of agriculture and manufacturing. The success of these economies is
more and more depending on the success of their service economy. The
majority of the jobs, GDP and productivity growth depends on service
innovation. The service sector accounts for more than two thirds of deployment
and Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and Gross Value Added (GVA). During the
last decades, the services sector is the only economic sector that has generated
jobs. New, innovative services are the major source of economic growth in the
years to come. The introduction of new services to the market is one of the
major challenges for service companies in western economies.
Information and communication technology can be an enabler and a driver for
service innovation. The penetration of the Internet and mobile phones are
examples of these developments. These developments also illustrate the
globalization of previously national service markets. Consequently, the scale at
which services can be deployed is unprecedented.
However, service innovation is a complex process and certainly not only driven
by technological advances alone. In general, service innovation is multi-
dimensional and requires besides technological changes also new or adapted
service concepts, new ways of interactions with customers and suppliers and
new or changed processes within the organization of service providing
companies. Research shows that innovation in the service company differs from
innovations in a manufacturing company in various ways.
Companies are heading for a more systematic approach to develop new
services, but have difficulties to find employees with the right mix of
competences. Policy makers are developing innovation programs that stimulate
service innovation, but have limited knowledge on service innovations. The
academic institutes and research organizations have difficulties to conduct
research programs due to their mono-disciplinary organization structure.
In this keynote lecture, we present the results of a collaborative project where
service companies, research organizations and governmental organizations have
developed a multi-disciplinary, multi-sector program to stimulate service
innovations. We give an overview of the various dimensions that can be used to
elaborate on services and service innovation. We also present a service
innovation research agenda based on the results of interviews expressing the
needs of more than thirty service companies in The Netherlands.
Nieuwenhuis B.
Service Innovation: A Multi-Disciplinary Approach.
DOI: 10.5220/0004465100030004
In Proceedings of the 2nd International Workshop on Enterprise Systems and Technology (I-WEST 2008), pages 3-4
ISBN: 978-989-8111-50-0
Copyright
c
 2008 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda. All rights reserved

Brief Biography
Bart Nieuwenhuis is part-time professor at the School of Management and
Governance at the University of Twente. He is member of the Research Group
Information Systems and Change Management (ICMS), holding the chair in QoS of
Telematics Systems. He is working as advisor and consultant for his own consultancy
firm K4B Innovation.
His research focuses on generic service provisioning platforms including Quality
of Service mechanisms. Application domains comprise telemedicine as well as billing
and payment services. His research interests include service innovation and business
modelling. Bart Nieuwenhuis supervises PhD students and publishes scientific articles
and conference papers on services provisioning platforms and middleware
technologies for Quality of Service and Context Awareness. Bart Nieuwenhuis is
chairman of the innovation-driven research programme Generic Communication, part
of R&D programmes funded by the Ministry of Economic Affaires.
For K4B Innovation, Bart Nieuwenhuis works as an advisor to The Netherlands
ICT Research and Innovation Authority. He was one of the initiators of EXSER, a
centre of service innovation in The Netherlands. This centre is currently founded and
is expected to start in the second half of 2008. The centre is sponsored by various
large, innovative service companies and governmental organizations in The
Netherlands.
Before joining the ISCM group, Bart Nieuwenhuis was part-time full professor at
the Architecture and Services of Network Applications (ASNA) group within the
Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Mathematics & Computer Science (EEMCS) of the
University of Twente. He joined the ASNA group in Twente after a period of five
years at the University of Groningen, where he was Tele-Informatics professor at the
Computer Science Faculty.
Before starting his own company, he worked more than 20 years for KPN
Research, the R&D facility of KPN, the telephony and Internet market leader in The
Netherlands. He served as manager of R&D departments and Head of Strategy of
KPN Research. Bart Nieuwenhuis worked on behalf of KPN for the European
Institute for Research and Strategic Studies in Telecommunications (EURESCOM) in
Heidelberg and was leader of various international, cooperative projects of European
public network operators. Bart Nieuwenhuis holds a PhD in Computer Science and a
MSc (cum laude) and BSc in Electrical Engineering, all from the University of
Twente.
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