Foundations

Authors

Abstract

This chapter starts by providing evidence of the growing importance of services in our society which was reinforced by recent technological and economic developments. Thereafter, a service definition is presented and discussed in detail to explain the basic principles of services. Concepts from operations management are used to describe services as transformation processes involving resources from both customer and provider. The last section contrasts services with goods and investigates the differences in marketing and management of these distinct economic commodities.

Keywords

service systems, service descriptions, service modelling, service programming

Subject

Service Systems

Book Chapter

Fundamentals of Service Systems, 1, pp. 1-32, Springer, December 2015

DOI