Service elimination decision making: preliminary empirical evidence from the UK financial services sector

If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.comEmerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services.Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation.Abstract Despite the importance of the ability of service firms to rationalise their service ranges in today's competitive environment, the area of service elimination decision-making is one of the least researched in the literature on services marketing. Responding to this knowledge gap, this paper reports part of the findings of a broader exploratory investigation into the service elimination process in the British financial services sector. In detail, the paper presents qualitative and quantitative empirical evidence on the way in which British financial institutions audit their service range in order to identify financial services as candidates for elimination. The evidence showed that the British financial institutions studied follow a periodically conducted service range auditing process, which is often documented and computer-aided. The audit is operationalised by a set of financial and non-financial audit criteria (performance dimensions). The evidence also showed that the service range auditing process is not static but dynamic. As such, the relative importance of the audit criteria used varies in relation to service-specific, organisational and environmental variables, such as type of financial service, business strategy pursued overall, degree of market orientation, intensity of competition, intensity of legislation and rhythm of technological change.

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“…Findings on other parts of the service elimination process have been reported elsewhere (e.g. Argouslidis and McLean, 2001a;2001b. 2.…”

Section: Notesmentioning

confidence: 75%

Service elimination decision‐making

Argouslidis

McLean

2004

European Journal of Marketing

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“…First, firms treated PE as a decision of low importance (e.g., Argouslidis & McLean, 2001a;Avlonitis, 1983Avlonitis, -1984Rothe, 1970). Second, firms' PEDM processes resembled the conceptual stepwise ones but, most often, lacked such properties as computerisation and a clear delegation of responsibilities (e.g., Avlonitis & James, 1982;Greenley & Bayus, 1994).…”

Section: General Descriptions Of Pe Practicementioning

confidence: 99%

Tracking the evolution of theory on product elimination: Past, present, and future

Avlonitis¹,

Argouslidis²

2012

Mark. Rev.

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Product elimination is an important tool for effective product line management. Scholarly, it was originally addressed in the 1960s, in the context of a conceptual paper. Today the relevant theory has its stance in the broader product line management literature, much as its size is still small, compared to other topics of product line management research (e.g., new product development). This paper's purpose is to present a critical synthesis of the product elimination theory and advance implications for future research. A mix of manual and electronic means of bibliographic search resulted in the identification of 15 conceptual and 51 empirical papers, published primarily in marketing, but also in management and economic journals. Key arguments of conceptual papers and methods and key findings of empirical studies are classified under broad thematic areas and discussed critically. From the review it is evident that extant theory has addressed important aspects of product elimination. However, various unanswered issues are identified and discussed as directions for future investigation under five broad angles. This paper provides the first systematic review of the extant conceptual and empirical material on product elimination and proposes a future research agenda that can further empirical knowledge on this important, but largely understudied, topic of product line management research.

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“…As regards reactive causes, elimination literature highlights three problem triggers: inadequate response to customer needs, lack of competitive advantage, and poor economic/financial performance. First, when brands are unable to fulfill commitments to customers or to meet customers' needs or are not properly adapted to customers, companies may drop these brands due to customer demand (Varadarajan et al 2006;Shah 2015Shah , 2017 or customer rejection (Argouslidis and McLean 2001;Gounaris et al 2006). Second, an inadequate response to customers' needs may reflect the extent to which a brand lacks competitive advantage; that is, its value is reduced relative to competitors' brands (Lassar et al 1995).…”

Section: Relation Between Bd Causes and Bd Successmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Proactive decisions require initiative (Greenglass 2002), a desire for improvement (Parker et al 2010), an anticipation of future situations (Grant and Ashford 2008), and monitoring in order to foresee potential problems, needs or changes (Argouslidis and McLean 2001;Frese and Fay 2001;Gounaris et al 2006). Proactive causes likely lead to a successful elimination because they suggest positive business activities that can enhance firms' gains (Harness 2004).…”

Section: Relation Between Bd Causes and Bd Successmentioning

confidence: 99%

Do proactive and reactive causes to delete a brand impact deletion success? The role of brand orientation

2019

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Do proactive and reactive causes to delete a brand impact deletion success? The role of brand orientation ABSTRACT One critical decision concerning a firm´s brand portfolio management is brand deletion (BD). Although many organizations have recently undertaken drastic BD programs and pruned their brand portfolios, the literature on this topic remains extremely scarce and fragmented. Our work focuses on studying the impact of BD causes -previously classified as proactive versus reactive-on BD success. How the firm's brand orientation affects the incidence of proactive versus reactive deletions is also explored. Implicitly, we suggest that brand orientation exerts a positive indirect effect on BD success through increased successful BDs due to proactive causes. We test our research proposal on a sample comprising 155 cases of BD. Findings indicate that brand orientation contributes to BD success through the proactive adoption of BDs focused on taking advantage of brand opportunities, such as searching for a better strategic fit or avoiding opportunity costs. Moreover, brand orientation prevents deletions by reactive or problematic causes, deletions which, after all, do not generate success. In sum, brand oriented firms seek to prevent rather than fix any problems derived from maintaining inadequate brands in their portfolio.

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Service elimination decision making: preliminary empirical evidence from the UK financial services sector

Cited by 13 publications

References 57 publications

Service elimination decision‐making

Service elimination decision‐making

Tracking the evolution of theory on product elimination: Past, present, and future

Do proactive and reactive causes to delete a brand impact deletion success? The role of brand orientation

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