Towards an Innovative Service Development Process in the Electricity Industry

Abstract

The electricity industry is currently confronted with regulatory and technological change that leads to fundamental transformation of the value propositions and innovation processes of enterprises. New services are one possibility to compete in the new market environment. This paper proposes a service development process for the electricity industry that builds up on existing approaches. The process model was developed by means of an embedded research framework that combines qualitative and quantitative methods in a multi method approach. A first evaluation of the process was conducted with a partner of the electricity industry in Switzerland. Potential service areas resulting from literature research, expert interviews (N=19), and an Open Space event with lead customers (N=33) build the basis for a choice based conjoint study. Potential services could already be identified in a pretest study. The paper shows that co-creation with customers and experts, enables the service innovation process.

The Trajectory Touchpoint Technique: A Deep Dive Methodology for Service Innovation

“…The inclusion of this theory in the design of the TTT, and the subsequent use of inclusive design principles, negates exclusion from service design research on the basis of vulnerability or disability and adds to the applicability of the systems theory of disability for service design. The use of established service design methods when building the TTT enhances its validity (Domigall, Albani, and Winter 2013) and allows us to make contributions to them. We extend understanding of customer journeys, unveiling the need for researchers to extend their lenses in order to ensure the journey is as long as the customer perceives it to be.…”

“…Rather than begin from a zero base, new methodologies benefit from empirical foundations by blending and aggregating existing methodologies (Domigall, Albani, and Winter 2013). This perspective is akin to situational method engineering (SME).…”

Identification of Customer Preferences for New Service Development in the Electricity Domain

“…The aim of our research is to systematically analyze the customer needs in the electricity industry by means of a clearly defined service development process, where the integration of the co-creation of value idea into the service development process becomes an important aspect of the research. [25] III. RESEARCH FRAMEWORK In this research we use the service notion as defined by [26].…”