Companies engaged in service must continue to reinvent themselves in order to survive the global market. Service companies must constantly instill competitive change in their organization to stay alive. Many business gurus believe that change is no longer optional but inevitable. Many big companies went down in the past because they fail to recognize important trends in their internal and external environment that are affecting their business. Managers of service companies must be well informed of these trends so that they will be guided accordingly on what corporate changes they will implement in their respective companies.
Below are some of the trends that are shaping the marketing approach of service companies:
- Focus on Customer Service and Customer Satisfaction. Companies of the past tend to focus on their internal being. Their capital expenditures are geared towards expansion of network, technical superiority, and market domination by size or scale. These companies fail to recognize the fact that unless customer needs are taken to account, these initiatives will not bring success or profit.
- Focus on the Service Value. Customers want value for their money and they expect that company's offerings must be of prime quality at the least possible price. This is opposite to the principle of business operations. Companies will need more money to execute first-class service because it requires investment on well-experienced employees which will require higher salaries, high-end facilities which will require bigger capital budgets and additional employee trainings which will result to increase operational expenditures. Managers of service companies are tasked to design a service model that are valuable to their customers but priced reasonably. In the past, companies believe that as long as they are “big” in terms of scale, size and, resources their perceive value is high. This is no longer true today. The best judge of your company's value is your customers.
- Focus on Information Technology. We all know how technology changed not only our day to day lives but also how it shaped the business landscape. One of the best contributions of technology is information. Technological advances led to the availability of information in all sectors of the organization. Examples of information are consumers' purchasing behavior, consumers' consumption pattern, consumers' data information and so on. Information made the decision making process of top executives easy and later resulted to further innovation and improvement on the company's strategic direction. Companies who failed to use information also failed to understand their customers.
- Focus on Globalization. Globalization has swept companies from all over the world by storm. Local markets are already saturated by local players and the best way to expand their sales is to tap emerging international markets. However, internationalization approach is not as simple as transporting your service to another country. If your company's service model is effective in your local market, it is not a guarantee that it will also be effective in other countries. Culture, social behavior and customs of the foreign country must be taken into account. Many companies who jumped in the globalization band wagon failed to adjust their service approach when setting-up a foreign franchise. In the fast-food industry for instance, Mc Donald's beef burger may not be a hit in countries like India because cows are sacred in this country. Some American fast-food chains that plan to establish branches in the Middle East or some parts of Asia change the composition of their ingredients of their food products and modify the service orientation of their staffs in order to adapt to the taste and customs of the locals.
These are just some of the emerging trends that managers of service companies must consider. Many companies that did not recognize these signs and failed to adapt to these trends have suffered and send millions or even billions of their resources in to the trash bin.
