www.seipub.org/ssmr/ Service Science and Management Research (SSMR) Volume 1 Issue 1, December 2012 8 Service Innovation A Roadmap for Practitioners Sven Schwarz *1 , Carolin Durst 2 , Freimut Bodendorf 3 Chair of Information Systems (Services – Processes – Intelligence), University of Erlangen-Nürnberg Lange Gasse 20, 90403 Nürnberg, Germany *1 sven.schwarz@wiso.uni-erlangen.de; 2 carolin.durst@wiso.uni-erlangen.de; 3 bodendorf@wiso.uni-erlangen.de Abstract The service sector is the most important and fastest growing business sector of developed countries nowadays. Existing literature outlines important topics for future research in the field of service innovation. However, a lack of practical implications exists. Based on a research portfolio, classifying theoretical research questions in the field of service innovation, a roadmap for practitioners is developed. For this purpose, existing theoretical insights, service innovation driving forces, and key technology enablers are investigated. The roadmap depicts six areas that have to be considered by companies to cope with the on-going changes in the service sector and that have to be targeted within companies to exploit existing and emerging potentials for service innovations. Among these areas are the companies’ organization and the evaluation of ideas and innovations. Due to the fact that quickly evolving trends need to be addressed promptly with the right solution, the latter area will clearly play a vital role in the future. In order to be innovative, companies have to spend their efforts wisely, not wasting energy in insufficient service innovation projects. Keywords Service Innovation; Roadmap; Service Innovation Research Framework Introduction Nowadays, services are dominating our economies and our professional as well as our personal lives. Services contribute 63.6% of the world’s gross domestic product (GDP) by sectors and employ 41.9% of the total labor force (The World Factbook of the Central Intelligence Agency – CIA). The service sector is the most important and fastest growing business sector of developed countries. However, Chesbrough and Spohrer (Chesbrough and Spohrer 2006) identified that there is a lack of academic community in this field and furthermore that there is a lack of conceptual foundation. Ostrom et al. (2011) underline this call, suggesting that the time is right to begin to identify the most important white spots as researchers in many disciplines reframe and realign their efforts regarding service. Service science can be considered as an emerging multidisciplinary field, focusing on the combination of fundamental science and engineering theories, models, and applications, aiming at enhancing and improving service innovation (Ostrom et al. 2011; Paton and McLaughlin 2008; Paulson 2006). Hence, service science strives after generating successful service innovations, which have been poorly understood and their impact has been neglected (Nam and Lee 2010). The contribution of Ostrom et al. (2011) on “research priorities for the science of services” reveals two findings that are relevant for this article. On the one hand, the article outlines the growing need to refine and promote global research agendas continuously. On the other hand, stimulating service innovation is among one of the top ten research priorities, according to their findings. Although, service innovation is important for companies to remain competitive and to ensure long- term success, it is poorly understood from an academic point of view. Research in this area does not provide any guidelines for practitioners to make use of the opportunities service innovation offers. Literature provides multiple definitions for the term service innovation, outlining the need for a broad and inclusive definition, which is at least used for this article. Therefore, the term service innovation is unbundled, aiming at a clear understanding of the terms service and innovation. Afterwards, the different definitions are used to establish an integrated and aligned understanding. Service can be regarded as a product that is not a good (Rathmell 1966). Hence, scholars define service based on the characteristics that differentiate it from goods. These characteristics are namely intangibility, heterogeneity, inseparability, perishability, and lack of