[Question 2] Internal service-logic implementation

The first thing coming is that you give them the role of users. Users are very critical and want the best out of the product. As long as they do not have to pay, they will be innovative. It reminds of Walt Disney when making Snow white. It was hard for his staff to create characters and landscapes that would touch the heart of children. So he asked them to re-discover the child inside themselves. And we all know the result...

companies should train their employees who are at the front line of the business to always serve customers with open ears; listen to what consumers like and dislike. furthermore, require these employees give weekly reports on what they have gathered throughout the week so companies can be on top on the trend.

I think understanding the needs of the users and being able to adapt to them is the first thing to do.
But your question is about how to motivate the employees to do so, and i think the best source of motivation comes from recognition. Maybe letting the employees express their ideas and feelings about the product, about how it is perceived by the users and about what they think in terms of service-logic innovations would help them to adopt this strategy.

Employees should know their stake in the value chain of a product. They should know about how their behavior can influence the success. Otherwise it would be like at an election for the government. Many people underestimate the influence of their vote, because they are just one of several millions.

There should be a specific vision and mission for both the company and the product, such us: "We are great, we are the best in the market, but we are not perfect and we know it. What we do is searching for perfection for our costumers". If you make your workers understand this motto and accept it, maybe they will become a part of it and become more innovative.

I think all the classical ways to make employees understand that is for their own good should work here. For instance:
-being pedagogical and try to explain them correctly
- create some internal animations with nice incentives (sport tickets, computer gears, etc)
- organize (if you are quite rich) a proper seminar to persuade them it's a good thing

Of course, one technique for business to get employees to become the customer, has always been to give the employees the product. When Palm introduced its Palm Pilot way back when, many of the first users were the Palm employees. They were able to show others outside of the company how useful it was, and get feedback from those potential users. This gave end users a chance to define what they wanted, then of course led to many other improvements from the first version. From there we all know now about the growth in smart phones and PDAs and how the market has grown considerably since then.

I think a CEO should ask his/her employees to set up a testing platform online just to play with their customers. Ask their employees to make friends with their customers by using some campaign or online games and focus on some potential target segments. Perhaps they will bring about some brilliant ideas.

I think financial incentives could work but primarily on the short run with a limited effect. The trick is to personally involve the employees. An increase in loyalty towards the company is not always obtained by financial benefits but more by the feeling of being part of a group and satisfaction of work environment. A policy statement of mission like Bartek mentioned is a good way to achieve that.
I think that still one of the best ways to increase the service quality is to put the employees in the position of the customers.

I think that 3M is a company that has a good relationship with its employees, this makes it a very innovative company. They give people room to innovate, for example technical employees can spend 15 percent of their time on projects of their own choosing and initiative. New Product Forums are regularly held, where divisions can share their latest products and developers can solicit support for a new product, idea or technology. Moreover, researchers can apply for Genesis Grants. The grants provide significant funding to individuals or teams to pursue embryonic new product ideas or concepts.

A good way to combinate Financial incentives, motivation from employees and put the employees in the position of customers is the example of Apple. I think it can applied to many other companies: Apple puts its employees' in customers'shoes as Apple offer big discount on their products: 50 to 70% of different new Apple products every year. Of course, people have quotas, they cannot buy for their friends but still it encourages, as a financial incentives method, to work in your company and test the products as the same time to improve the way of using them and bring the service logic innovation in the company

I agree , financial incentives can be usefull in the short term but the key element is to increase the opportunities its employees have to express their views and ideas as personal user of the product. i agree with the fact that employers has to be more involve in the process by undertaking the role of customer. To motivate employees and to keep them, talented employees can be rewarded.

Money is not the best solution for motivation, It works only on short term basis. Would not trust that one too much.

If you want to really encourage workers, some other types of motivation should be implemented. I Think that I would risk giving more free hand in taking decisions and responsibility to workers (of course if they can handle it). Some kind of acknowledgement for the impact on the company would be also nice (like naming a product with workers name... ).

But not only cash:P

Gene_Simpson wrote:Of course, one technique for business to get employees to become the customer, has always been to give the employees the product. When Palm introduced its Palm Pilot way back when, many of the first users were the Palm employees. They were able to show others outside of the company how useful it was, and get feedback from those potential users. This gave end users a chance to define what they wanted, then of course led to many other improvements from the first version. From there we all know now about the growth in smart phones and PDAs and how the market has grown considerably since then.

This is also the case with Google's Wave because they created a
focus group of internal people to first try it out. This gives
employees the opportunity to give feed back, help improve the product,
etc. For financial incentives, the most obvious route is offering the
employees a discount (like Kathia mentioned by about Apple). If your
employees buy the product, and they like it, it is the best way to use
word-of-mouth marketing.

I think let employees to have a chance of direct contact with end users is a great means of changing employees' attitudes toward adapting to the new service-logic idea. It's important to let employees know they are really helpful to customers, then they work voluntarily and happily while money and power can make workers work, but they won't work so willingly.

In order to motivate your employees is by allowing them to give managers feedback. Money is an incentive but if you are not able to hear your employee out on his/her ideas, the will not be beneficial to the firm since they are just striving for the financial incentives and not working so hard for the best of the firm. I would also have to agree with Gene and the others, allowing your employee to be the consumer allows the firm and its employees to experience what the product is and what is needed to create a more beneficial service or product for their consumers.

I think a good way to implement internal service-logic innovation strategy is through transformational leadership. It means, the leader (boss, CEO, ...) transforms the employees in a way, that they really like their work not because of the money but because of the goal of the company. It creates an open-minded environment where everyone can expresse his/her needs or make proposals to improve service etc.

A company's CEO can motivate employees to adopt a logic service innovation mindset, by empowering them. Reduce bureacratic control and allow employees to make more decisions on their own. For example, the CEO may change the culture of the company to one that encourages risk taking when it comes to creating innovative products/services. Failure of innovation should not be punished, but rather employees should be appraised for trying. When innovations do succeed, they should be motivated, by giving them monteary incentives, awards, etc. Also, team work should be encouraged and everyone should have the same goal, which is normally to satisfy customers needs and to be number one in the industry.

Yann_Gerardi wrote:

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How can you as a company's CEO motivate your employees to adopt the service-logic innovation mindset?

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I think giving the employees a first hand look about why the service-logic innovation is a good solution will do the trick. Once the employees are aware of the advantages, their mindsets will also change.