The Service Productivity and Quality Challenge

The recent global recession has revealed the vital importance of service-sector productivity in all developed economies. The challenge for scholars and professionals in productivity management (economics and management science) in the coming decade is clearly to improve the productivity of the services sector. Section I addresses the economy-wide problems of measuring service productivity and its impact on economic performance. The growing volume and recognition of trade and international competition in services is the subject of Section II. The first two sections together outline the broad parameters facing the economy and individual managers as they struggle to improve service productivity in an increasingly competitive international market. The specific steps to be taken are addressed in Section III. Section IV presents an operations management perspective on the productivity problem. Section V presents the problems and opportunities that exist in productivity improvement in market services (that is, those industries where some degree of competition and market pricing exists). Finally, non-market services, a vital part of all developed economies, are discussed in Section VI. This text aims to present the state-of-the-art thinking on the service productivity challenge from a variety of disciplines.