Developing New Services with the Collaboration of Global Customers

Abstract

Globalization has a major impact on the practice of innovation across a wide range of service industries. By placing New Service Development (hereafter abridged NSD) activities in selected international locations and by using local managers for NSD, a firm can access critical information about innovations in those regions and make direct connections with potential new markets (Eppinger and Chitkara 2006). Thus “metanational innovation” system: innovation process that transcends national boundaries is an interesting area of research (Santos et al. 2004). Yet, only limited attention has been paid to the issue of service innovation in a global context. To address this critique of the literature a longitudinal case study of new service development and customer interaction was conducted in a U.S based multinational financial service firm, which was looking for innovations for its operations in India and other Southeast Asian countries. The case study investigates the development of new services with inputs from company’s customers in India. It also traces the roles of local Indian subsidiary and local managers in developing and managing the overall innovation process.