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Course Description: Since early 1990s, the service sector has become the mainstay of the Indian economy. Currently, service sector’s contribution to India’s GDP is approximately 55% and is increasing at a rapid rate. Despite this phenomenal growth of the service sector over the last two decades, operations management, as we understand today, is heavily focused on manufacturing. The primary goal of this elective course is to make an attempt to demonstrate the importance of managing operations in service sector organizations. This course addresses the strategic and operational aspects of managing service systems. It will offer a practical approach with requisite theoretical underpinning to provide a valuable perspective for all future managers interested in designing, implementing, and sustaining efficient service related operations.

Student Learning Outcome: At the end of this course, the students would be able to

1.4 Understand the concepts of service operations management

2.1 To solve real world problems in service settings

Tentative Session Plan:

Session Number	Topics/Activities	Reading/case list etc.
1, 2	Explanation of course outline Definition of service, its role in the economy, characteristics of services, service package, service process matrix , classifying services for strategic insights	Case 1: Village Volvo Reading: Heineke, J and Davis, M. M. (2007). The emergence of service operations management as an academic discipline. Journal of Operations Management, 25, 364-374
3	Service Strategy	Reading: Porter, M.E. (1996). What is Strategy. Harvard Business Review, 74(6), 61-78. Reading: Davidow, W. H. and Bro, U. (1989). Service companies: Focus or Falter, Harvard Business Review, 67(4), 77-85. Case 2: Aravind Eye Hospitals 1. What are the critical elements that laid the foundation for success of the Aravind experiment? 2. Do you think the Aravind experiment was a successful one in the field of healthcare services in the country? 3. Evaluate the interesting features of Aravind Hospitals from a service operations perspective. 4. Are their ideas generalisable to other classes of service systems?
4,5	Service delivery design, tools, and techniques used in service design	Case 3: 100 Yen Sushi House
6,7	Process analysis in service operations	Case 4: Oliver’s Diner Case 5: Paediatric Orthopedic Clinic at the Children’s Hospital of Western Ontario
8, 9, 10	Managing demand and capacity in services (reservation systems and overbooking), yield management	Case 6: River City National Bank Case Problem solving
11, 12, 13	Service quality	Reading: Parasuraman, A., Zeithaml, V.A., Berry, L.L., (1985). A conceptual model of service quality and its implications for future research. Journal of Marketing, 49(4), 41–50. Reading: Hart, C. W. (1988). The power of unconditional service guarantees. Harvard Business Review, 66, 54-62. Reading: Reichheld, F.F and Sasser Jr, W.E. (1990). Zero Defections: Quality comes to Services. Harvard Business Review, 68(5), 105-111. Reading: Reichheld, F.F. (1996). Learning from customer defections. Harvard Business Review, 74(2), 56-69. Reading: Berman, B. (2005). How to delight your customers. California Management Review, 48(1), 129-151. Reading: Hart, C.W.L, Heskett, J.L., Sasser Jr, W.E. (1990). The profitable art of service recovery. Harvard Business Review, 68(4), 148-156. Reading: Heskett, J.L., Jones, T.O., Loveman, G.W., Sasser, W.E., and Schlesinger, L.A. (2008). Putting the service-profit chain to work. Harvard Business Review, 86(7/8), 118-129. Case 7: The Mount Rundle Hotel Banff
14,15, 16	Waiting Line	Case 8: Rennaisance Clinic Case 9: Houston Port Authority Problem solving
17	Guest Lecture
18	Guest Lecture
19, 20
	Student Final Presentations (Group Project)	Group Projects

Note: All articles listed above are available in various online databases such as EBSCO, ScienceDirect, Emerald, Taylor and Francis etc. available in our library.

EVALUATION:

Online quiz 1 (Individual): 15 points
Online quiz 2 (Individual): 15 points
Class Assignment: 5 points
Group project work: 25 points
End-Term (Comprehensive, pen and paper): 40 points

TOTAL 100 points

Group Project Work (2020-21): To be decided in due course

Text Book: SERVICE MANAGEMENT: Operations, Strategy and Information Technology by J.A. Fitzsimmons and M.J. Fitzsimmons, 8e Indian edition, McGraw-Hill, 2015.

Policy on cheating and plagiarism: Please go through manual of policies for details.

Utmost care is to be taken to maintain class decorum, follow the exact evaluation norms, conduct fair examinations, fair and transparent evaluation of examination papers to maintain the highest academic integrity. You may refer to the Manual of Policies for further details.

No make-up online quiz will be given. Therefore, absence from quiz is very strongly discouraged. Only in serious medical situation, there can be exceptions, provided adequate documents are provided.