Readings in Innovation

Delivering Managed Service

Ron Zemke

We live and work in a service-centered economy, an economy dominated by industries that perform rather than produce. Seventy percent of the jobs and sixty percent of the GNP come from the service sector. Services are America’s most profitable export, the gold and the growth of the American economy. It is becoming obvious that as manufactured goods and products become more and more alike, it is the quality of the accompanying service that is the critical difference. Service is the business of business in America today.

The transformation from a marketplace focused on goods to one dominated by services is an industrial evolution that requires a parallel change in the way organizations are structured and—most ...