SERVICE QUALITY AND THE SALES FORCE: A TOOL FOR COMPETITIVE

ADVANTAGE

In todays date delivering superior service quality is a prerequisite for success in todays competitive
business environment. As a link to customers and business, salesperson plays a critical role in the
service delivery process. The Salesforce of the organization tend to interact with these customers
either through face-to-face conversation or through telephonic conversation and there interactions
have the potential to impact, positively or negatively the customers view. Therefore, understanding
the importance a research has been conducted in which telephonic interviews had been conducted.
SERVQUAL and SERVPERF were used as a measure for identifying the level of service quality. Both
of these measure have cross-industry applicability. In order to represent the findings of the study to
the Salesforce, the management decided to simply focus on just one aspect and tweaked the rating
system which in turn was not accurate and was lop sided. In order to address these shortcomings
management and Salesforce conducted series of meetings after which the findings were, large
geographic territories forced them minimize the time spent with each and every customer due to
which the personal attention was lacking. This article gives a wonderful insight on how service
quality assessment can be used a sales management tool.

SEEKING COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE WITH SERVICE INFUSION

The competitive advantage lies in the upstream and is based on the organizations' idiosyncratic and
difficult-to-imitate resources Dynamic Competitive advantage depends on capabilities a firm's
capabilities to adapt, integrate, and reconfigure skills, resources, and functional competences in a
dynamic environment Relational Competitive advantage can be only view gained through the joint
idiosyncratic contributions of specific alliance partners and the service ecosystem Industry. Strategy
model Market forces Basic ideology Service rationale Representative research The industry structure
determines and limits strategic choices and any available competitive advantage To differentiate and
avoid commoditization, firms need to create service offerings that enhance the strategic fit between
the external environment and the organization. With services, a firm can capture its desired market
position and build strategic barriers to competition Services promote the identification and
development of valuable, rare, inimitable, and organized resources, thereby providing causal
ambiguity and social complexity. The competitive advantage lies in the upstream and is based on the
organizations' idiosyncratic and difficult to-imitate resources Dynamic Competitive advantage
capabilities depends on a firm's capabilities to adapt, integrate, and reconfigure skills, resources, and
functional competences in a dynamic environment Relational view. Summary of the service infusion
literature Competitive advantage can be only gained through the joint idiosyncratic contributions of
specific alliance partners and the service ecosystem.
According to the findings, in the service networks, it seems that the key to sustaining competitive
advantage lies in addressing five key challenges: capturing value from complex networked operations,
understanding and developing the value-based exchange in many-to-many relationships, making new
offerings possible by facilitating the formation of inter-firm value constellations and managing
complementarities, managing flexible governance methods to facilitate agility and prevent
opportunism and determining which service infusion-related resources and capabilities are kept in
house and which are acquired from the network.

According to the literature analysis, it shows, qualitative and explorative research can tighten the link
between the literature streams of strategic management and service infusion - and reduce the lag
between strategic management development and service infusion reflections.

SERVCE QUALITY IN THAI TELECOMMUNICATION INDUSTRY

Service organizations ranging from small business owners to large corporations existing throughout
the world constantly seek unique ways for differentiating their offering from that of their competitors.
In todays world a world-class/superior product is no longer the ticket to global dominance.
Organizations have turned the traditional business models down and are connecting to customers in
new and different ways. A study was conducted in order to investigate service quality perception and
their competitive analysis in thai telecom industry. The service quality perceptions among competing
thai telecommunication companies provided insight into perceived service quality differences, and
this information could be used to shape the service quality offer more attractive to present and future
customers. The second finding was thai telecommunication companies would fare well to understand
and then come up with a service offering that is both timely and relevant. The study found that
telecom industry received strong ratings on tangible dimension of service quality, and lower ratings on
empathy dimension. So this finding itself helps management to know, in which direction to think. So,
it is important for the management to identify the relevant cues used by consumers in order to
communicate the relevant quality signals. Therefore, the management should make it a priority to
identify the most important factors that customers use in order to assess quality according to their
understanding. This would help them in order to ensure they are equipped with prerequisites and
thereby perform well. Apart from that training must be provided in order to perform better and certain
parameters must be set for performance evaluation.

HR STRATEGY AND COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE IN THE SERVICE SECTOR

While taking insights from studies of high-performance work systems in manufacturing, this article
examines theory and research on the potential for HR/People advantage in the service sector, building
directly on recent studies of market segmentation and HR strategy in the sector. Service firms that
identify and pursue these opportunities, face the problems of maintaining barriers to imitation. This
article examines three industries of the United States - steelmaking, clothing manufacture and medical
electronics manufacture - and provides consistent evidence of mutually beneficial outcomes for firms
and workers: Plant performance in each of the three industries examined is on the higher side when
compared to the standards to managers in those industries. The article examines the links between HR
strategy and business performance in the service sector, asking two key questions: * How do
differences in market characteristics lead to different competitive dynamics in services? * In what
circumstances can service firms build and sustain advantage through superior investments in human
resources? The article is structured as follows.
After many years of domination by manufacturing studies in HRM and industrial relations, more
scholars are beginning to analyse the links between competitive strategy and HR strategy in services.
The only way we can make any serious progress on the nature of the links between competitive and
HR strategies is through frameworks which help us handle the range of service markets and the reality
of segmentation within service markets. Major studies in the HR/IR literature which explore market
segments or strategic groups include call centres in US telecommunications, US rest homes, New
Zealand hotels, Italian hotels, UK fast-food restaurants, and Dutch and German management
consultancy firms. Expertise-driven firms try to hire highly intelligent free spirits and retain them

through challenging, high-discretion work, while those oriented to efficiency have a more
bureaucratic model of HRM. Starbuck's discussion of knowledge-intensive firms can be used to add a
dynamic element to this picture: management consultancies and similar firms may start up as
expertise-oriented organisations.
The case studies cited above show that it is possible to break out of the Type 1 pattern in segments of
certain service markets, such as elder care, hotels and call centres, where there is much greater
variation in customer preferences and higher value-added customers can be targeted.
There is thus an important role for an astutely formed HR strategy, for a blend of people-management
practices and investments which helps the firm to develop innovative and agile behaviour, while not
neglecting the stable harvesting of its existing operations. The argument is that the potential for higher
value market segmentation, not absolutely high skill levels, is decisive in creating a rationale for
HPWSs - or space for HR advantage - in services. Icle examines theory and research on the potential
for HR advantage in the service sector, building directly on recent studies of market segmentation and
HR strategy in the sector.
A SERVICE BASED VIEW OF PORTERS MODEL OF COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE
According to porter, successful firms in a highly competitive industry consists of cluster of firms. The
diamond model of porters competitive advantage is mainly for manufacturing firm and not for
service firms. The existing model of porter competitive advantage talks about

Factors/input
Demand condition
Related and supporting industries
Context for firm strategy and rivalry

The issue with regard to service is that, it is perishable, immediate, subjective, intangible and variable.
Since these characteristics are too generic, attention has thus been shifted to those essential aspects if
they are to be effective like management of service delivery, service production as a performance
rather than an objective, service standardization, management of employee emotions in order to
achieve successful production and delivery. The extension of porters model for a service firm is
illustrated in the chart below. Another procedure for the different firms or organizations in a service
cluster to accomplish upper hand is for each of them to have and to take after the same plan of action.
The odds of this occurrence are more if service delivery conveyance by the different firms or
organizations in a given group depends on inter-organizational networks. At the point when the same
plan of action is trailed by every organization from the industry and the model is likewise surely
understood to outsiders, barriers for entry in the industry have a tendency to be lower, with a
diminished requirement for specialization. The improvement of new and better methods for providing
service is the most imperative 'core competency' if there is to be a nonstop redesigning among firms
or organizations in a specific group. This sort of 'value innovation is portrayed by an emphasis on the
client, by extending existing markets or making new ones, not simply beating the competition, and by
creating quantum leaps in some aspect of value, not just by being committed to the latest technology.
In this respect, value innovation can occur with or without new technology. Technology innovation
identifies solutions to problems, while value innovation focuses on redefining the problems
themselves.

Source- (Chen, Yiche, Hsieh, & Feng, 2008)

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