Service Management: Operations, Strategy, and Information Technology with Student CD-Rom Mandatory Package

Rating:
Summary: Melhor de melhores...
Review: O livro do Fitzsimmons é a melhor ferramenta conceptual e practica sobre gerenciamento de serviços. Sem dúvida.
El libro de Fitzsimmons es la mejor herramienta conceptual y práctica sobre gerenciamento de servicios.
O book of Fitzsimmons it's the better conceptual and practical tool about services management I've ever seen.
Jorge P. Aldrovandi
Fortaleza / Ceará / Brasil

Rating:
Summary: I've never read a book that sucks more than this one does
Review: Pointless formulas, impossible to find actual definitions, book is full of outdated real world references (ex: referring to online purchasing as a new fangled idea). I've never been so confused by a text in my life. I DO NOT recommend this book. It was a required text for my service management class and NOBODY was happy with the text. It almost annoyingly uses Texas as a reference for nearly all analogies. The only thing good about it was how highly it spoke of Amazon.com!

Rating:
Summary: Its implementable, I used it so much it needed recovering
Review: This is not the first services management Text I have read or the First Management text. The imposed shake up in the health professions has created a need to take on new learnings in a discipline I was not used too. However as I read I was able to understand and classify services. The wholistic view given in the first chapters allowed me to define my purpose and mission, define the characteristics and benefits of my service and create a service package. I was able to apply this through the service concept and focus on my delivery system creating a strategic plan centered around my clients. Its chapeters on quality allowed me to understand the concept of quality its content and purpose in respect of my business and implement a quality plan. It shed new light on the interactions between employees, organisations and clients. This allowed me to create strategies to improve employee satisfaction. The chapters on The physical facitity allowed me to redesign the physical environment of my service,improving employee and customer satisfaction. Capacity and demand and the handling of waiting times, is so important and the book takes time on these subjects. Conceptualy I was able to design and develope a service reflecting the type and standard of service I was in. This would not have been possible without the background theory, models and formulae supplied by the authors. They package their message in a form I understood. The models and diagrams are particularly good as are the referencing. Although the case studies weren't that relevant as I had my own organisation to test the readings on I still feel they would be valuable to the aspiring student, and it has changed forever my perception of the service encounter both as supplier and participant. The chapters and pieces on IT were important and its role in customisation of services and identifying added value areas and potential new markets are not to be missed.

I would recommend it as a first text and as a core text to cover all the gaps missed or misunderstood in other texts. The depth is such that you get to choose how far you go. If its too much then you stop. A word of warning it took me a year to read not because it was difficult but because clarity of thought can take time. Still my bank manger on seeing my final work stopped short and said.."You can actually do this stuff" If its results you want then this is a good place to start.