Unified Service Sector Process Framework

The service sector focuses on the delivery of service to customers where the customers are actively involved in the delivery process. Service is defined as an intangible, simultaneously produced and consumed "product" which cannot be inventorised. Unlike the manufacturing industry where the products are tangible goods, the service sector is faced with the challenge of getting a real competitive edge or differentiation. Thus, there is an increase need in using Business Intelligence and Data Analytics to improve the service standards, outputs and revenues in the service sector.

Despite the many years of effort in documenting processes and operations, service sector has only started to apply Business Intelligence and Data Analytics to capture, store, and integrate data which are related to key processes. With these captured data, the next steps to sense, visualize, report, respond and decision making remains relatively new.

Some works are reported in the area of customer focused data analytics in the form of customer relationship management (CRM) and know-your-customer (KYC). Little work is done in terms of operations focused data analytics. There remains a gap where the service sector can tap on the full potential of emerging "next-practices" of real time, adaptive data analytics with massive amounts and multiple types of data. To bridge this gap, the SMU-School of Information Systems (SIS) has taken the lead to develop the Unified Service Sector Process Framework (USSPF) in collaboration with the service sector operations and technology experts.

Students whose work focuses mainly on "processes, operations, data and technology" may find the Views 2, 3, 4 and 5 most relevant to them. Similarly, those who manage IT transformation projects may find the Views 6,7,8,9 and 10 more central to their area/focus of work. For senior management, they may be more keen on the Views 9, 10 and 11.