Services Marketing - Services Marketing

Services Marketing

Introduction The world economy nowadays is increasingly characterized as a service economy. This is primarily due to the increasing importance and share of the service sector in the economies of most developed and developing countries. In fact, the growth of the service sector has long been considered as indicative of a country’s economic progress. Economic history tells us that all developing nations have invariably experienced a shift from agriculture to industry and then to the service sector as the main stay of the economy. This shift has also brought about a change in the definition of goods and services themselves. No longer are goods considered separate from services. Rather, services now increasingly represent an integral part of the product and this interconnectedness of goods and services is represented on a goods-services continuum. The service sector is going through almost revolutionary change, which dramatically affects the way in which we live and work. New services are continually being launched to satisfy our existing needs and to meet needs that we did not even know we had. Not even 10 years ago, few people anticipated a need for email, online banking, Web hosting, and many other new services. Today, many of us feel we can’t do without them. Similar transformations are occurring in business-to-business markets. Service organizations vary widely in size. At one end of the scale are huge international corporations operating in such industries as airlines, banking, insurance, telecommunications, and hotels. At the other end of the scale is a vast array of locally owned and operated small businesses, including restaurants, laundries, optometrists, beauty parlors, and numerous business-to-business services, to name a few.