Services Marketing in Asia: Managing People, Technology and Strategy

Citation

Agrawal, M. (2002), "Services Marketing in Asia: Managing People, Technology and Strategy", International Journal of Service Industry Management, Vol. 13 No. 4, pp. 399-404. https://doi.org/10.1108/ijsim.2002.13.4.399.1

Three words seem to guide our life – service, service and service. It is everybody’s case that the services sector rules the economy, and lifestyle, of our times, whether it is the US economy where it all started or the Indian economy where the sector is set to explode, as the service sector makes an increasing contribution to the gross national product (GNP). Currently, it is more than 80 percent in Singapore while it is closer to 50 percent in most Asian countries. From the lifestyle perspective, we stand witness to a marketing trend where consumers want either service (banking, insurance for instance) or physical goods (televisions, personal computers, etc.) only if they are unequivocally supported with a service promise. The marketing success is dependent on one key word – service.

Dominance of the service sector over the manufacturing and agriculture sectors becomes more or less complete as we sense a trend whereby physical goods are being offered for free if their service contract is signed up to by customers. It is already happening in several Asian countries where cellular phone service providers offer their customers free cell phones if they sign up. Institutional goods are selling along the same route – free goods linked to a service contract at a price.

In Asian markets, Xerox Corp. deepened its penetration by charging for the service component (mainly maintenance and consumables), while its photocopiers were delivered to the institutional users and photocopy centers free of charge.

The day is not far away when most manufacturers of goods and services (Ford, General Motors, Apple Computers, etc.) will offer their goods totally for free if the customer signed up a service contract for maintaining the bought products, at a price. An interesting sidelight of the situation will be when the home buyers will approach the banks not for mortgage but for financing their annual maintenance contracts (AMC) – be it on house, computer or the car. The possibilities are endless. One wonders, if it does not signal the end of manufacturing, what does!

In such a promising scenario for services, no new book is one too many – provided it brings a fresh perspective, adds to our understanding of the service economy, outlines the evolving service expectations of customers, and finally, assists in securing a competitive edge over others. If the contents are contextualized, so much the better.

Towards this end, we have three types of texts on service marketing and management available in our midst. The first genre of texts is a truly international edition – akin to a globally available brand of physical goods or service. The original edition of the book under review, authored by Christopher Lovelock, represents this category of textbooks on services marketing. Over a period, most of us have come to regard the Lovelock text as a pioneering effort and a benchmark for most authors. The highpoint of this genre of books is their universal text, North American illustrations and a sound theoretical underpinning. The weakness of the international editions is their sweeping treatment and North American illustrations, which fail to connect with all readers equally well, especially in Europe and Asia. Critics of the international editions argue that the service culture is too heterogeneous in the world to connect by an all‐US textbook, well written though it is.

Recognizing a business opportunity in poor bonding with the international texts, we find the second category of texts – the lusciously local ones. They represent the other extreme of the spectrum where service textbooks are written by the locals for the home audience.

The writers of the local texts are most probably college instructors and/or service practitioners. They contextualize the contents and offer a collage of local situations, illustrations and examples relevant to their country. While readers bond more with local texts, their weakness is their contents. Text‐organization is often weak, largely opinionated and sometimes idiosyncratic. Readers of the local textbooks find little scope to walk through the subject on their own. The success of this genre of books varies depending upon the text quality and author’s credibility.

The third category of service texts represents the glocalized textbooks – keeping the international text intact but customizing the illustrations and situations to suit the local uniqueness and interests. A glocalized textbook is akin to the McDonald’s hamburger. Depending on the local cultural sensibilities (for instance the protest against beef in India), the hamburger content is modified but the core processes of making what Theodore Levitt once branded as the techno‐burger, are kept intact. The merit of the glocalized textbooks is that they continue to offer contents and also illustrate the same through local examples and situations. Many believe – evidence varies though – that the glocalized textbooks enjoy greater acceptability among the instructors and students alike.

The book under review epitomizes this glocal genre of service texts. The authors claim that their creation retains the core of the international edition but customizes the cases and illustrations which Asian readers could easily bond with. Their premise is that Asian culture and its deference to the service economy is significantly different, necessitating a substantially contextualized textbook on service marketing for Asia.

Before we review the organization and features of the book, it is in order to examine the premise itself. The Asian service players, China, Hong Kong, Singapore, India, Malaysia, and the Philippines, are as similar to each other as the kangaroos and koalas are in Australia. The service contribution of these countries to their respective GNP varies from 33 percent (China) to 85 percent (Hong Kong). Beyond the statistics, the service delivery, customer expectations and service mindset move back and forth like a pendulum – from a distasteful servility on the one hand, to a dispassionate professionalism on the other.

For instance, while the monorail system at the Changhi International Airport in Singapore may view an international passenger waiting for more than five minutes, to go from terminal A to terminal B, as an indictment on its inefficiency and may come forward to apologize to the suffering passenger, the same international passenger waiting for an inter‐terminal coach in another Asian country like China or India, triggers no emotions in the service provider. No apology or explanation is considered necessary. The differences occur when the demand of services outstrips their supply or where the service environment is still regulated. A well‐functioning service infrastructure, so very necessary for a satisfying service delivery, is not universally found in all Asian countries. In short, the Asian service economy is quite heterogeneous, and any claim to address the entire spectrum of service scenarios in Asia through a single textbook on service marketing, is brave at best.

With this backdrop, let us review what the book has to offer. The textbook consists of 18 chapters, ten readings and 13 cases of varying length and difficulty. The unifying thread is the modular arrangement of chapters that the book has adopted. There are five parts encompassing all 18 chapters. The book begins with the now mandatory introduction of services as the first chapter. The other two chapters of part 1 introduce the readers to the concepts of customer involvement and service encounter. Part 2 focuses on understanding the service customers and managing relationships with them. Chapters 4 to 6 of this section articulate such complex issues as service buying behavior, loyalty building and handling customer dissonance. Part 3 addresses the challenge of creating value in the competitive service markets. Towards that goal, chapters 7, 8, 9 and 10 articulate service positioning, designing, pricing, and customer education respectively. Part 4 of the book guides readers how to plan and manage service delivery. Chapters 11 to 14 dwell on such service delivery ingredients as distribution in place, cyberspace and time, quality and productivity, balancing demand with supply, and finally, managing the experiences of customers waiting for the delivery of service. This part of the book is particularly important for earning customer satisfaction as most complaints arise in service delivery alone. Service delivery is the point where a competitive differentiation and superior value can be created by service marketers. Part 5 – the final module of the book – encompasses chapters 15 to 18. It speaks directly to the senior management in a service firm. It focuses on the need of effectively managing the service personnel, service leadership, international marketing, and technology in services. This part epitomizes the latest thought process that service management cannot be ignored while teaching services marketing and that strategic service marketing is no different from strategic service management.

The text concludes with a string of 13 cases. Two of them simply adopt the Asian names. Most cases are heavily rooted in Singapore and Malaysia, probably as the last two authors hail from the Singapore academia. There is no Indian/Chinese case or reading in the book.

This glaring gap will limit acceptance of the text in these two countries and challenge the claim of the authors that the book is meant for Asia. Another weakness of the case section is that the cases chosen are unencumbered. Instructors and students will find it hard to dovetail them with the relevant chapters.

All five parts of the book detailed above close with a reading purporting to represent the modular theme. One or two reads included in the text have already become classic (e.g. the service‐profit chain in Part 5). End‐of‐chapter bibliography should encourage readers to seek deeper inputs. Review questions and teaching resources are particularly useful to the instructors. Another feature of the text is its generous sprinkling of boxed illustrations, suggestions for good practices and research insights. The end of the book index greatly improves the search of the time‐starved readers.

Having outlined the key features and organization of the text, a question arises for us: how far does the book under review fulfill its promise on customizing an international edition to the Asian perspective? The answer to this question will be looked forward to by instructors, readers and the authors too. It will enable the authors to respond to a likely criticism that the book merely repackages an international edition, adds little substance to the Asian readers, and gatecrashes to reach our desks and bookshelves through a marketing gimmick rather than sincere adaptation and customization, so badly needed by the Asian service markets.

Table I (please view Table I from the pdf) attempts to answer the question, how much adaptation have the authors brought to the book to meet the aspiration of Asian readers, assuming for the sake of argument that Asia is a homogeneous collage of countries. On the basis of qualitative and quantitative assessment, the ratings received by the book on the key dimensions of its promise are not too exciting. The evaluation, though subjective, is sincere. Readers are to disagree.

So where does it leave us as far as the book under review is concerned? Does it meet reasonably well expectations of the Asian readers, students, executives and instructors, for whom it is adapted? In my humble review, it certainly does. The book will be welcomed‐ at least for its intent if not execution. It has the makings of a text that will be accepted by more Asian business schools than today. In order to facilitate this, the authors may want to consider the following suggestions in subsequent editions:

1. 1.

   (1) Make a wider selection of cases and readings choosing a minimum of one case from each major Asian nation. Ideally each country, for which the book is meant, should be represented by a case of that country.

2. 2.

   (2) The above suggestion is valid for selecting modular readings as well. The research net should be widened to include more number of country‐centric readings (services in China, India or Pakistan for instance). A credible source of readings in this regard is scanning the representative journals in various countries of Asia. A more representative anthology of modular readings, built through more painstaking research, will further facilitate bonding of the instructors and students in Asia – the pronounced aim of the text under review.

3. 3.

   (3) The number of examples and insights in each chapter should be double to illustrate the text better.

4. 4.

   (4) A new chapter on service psychology in Asia ought to be included in order to highlight the uniqueness of services marketing in Asia. It will be the raison d’eˆtre for the text as well.

5. 5.

   (5) Finally, all five parts of the book should invite reflection/ comment from the leading service instructors and practitioners of major Asian countries. The comment will lend credibility and authenticity to the contents and the research insights, and build better bonding between the text and readers.

Notwithstanding the above, the book is unreservedly recommended to the service fraternity – just for one reason alone. It represents the original work of Christopher Lovelock.