Globalize your Service Business

Globalize your Service Business

Who is the programme designed for?

This program is designed for executives who already have or are about to acquire the personal responsibility for global service operations.
The program will be of interest to:

• Leaders who are developing and implementing international service strategies
• Executives and managers who want to offer their services in international markets or who wish to better manage and maximise their international service opportunities
• Managers dealing with partners, suppliers, customers and employees in non-local contexts
• Divisional and functional managers who want to improve their performance and become better leaders in a global environment, particularly in dealing with subsidiaries or local branches

This practical program has been designed to help participants evaluate their companies' globalization efforts and model new initiatives for international success.
Participants explore innovative strategies, tools, and frameworks for modelling new globalization initiatives through four main learning approaches:

• Conceptual: Discussions of reading material and class lectures will provide the underlying strategic concepts.
• Global Practice: During the program, each participant will design his or her own service globalization project. The examples, on which the program participants will work in groups, represent real service companies in an international environment.
• Feedback and role-play: The working groups will have to prepare step by step the necessary documentation to convince the boards of their companies to invest in their internationalization project. Peer and instructor feedback will reinforce strengths and highlight areas for improvement.
• Real-world examples: A round table of senior executives who have been successful in expanding their service offerings internationally will discuss best practices and challenges they faced.

In order to continue networking and sharing with fellow participants, we will launch a virtual online campus which will help participants to reconnect, recharge and recommit to their strategic and personal development plan.


Programme Overview

Developed countries worldwide have entered the service era. While fifty years ago, the service industry only accounted for half of the workforce in the United States, today, the service sector employs about 8 of every 10 workers. At the same time, globalization has had an enormous impact on the service industry. Astonishing numbers characterize the current trends in service globalization: about 245.000 Indian professionals are currently working in the front desk of call centers in Bangalore or Hyderabad. In 2005, an estimated amount of 400.000 U.S. tax returns were processed in India, which is comparable to doing the tax reports for all DaimlerChrysler employees. While services gain more and more importance in our economies, the international dimension of the service industry also gains more weight. Trade in services today accounts for over 20 percent of trade worldwide, representing $1.3 trillion annually.
How to take advantage of international market opportunities in the service industry is the main aim of this program. Today's international service environment requires new understandings and an overhaul of our classical management tools. The global challenges faced by executives when offering a new service in unfamiliar markets are very different from the difficulties of introducing a product.
Globalize your Service Business is an intensive three-day executive program designed to provide executives with the specific tools and the latest knowledge to help them expand their service offerings internationally. This program is structured along the main steps of an internationalization project: strategy, market selection, entry mode, launching and operation.


Objetives

This program provides its participants with an in-depth and applicable understanding of critical globalization issues in the service industry. The program addresses the challenges and opportunities that enhance the core competencies of an organization behind a long-term, sustainable and winning global strategy for their service offerings. Participants will design their own international strategy action plan, and learn how to promote new market growth by leading global initiatives successfully.
Specifically, the program will help them to:

• Seize global business opportunities for service companies.
• Weigh the risks and rewards of the main global hot-spots.
• Reframe the traditional strategic dilemma of international business: balancing local responses with global-scale economies.
• Reach smart decisions about international investment and global expansion.
• Develop strategies by analysing and selecting appropriate international locations.
• Analyze the different market entry strategies and their advantages and disadvantages for service companies.
• Take advantage of and account for cultural differences.
• Identify best practices for managing global operations.
• Explore innovative strategies, tools, and frameworks for modelling their own globalization initiatives.

The program features several stimulating modules that analyze international service management from diverse points of view and has been structured along the main steps of an internationalization project: strategy, market selection, entry mode, launching and operation.
Impact of a globalized business environment on the service sector
This introductory module will analyze the impact of an every day more globalized business environment on the service industry. The motivation of service companies to enter foreign markets will be discussed and reflected upon. Participants will examine the huge potential our current "Flat World" offers for creating successful businesses based on innovative services.
Additionally, they will define a core strategy for a service company which will be used as the basis for sustainable strategic advantage on which to build the overall internationalization strategy.
Market Selection: Weighing the risks and rewards of the main global hot-spots
Increased transparency of markets and the impact of information technology has meant that companies are facing opportunities as never before. These sessions will examine the current state of global markets and their evolution for service businesses. Which countries will be the winners, which countries will suffer?
Which are the best international market entry mode strategies for a service company?
Once a firm decides to enter a foreign market, the question about the best entry mode arises. This decision is influenced by many factors, including the local business environment and a company's own core competencies.
This module will analyze different entry mode strategies, their advantages and disadvantages for a service business.
Offering services across cultural boundaries
Knowing your customers' behaviour, viewpoints, attitudes and beliefs is just as important anywhere in the world as it is in your home market. But this is especially relevant in the service sector, where the "product" is elaborated in direct contact with the customer. Therefore, in foreign markets, the understanding of and the adaptation to cultural differences is crucial for business success.
But it is not only the customer that executives have to understand. They also need to learn how to manage employees with different cultural backgrounds. These employees will be responsible for offering the service delivery abroad.
Managing Global Operations
Most of the operational aspects of service management are directly linked to the performance of the respective service business. At the same time, the cause-effect relationships between operational decisions and business performance are relatively complex, especially in an international environment. In order to implement a world-class service organization with a superior business performance, participants have to understand the impact of any changes made to the delivery system.
Additionally, executives will learn to understand the drivers of service performance they can influence directly. These drivers provide a successful framework to define the operations strategy of service businesses and identify the related indicators and measures to create and assure sustainable business success.


Faculty

This executive education program has been designed and will be taught by IE Business School's associated and visiting faculty who are exceptional individuals, educators and researchers with highly diverse personal and professional profiles, and who know how to help the program participants develop their full potential from different angles and perspectives.
GUIDO SIEBIERA
After studying mechanical engineering at RWTH Aachen (Germany), professor Guido Siebiera joined the Industrial Service Management Group of the Research Institute for Operations Management (Aachen, Germany) in 1995. In the late 90's, this research group participated extensively in the elaboration of a new understanding of modern service management and contributed significantly to the development of this topic as an independent research discipline in Germany.
He has extensive working experience in service related projects. Some of his consulting projects were in the service area for companies like Rehau, BASF, Audi, Vögele, DeTeImmo, Chiron Behring and DaimlerChrysler.
In 1998, Guido was asked to work for the industrial services division of the ThyssenKrupp group as head of business development and developed the internationalization strategy of the industrial service division in France, Spain, the UK and Brazil.
As an adjunct professor of IE Business School and a visiting professor of Heilbronn Business School and International University of Bad Honnef, Guido teaches service management topics to MBA students and executives. He has published more than 20 articles about different fields of service management and is a regular speaker on international conferences like "Frontiers in Services" or "Quis".
Guido holds a PhD. in mechanical engineering from RWTH Aachen and a MBA from ESADE Business School. He has participated in executive education programmes at IE Business School (Madrid), Fudan University (Shanghai), Henley Management College, USW (Erftstadt) and SGMI (St. Gallen).
He is a member of the Academy of Management and of the Strategic Management Society.
JACQUES HOROVITZ Jacques Horovitz is Professor of Service Strategy, Service Marketing & Service Management at IMD and a visiting professor at IE Business School. He focuses on how to compete through service and improve customer satisfaction with heavy emphasis on service as a strategy for differentiation, on customer loyalty and on creating a service culture. Professor Horovitz brings three sets of experiences to practicing managers. First, he has practiced service marketing and management as Executive Vice President Marketing and Sales for Club Med North America; as Managing Director - Marketing and International - for the GrandVision group, a listed retail specialty store chain with 800 stores in 15 countries in Europe; as coach to the Executive Committee of Disneyland Paris, during its turnaround, as well as head of quality and training; and currently as CEO of a hotel chain he created nine years ago. Finally, he has extensively researched service strategies and service quality, relationship marketing, customer bonding and published on it. Prof. Horovitz graduated from the Ecole Supérieure de Commerce de Paris, France, and holds an MPhil and a PhD (Doctorate) from the Graduate School of Business, Columbia University, NewYork, USA. His academic awards include a Samuel Bronfman fellowship and the prize for the best research in general management from the American Academy of Management.
HARALD DOLLES Harald Dolles is Professor of Management and International Business at Heilbronn Business School and a visiting professor at IE Business School. He holds a PhD in Business Administration by the Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nuernberg. He focuses on international business, management of SMEs, strategic management, entrepreneurship, sports management, marketing and East Asian business.
Professor Dolles believes that business problems do not come in discrete functional blocks and are not regionally limited. Long-lasting international and interdisciplinary research collaborations have convinced him that it is vital to work in international multidisciplinary teams. Such teams bring different ideas, tools and techniques together, and create a more cohesive problem solving framework.