Transcript Teaching Services Marketing in Russia

Teaching Services Marketing
Russian Experience
Marketing Conference
15 April 2010
Plekhanov Russian Academy of Economics
Prof. Karen F. A. Fox
Santa Clara University
The History of Services
Marketing Courses
• Services marketing courses existed before 1980—
but not called “services marketing”
• The first course titled “Services Marketing” was
taught in the early 1980s by Christopher Lovelock
at Harvard Business School
• Services marketing courses soon launched in
Scandinavia, France, the UK, and the Netherlands
• Now several hundred US and European
universities have courses in services marketing
and also industry-specific courses
Why has interest in Services Marketing
courses grown in the US?
• The service sector represents a growing
share of the US economy—about 80% of
the US GDP (Gross Domestic Product) is
from private and government services.
• About 80% of US workers are employed in
the service sector
Services Dominate the U.S.
Economy (% of GDP)
Services, 68%
Agriculture, Forestry, Mining,
Fishing, 2.3%
Manufacturing and
Construction,
17.3%
Government, 12.4%
(mostly Services)
Source: Bureau of Economic Analysis, Survey of Current Business, May 2005, Table 1
INSIGHTS
 Private sector service industries account for over two-thirds of GDP
 Adding government services, total is almost four-fifths of GDP
Why has interest in Services
Marketing courses grown in the US?
• US product manufacturing has
increasingly moved to other countries
where costs are lower, but most US
service business have grown in number
and importance in the US
• However some services have gone “offshore”, such as tech support by phone
from India to customers in the US
The Changing Structure of Employment
as Economic Development Evolves
Agriculture
Services
Industry
Time
Source: IMF, 1997
Services Marketing in the
Russian Economy
• The quantity and quality of services has
greatly increased in Russia in the past two
decades, after many decades of highly
centralized services, some of poor quality
• Russian university graduates are now
moving into very responsible positions in
Russian and international service
companies
Current Status of Services Marketing
Courses in Russia
• Growth of specialized course in banking,
hospitality management, tourism marketing, etc.
• Few courses in services marketing in Russian
universities
• Few pages of services marketing included in
most marketing textbooks—in US and in
international/Russian editions
It’s time to increase study of
services marketing
• Better career preparation for our students
• Continue the improvement of service
quality
• Contributes to better quality of life for
everyone, to have access to a range of
services that are of better quality
Areas for Less Emphasis in
Services Marketing Courses
• Less focus on how services and products
are different—that debate is very old and
overworked, yet is featured in most
marketing textbooks
Areas for Greater Emphasis in
Services Marketing Courses
– The similarities of services marketing across
industries, and how we can learn from other
industries
– How to use service “blueprinting” to design and
pretest new and updated services
– How to apply a wider variety of pricing strategies
and tactics for services
– How to include more customer education and to
make the service more tangible to prospective
consumers through marketing communications
– How to use marketing research tools to improve
service delivery and customer satisfaction