Service Innovation Analytics: Towards Assessment and Monitoring of Innovation Capabilities in Service Firms

The importance of innovation for a company´s competitive advantage and survival in increasingly intense and changing markets is undisputed amongst scholars and managers. Realising service innovation holds particular challenges, and while the economic importance of service innovation has been recognised, understanding firms´ capabilities to do so has received too little attention. In order to enable firms to more systematically drive service innovation, this research in progress paper proposes a model for the analytical assessment and monitoring of service innovation capabilities. This assessment is based on the measurement of a company´s innovation-related assets, and the development of corresponding indicators. The authors build on previous work and models in the field of service innovation, and perform an exploratory study to add to the body of knowledge, as well as to support managers and executives in shaping innovation capability configurations for the strategic and operational development of their organisations.