Service Management and its Challenges
Simply said, service management refers to the actions that are carried out in accordance with a set of rules and regulations with the goal of ensuring that consumers have access to the planning, development, and provision of information technology services. Like all other activities and occupations, service management demands significant investment, strict adherence to established protocols, and close attention to detail. The only way to guarantee the success of service management as a practice is to adhere to the established protocols and use caution when carrying them out (Brandon-Jones, Lewis, Verma, and Walsman 2016). In recent times, reports develop about to the setbacks faced by service management organizations.
Challenges Faced by Service Management Organizations
Challenges are inevitable for any organization whether for-profit organizations or the non-profit making organizations (Leeflang, Verhoef, Dahlström, & Freundt, 2014). With this, the service management organizations are not left aside either. They encounter numerous challenges while at their normal operations. Most Service Management Organizations can navigate their way around such obstacles and become victorious afterward. Other agencies, however, lack the expertise and knowledge of overcoming such mishaps. Factors contributing to such failures include the stage of development of the organization, the organization structure itself and the aspect of communication within the organization (Goldkuhl and Nordström, 2014).
Organizational Development and Structure
Organizations at their bud stage, in most instances, end up perishing on the encounter of severe challenges that they cannot adequately handle. This is not the case for organizations that exist in the industry for long (Revenäs, Martin, Opava, Brusewitz, Keller, & Åsenlöf, 2015). They develop some immunity against such challenges. Concerning the body structure, organizations with well-developed structures triumph over those with shady structures. This is because they have better methods of encountering such problems and they know their way about them. Proper communication also helps organizations service management organizations thrive even when they are subject to the harshest conditions. Exchanges in a way ease and lowers the intensity of such challenges (Lee, Kao, & Yang, 2014).
Specific Challenges Faced by Service Management Organizations
The subject matter of the report being the challenges facing the service management organizations covers a broad scope of the organizations’ particulars as the problems emerge from different sectors of the organization. There are some challenges that affect service management organizations. Some of these challenges include the difficulty of ensuring compliance with all regulations set by the related authorities, provision of all-around services as customers are a relatively broad scope and loss of importance of equipment due to obsolescence. The difficulty in mobility due to the high composition of hardware and assets as well poses a challenge to the service management organizations. The frequent changes and trends in the market beyond reasonable doubt negatively affect the service management organizations (Jensen, Scott, Slocombe, Boyd, & Cowey, 2014). Finally, yet importantly, the lack of transparency of costs by the customers directly poses as a setback to the service management organizations.
Interconnected Challenges
All these challenges in one way or the other complement each other. Neglecting one of the challenges while giving unrelenting focus to the others ends up in costing the organization. It reduces the ability of the team to compete with its counterparts in the industry of operation. Service management organizations face many regulations set by the governing authorities. In as much as these regulations are for the greater good, they take away the concentration of the organization from achieving the set goals.
On the other hand, equipment used in these industries end up obsolete in a tiny time span (Carnochan, Samples, Myers, & Austin, 2014). This is because of the advancement in technology in the world of today. This in most times is a loss for these organizations and consequently, a drop in the revenues netted. Mobility is essential for faster operations in any typical organization. Unfortunately, service management organizations do not have a share in this slice. Delayed actions result in reduced profits and under severe circumstances, lead to losses Buytaert, Zulkafli, Grainger, Acosta, Alemie, Bastiaensen, & Foggin, 2014).
References
Brandon-Jones, A., Lewis, M., Verma, R., & Walsman, M. C. (2016). Examining the characteristics and managerial challenges of professional services: An empirical study of management consultancy in the travel, tourism, and hospitality sector. Journal of Operations Management, 42, 9-24.
Buytaert, W., Zulkafli, Z., Grainger, S., Acosta, L., Alemie, T. C., Bastiaensen, J., ... & Foggin, M. (2014). Citizen science in hydrology and water resources: opportunities for knowledge generation, ecosystem service management, and sustainable development. Frontiers in Earth Science, 2, 26.
Carnochan, S., Samples, M., Myers, M., & Austin, M. J. (2014). Performance measurement challenges in nonprofit human service organizations. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 43(6), 1014-1032.
Fitzsimmons, M. J. (2014). Service Management. London: McGraw-Hill Education - Europe.
Goldkuhl, G., & Nordström, M. (2014). Challenges in IT service management: institution vs. improvisation. In the 3rd International workshop on IT Artefact Design & Workpractice Improvement, Friedrichshafen (pp. 1-15).
Jennings, B., & Stadler, R. (2015). Resource management in clouds: Survey and research challenges. Journal of Network and Systems Management, 23(3), 567-619.
Jensen, K., Scott, R., Slocombe, L., Boyd, R., & Cowey, L. (2014). The management and organizational challenges of more joined-up government: New Zealand’s Better Public Services reforms.
Lee, J., Kao, H. A., & Yang, S. (2014). Service innovation and smart analytics for industry 4.0 and big data environment. Procedia Corp, 16, 3-8.
Leeflang, P. S., Verhoef, P. C., Dahlström, P., & Freundt, T. (2014). Challenges and solutions for marketing in a digital era. European management journal, 32(1), 1-12.
Revenäs, Å., Martin, C., Opava, C. H., Brusewitz, M., Keller, C., & Åsenlöf, P. (2015). A mobile Internet service for self-management of physical activity in people with rheumatoid arthritis: challenges in advancing the co-design process during the requirements specification phase. JMIR research protocols, 4(3).
Uniwersytet Szczeciński. (2007). Service management.
