Seminar Overview:
In recent years, most industrialised nations have moved away from traditional economies which rely on land-based activities and manufacturing, to systems which are governed by information, skills, and technologies. . . that is to say, services. Indeed, services comprise nearly 80% of the gross national product of the United States. 60 cents of every Canadian disposable dollar is spent on services. And more than ¾ of all Britons work in services.
Services, however, are fundamentally different from goods. Indeed, there is a unique set of characteristics which distinguish goods and services. These differences present unique strategic challenges to managers. And these unique strategic challenges require a different set of tools.
This seminar, therefore, is designed to:
• sensitise you to the characteristics which distinguish goods and services,
• help you to identify the unique strategic challenges of services, and
• provide you with a new set of tools for managing these strategic challenges.
Benefits to Participants:
Upon completion of the seminar, participants will:
• recognise and appreciate the importance of services in modern economies,
• understand the nature of services,
• have a framework for identifying the strategic challenges of services, and
• have a set of tools for managing these strategic challenges in their companies.
In turn, participants ought to subsequently be able to:
• create a new strategic vision for the role of services in their organisations,
develop tactical policies, procedures, and programmes for implementing this strategic vision, and
• oversee the ongoing management of these tactical policies, procedures, and programmes.
Who Ought to Attend:
The seminar is aimed at mid- to high-level executives who have operational and/or strategic responsibilities in services organisations, or in goods organisations in which services are becoming an integral part of the product mix. The seminar material is very accessible, however, and students with less business experience would also benefit from participation.
Program Faculty:
John Branch joined the faculty of the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan in July 2006, teaching in the areas of marketing and international business. Professor Branch began his academic career as an Assistant Professor of Marketing at École Supérieure de Commerce de Rennes in France. Since then, he has served as an adjunct or visiting professor at more than 40 business schools throughout world, including the Rotterdam School of Management in the Netherlands, the University of Ljubljana in Slovenia, ESAN in Peru, and the Sasin Graduate Institute of Administration in Thailand. He was also a visiting scholar at Queen Elizabeth House of the University of Oxford in England and at the J. L. Kellogg Graduate School of Management of Northwestern University in the U.S.A. Dr. Branch has been involved in a variety of European Union and other government-funded development projects, most notably in the republics of the former U.S.S.R., including Kyrghyzstan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan, and in those of Eastern and Central Europe. He has also participated in management training programs in numerous international organizations, including British American Tobacco and Anheuser-Busch.
This program is conducted in Spanish.
For more information, please contact Sharolyn Arnett at sarnett@umich.edu