Centre for Innovation and Service Research

We created a bespoke MSc in business process management for Britannia employees, which had significantly positive impact on process knowledge across the business.

Systems-approach, understanding how minor changes have greater unintended effects. Minor changes in sales & engineering seriously affected performance across BT.

Using Microsoft technologies as the basis for process improvement and process redesign; targeted for use across multiple industries.

Investigating the link between value and resources through the application of value co-creation in partnership with the customer.

An ongoing 5-year project: modelling & analysing the flow of pupils at the Sutton life centre, while improving internal governance mechanisms with their senior team.

At TNT, we developed an understanding on the connections between marketing, sales, delivery & customer service, and how interaction creates unintended consequences.

Together we developed a top-down business process architecture, which included industry standard models, and modelled sales & operations processes for redesign.

ISR combines its strong academic tradition with empirical research, consultancy and corporate education. As a centre we actively seek opportunities to apply our knowledge to impact upon practice in service environments. As a result, we continue to work in close collaboration with organisations, in the private and public sector, both nationally and internationally.

Partnerships

ISR is involved in various research partnerships ranging from short-term projects involving students, to large multi-million pound projects involving a team of top researchers.

Some of our key national and international partners are listed below:

We are currently involved in the development of a Global Supply Chain programme with Prof. Charu Chandra (University of Michigan Dearborn) and with Prof. Andrea Vinelli (University of Padova). The programme will comprise an innovative mix of 'brick' and 'click' elements which will provide international participants with the frameworks for exploring supply chain theory and practice.
We are currently exploring "innovations in healthcare management" in collaboration with the Indian Institute for Management (IIM) Bangalore and with Dublin City University.
ISR has strong links with Brigham Young University and in particular the work of Prof Scott Sampson a leading scholar in service systems. The research team use many of Prof Sampson’s core ideas eg Unified Service Theory as one of the foundational premises of our research. We are currently developing a joint case study together.
We work closely with Prof Lindsay at the University of Adelaide, researching linkages between innovation and entrepreneurship and service organisations. This project is currently analysing the results of a large questionnaire which aims to consider different approaches to innovation in manufacturing and service organisations.